大象传媒

In early 1944 a group of senior Russian officers had to be taken to meet with the then partisan leader, Marshall Tito, at his mountain enclave 100 miles inside Yugoslavia and well behind the German lines. To help with navigation the mission had to be accomplished in daylight. My father, Captain Cornelius Turner of the 1st Independent Squadron, Glider Pilot Regiment, was detailed to lead the operation.

The following is his personal account of the mission, the first daylight glider landing of the war, which was given the code name 'Operation Bunghole'......

Towards the end of January there were whispers of a new operation for which we might need Horsa gliders. We had none, but we heard of three which had been left on an airstrip in Tunisia after the Sicily job, and Major Robbie Coulthard, and our CO, sent me over with half a dozen pilots to have a look at them. The night before, I'd been over to see Bill Needle the Yank executive officer, and within a couple of hours he had three crews laid on for us, asked me to draw a pencil ring on the map and said sure they'd find them, he'd come over himself for the ride. Without labouring the point it did show up the difference between the RAF and the USAAF. It would have taken the RAF a week or ten days with every possible snag thrown in our way. It's an attitude all too common over the years; the English disease is a very real thing.

Well, we found them, looking very lonesome and forlorn out there in the salt flats. A little RAF detachment had trucked in from Algiers and the Sergeant fitter thought they'd be OK once we shovelled them clear of sand. Nothing seemed to be hanging loose, so we plugged in the tow-ropes and took off on a wing and a prayer and flew them straight across the Med. to Sicily. Back at Comiso we did some more testing and set out, fully loaded to fly to Bari where I heard I was to lead a flight of three gliders flying a Russian General Staff into Yugoslavia. Now we'd had a very difficult trip up from Sicily into a Northeast blizzard and it had taken four hours instead of two. There was no way we could expect to get Horsas to 7000 feet to cross the Dinaric Alps into the interior, so we agreed with the Yanks to switch to Wacos.

The brief was to deliver about 36 Russian officers under a Marshall Korneyev to a point on a mountainside called Medenapolu two kilometres NW of the town of Basan Petrovac 100 metres inland of the Yugoslav port of Split. It was to be in broad daylight (for the first time with gliders) and we would have 24 Spitfires outward escort over the sea, then 24 Mustangs taking over on the other side up to the target L.Z. There were also 50 Flying Fortress bombers carrying out a diversion raid in Zagreb!

Grace was expecting Christopher, in fact he was already born, but unbeknown as yet to me, so I could only write that I was off into the blue. I couldn't say where, I did not know when I should be back I would not be able to write and her letters would have to await my return.

My tow-ship pilot, Wendell C. Little of Indianapolis (he wrote it down on the back fly-leaf of my Bible) wished me luck just before take-off. "You'll need it" he said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all over town this secret of yours; I hope they don't jump us." And so Operation Bunghole took off towards noon of a glorious clear day 19 February 1944, course approx. true north, visibility unlimited. As we neared landfall, scattered white islands in a black sea, we could already see the towering saw-tooth horizon of the mountains still sixty miles away. A town and harbour, that would be Split, dead on course. Droop Newman and I hardly said a word. He was doing the flying while I passed him a word now and again checking on course. The Marshall sat behind me, the muzzle of his machine pistol nestling about six inches from the back of my neck. As we approached the peaks Droop had all his work cut out to hold the rocking bucketing glider. I reckoned we were drifting east of track by several miles as we staggered over the divide the tow-ships and gliders leaping all over the sky. We tumbled over the icy teeth of the ridge with a hundred feet to spare.

The interior opened up before us, a great white valley, timbered on the high slopes and beyond the forests gentle hills losing themselves into the northern mists. Our dead reckoning time was up and there coming up below was the first town we had seen, not easy to pick out in the dazzling carpet of snow, but two miles to our left instead of to the right. We were east of track as I'd thought and flying straight on. Dare I pull off? I was certain I was right but there's no going back once you're off tow. I'd checked the map every mile of the way. No! This was not going to be another Etna. We'd got 3000 feet and could reach the L.Z. easily. "I'll take her Droop! Hit the tit! We're going down." He held up his hands then hit the release lever without a word. I pulled up the nose to get the speed down to 70, swinging to port as the rest of them flew straight on below me. Yes, this must be Petrovac, the L.Z. four or five miles away dead ahead now. "They're coming round" Droop shouted. The train had gone straight on for a couple of miles but were swinging round well above me now and overtaking fast. There was a wide white shelf on the hillside and a fire surely. Yes, a fire, two fires, little black dots against the snow. We were there! And then flashing past us came the Mustangs doing a mock beat-up. The others were off by now drifting gently down beside us, and we flopped down into three feet of snow. Three perfect landings.

Everybody embraced everybody else; the Partisans (Drugs they called themselves) armed to the teeth, rifles, crossed bandoliers, knives and grenades, bearded and stinking they swarmed over us. Anchoring the gliders down with fallen timber, we climbed on to the sleds and set off for town, the ponies up to their bellies in the track. It was a heavy night in the little town hall, as from six to near midnight we sat and drank toasts to the whole free world. "My government will not forget you and your pilots" someone was translating, "Tomorrow we meet our honoured leader Tito - he will regret he was not here this day" and so on until we all fell asleep about the floor.

Continued in Part 2

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