大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Margaret Walsh of The Royal Star and Garter Home on behalf of Leslie Beresford and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I lived in and worked with Bomber Command. They went off night after night to bomb east Germany or somewhere on that coast. Some of the heavier aircraft went as far as Berlin.

Air Vice Marshall Harris would select some place eg Berlin. His decision went out to various RAF stations. I was at Wyton, in the Fens on the borders of Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire, but it is no longer there. Each station was told in minute detail where the bombing that night was to take place. This was important because each plane had to meet in the air to complete the formation. Usually three aircraft from each particular station would go on each raid. So there might be about 50 planes in all. Very few people would know. There were even one or two thousand bomber raids during the war.

On one occasion a spy was on the station and got a message over to his department. So when our planes went over, the German fighters were waiting for them.

We knew we had to stop this practice of spying. So after the meeting when the place of bombing was decided the effective part of the station was closed until the the planes returned and no-one could leave.

It always struck me how brave these young men were. They knew jolly well that only 4 in 6 planes would come back and yet there were always volunteers for future raids.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.