大象传媒

OPERATIONAL TRAINING UNIT
From August to November 1943 we trained as a crew on Wellingtons. Compared with the aircraft we had flown in hitherto, they were large and complicated. The pilot had to cope with two very powerful engines and the snags of taking off and climbing with heavy loads; the navigator was introduced to "Gee", the radar set which allowed one to fix one's position to a few hundred yards over the UK and over Western Europe until the enemy started to jam it; the bomb aimer had to learn to handle the new gyroscopically equipped bomb sight which allowed the bombs to be aimed when the aircraft was turning or banking and the wireless operator had a completely new set to handle. The gunners had as much time as could be squeezed into the programme shooting with live ammunition at towed targets and with a camera gun at a co-operating fighter. The flying programme was backed up with long hours in the classroom.

I see from my log-book that before I got to OTU I had flown 123 day hours and 33 night hours; at the end of OTU the figures had increased to 140 by day and 70 by night. We were being trained for night bombing with its extra problems of take off and landing, navigation and target location.
Our OTU course finished with our first operational flight. This was an easy job given to new crews; flying across the English Channel about twenty miles into Northern France dropping a vast amount of "Window" or silver paper on the way. This material gave a strong reaction on the German radar and helped to conceal the line of approach of the main force of heavy bombers following on behind or alternatively could form part of a spoof diversionary raid designed to attract enemy fighters away from the main stream.
Our brief flight over France passed off without incident and after some leave the crew moved on to 1654 CU (Conversion Unit) at Swinderby. Lincolnshire. The job here was to convert to four engine aircraft and to pick up the seventh man of our crew which this necessitated. This of course, was our Right Engineer, Ray Heasman.

RAY HEASMAN
Ray was twenty two; his father owned a small motor business in Southampton, partly doing motor maintenance and partly dealing in second hand cars. Ray had been working with his father but early on the war he had volunteered for the RAF and had trained as an engine fitter. Once he had qualified he volunteered again for flying duties.

CONVERSION UNIT
We spent December 1943 and January 1944 at Swinderby and this included Christmas which in spite of the war was celebrated in true RAF fashion with the officers waiting on the airmen and washing up afterwards.

Our task here was to learn to fly Stirling aircraft, the first real "heavy" we had come in contact with. By this stage in the war it had been withdrawn from front line service because of excessive losses. It was slow and its engine power meant that with full bomb load it could not fly much above 16,000 feet. This meant that it was within the range of heavy German anti aircraft guns and had little chance of evading a fighter once it was sighted.
These snags did not affect its use for training. On an aircraft of this size the engineer had to do a lot to assist the pilot like moving the throttles and flaps on take off and landing. He also had to worry about the trim off the aircraft, shifting fuel around as needed when tanks were emptied and bombs dropped. We did a lot of "circuits and bumps" (practice take off and landings) by day and night, flying whenever it was possible but quite often the weather kept us on the ground. This time was however usefully employed in practicing emergency drill such as how to bailout if the aircraft had to be abandoned, ditching drill in case one came down in the sea and lectures on escape technique in case one ended up on the ground in enemy or enemy occupied territory. The crucial advice given here was that one should try; if at all possible, to avoid being taken prisoner and ending up in a prisoner of war camp, since they were very hard to get out of. The best thing to do was to make one's way to occupied territory, which would be full of those sympathetic to the allies who would be glad to help. In our two months we flew 20 hours by day and 21 by night.

LANCASTER FINISHING SCHOOL
Only one stage of our training remained and that was to convert to Lancasters, the aircraft we would be flying when we joined our operational squadron. We moved to a nearby satellite airfield and in seven days all learnt our way around this aircraft, the best bomber used by the RAF in WW2. We did the appropriate number of circuits, dropped a live bomb from 20,000 feet, flew on two engines and practiced a three engine landing. As navigator I also became acquainted with H2S, radar set which radiated a beam from the plane which was reflected back, in varying degrees, by sea, land or built-up areas and thus produced a crude map of the area below on a small cathode ray tube beside the navigator's table. Escape and dinghy drills were practiced at night with no lights until our movements became automatic. We and we had a session in a swimming bath righting a rubber dinghy which had deliberately been inflated upside down. This concentrated week involved six hours day and ten hours night flying.

57 SQUADRON, EAST KIRKBY, (LINCOLNSHIRE)
We joined our operational squadron, No 57, on February 16th 1944. The normal strength was 22 Lancasters divided into two flights. Allowing for aircraft undergoing overhauls and crews on leave around 18 aircraft flew on nights when full strength was ordered. This was the normal state of affairs and since there was a second squadron, No 630, of similar strength on the station, there was intense activity on operation nights with take offs every 45 seconds and landings on return bunched together less than a minute apart. The pilot of each new crew was required to make one trip with an experienced crew as "second dickie" before he could take his own crew into battle. Therefore two days after arriving at East Kirkby Bill Bayley did a trip as second pilot to Berlin. He returned safely and on February 24th we undertook our first operation as a crew, the target being Schweinfurt a small town in Southern Germany which was the centre of their ball bearing industry.

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