大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jean McLean of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of Alexander Waugh and has been added to the site with his permission. Alexander Waugh fully understands the site's terms and conditions

I was a child during the war but both my older brother and my cousin served with the RAF. These are two stories that I remember them telling abut their experiences.

My brother was a safety equipment worker in the RAF during the war. His job was to pack arms and food containers to be dropped to the army when they were cut off behind enemy lines. The RAF or the US air force then dropped these containers behind the enemy lines.
The British packed containers with soft cloth material to protect the arms from damage when landing whilst the Americans packed their arms in cigarettes or tobacco. Frequently parachute drops would go astray and land behind enemy lines in the hands of the Germans. The Germans, who were very bereft of basic necessities, realised the enormous forces they were up against on seizing the American containers and this lowered their morale considerably.

My cousin was stationed at Lincoln with the RAF and worked on Flight Control. He told me about this incident that happened one night when he was on duty. A bomber returning from a raid on Germany was notified by flight control that there was a 鈥渂ogey鈥� on its tail. This turned out to be German night fighter following the bomber home thinking it had an easy target. As the bomber was landing it could do nothing to avoid the 鈥渂ogey鈥� so they continued on their flight path to land. The rear gunner was made aware of the danger and on searching behind his aircraft he saw the enemy aircraft moving in for the kill. Knowing that his ammunition was expended he waited for the 鈥渃oup de grace鈥� which never came. All that transpired was a waggling of the wings by the german night fighter and a wave from the pilot, which appeared to be done by a silk white scarf.

In 1974 on an exchange visit by the German airmen their log books were compared and it so happened that the rear gunner of the mentioned aircraft was facing the German pilot and confronted him about the above incident. It transpired during the conversation that the German pilot had also run out of ammunition on that night. Hence the waggle of wings and the wave!

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