大象传媒

It was early in November 1944 when My RCAF crew ( I was the English Flight Engineer)took off on a bombing raid with our Halifax 111 and several more from 6 Group Squadrons based in North Yorkshire. The Target was Bochom to bomb at 17,000feet..This was to be our 10th 'trip' it was our 7th in 'G' George and we were becoming attached to him/her.

The first hour or so was normal, gaining height and forming up over the North Sea to create the 'main stream', heading towards the target and checking all systems were working OK.There was a constant need to ensure the radial engines didn't overheat and he oil sump didn't freeze up by making adjustments to the engine controls and
synchronising the propellers.
This was done by keeping a log of engine performance and what adjustments were made.
The rest of the crew were busy with their alloted duties.

Over the Target the Bomb Aimer guided our skipper in his usual calm way and 'gave bombs' away. We turned for home and almost immediately there was a loud bang and a large hole appeared in the fusilage next where I was standing just behind the pilot,in front of my instrument panel.A large piece of shrapnel had penetrated and destroyed most of the cables running along the starboard side the plane feeding most of the intruments connected with the engines intruments etcetera.There were many blue sparks but no evidence of fire. There was from that time no communication by intercom for any of the crew. I exchanged hand signals and notes necessary with the Skipper and crew.

First I had to go down to the rear of the plane (oxygen bottle attached) and make sure that the flash bomb at the rear end of the plane had deployed when the bombs dropped. If not, it was necessary to push it out with the axe handle.If it had not gone down its shute it would be a fire hazard. Also checking the bomb bay in which a couple of bombs were still'hung up'these were to remain and return home with us.The sight of me also gave the crew some assurance to the rest of the crew that we were still functioning.

It was soon apparent that one of the engines was 'not well' and needed to be feathered to reduce drag however it continued to revolve very slowly. The lack of intruments meant it was necessary to rely completely on calculating the fuel consumption by dead reckoning using a small intrument silmilar to a slide rule but circular. There were several different size fuel tanks in each wing each would empty in different time scales.My hope was that none of these were damaged as there no way of knowing until an engine 'coughed'. With one engine not working it meant that the trim of the aircraft had to be adjusted and engines worked harder.Fuel would have to be balanced by
switching engine supplies around and running engines of different wing tanks .To make sure all the fuel was used from a tank I had to sit half way down the plane next to the levers controlling the source of supply and when an engine' coughed' quickly switch to another tank. We trundled on the way home for about two hours and the skipper decided we would have to land at the earliest opportunity.When we hit the coast of England our navigator suggested the 'crash drome' used by people 'like us'. It was situated on the north side of the Thames estuary. We made a direct approach intending to flash our navigation lights with the morse code for 'G'George .This was not to be, there were no lights. It was necessary for me to to fire the Very pistol with the 'colours of the day'
from the position to the right of the astrodome. This was replied to with a very welcome'Green' and we flew straight into land 'no messing' with a welcoming convoy of ambulances(meat wagon) and fire engines
racing along behind us,

Needless to say poor George was extensively damaged in many places and we returned to base
next day by delivering a different aircraft back to its base and lorry from there.

Note:-Feathering was a method of altering the pitch of the propeller blades to face the thin edge into the wind .When there was no power to drive the propeller if you didn't do this the momentum of the plane would try to drive the propeller which made it very hard work for the rest of the engines and dragging the plane sideways and downwards. Regards JB.

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