The search for the story of Lancaster B for Baker (and other things)
Author: Adam Purcell
When I was young my father showed me a small blue felt-covered notebook. It was the flying logbook of my great uncle Jack, a Lancaster navigator in WWII.
That simple act kicked off a fascination with all things aeronautical. That fascination has now become Something Very Big for me. Here were seven young men, from vastly different backgrounds, all by immense forces well beyond their control or understanding brought together to the one place at the one time - inside that Lancaster as it flew over Northern France in May 1944. They were normal, everyday lads caught up in extraordinary circumstances. I've realised that it's a fascinating story and it's one that deserves to be told.
This is the story of That Thing Very Big and where it is leading me. I'm endeavouring to add a new post roughly once every ten or twelve days or so.
Following the previous evening’s Berlin trip, the crews of the two Waddington squadrons could have expected a rest on Wednesday. But in the morning, despite the poor weather, they found that a raid had been planned for the evening. Consequently the weekly dance was cancelled. But though the weather cleared up towards the afternoon, at 14.30 hours, operations were cancelled and the crews were stood down. The dance stayed scrubbed.[1] The story was much the same on Thursday.
Another day of bad weather, another big effort planned.
Another day of “the usual bustle with the prospect of Ops”.[2]
Another late scrubbing.
And again on Friday. As the 467 Squadron ORB put it:
18 on – scrubbed – bed, and we wait the ‘morrow.
There are no Night Raid Reports covering this period of time. But one raid that was carried out in daylight is well worth a mention. On Friday, 18 February, a small force of Mosquitos from 487 (RNZAF) Squadron, 464 (RAAF) Squadron and 21 (RAF) Squadron made an extremely low level precision attack, code-named Operation Jericho, on a prison in the French town of Amiens. Among the prisoners being held there were twelve members of the French Resistance who were due to be executed the following day. The Mosquitos succeeded in blowing down a wall of the prison. Though 102 prisoners were killed, several hundred managed to escape, among them the condemned men. Two Mosquitos and two escorting Typhoon fighters were lost, with three aircrew killed and three captured,[3] but it had been an impressive demonstration of low-level precision bombing.
The crews at Waddington awoke to find that operations were on, for the first time in sixteen days. This was particularly significant for two members of Phil Smith’s crew: navigator Jack Purcell and bomb aimer Jerry Parker would make their operational debuts on this night.
Not having flown in so long, Phil decided to take his aircraft on an air test during the day. He flew for 25 minutes in EE143, one of the veteran aircraft belonging to his flight, though it is not clear which of his crew came with him.[1]
Seventeen aircraft from 463 Squadron and eighteen from 467 were, once again, detailed for an attack on Berlin.[2] It would be the biggest attack of the war on the German capital in terms of numbers sent, with 891 aircraft despatched. At the same time, a small force of Lancasters “carried out a diversionary attack on the marshalling yards at Frankfurt-on-Oder, beyond Berlin, while Mosquitoes bombed Aachen and airfields in the Low Countries.”[3] Mine laying took place in Kiel Harbour and the Bay of Biscay and some Mosquitos carried out intruder patrols.
Squadron Leader Arthur Doubleday led the crews from Waddington off in LL746, at two minutes past five o’clock in the evening. The last Lancaster roared over the fence at 17.36. 35 aircraft had departed at a rate better than one a minute.
Phil Smith in EE143 opened the four throttles at 17.25.[4] But all was not well on the take-off roll. Well after the war, Phil wrote about what happened: [5]
When we were about two thirds way down the runway with a full load of petrol and bombs, I glanced down at the airspeed indicator to check that we were at about the right speed to float off the ground. I was horrified to find that the instrument was not working. I decided immediately that it would be impossible to stop before the end of the runway and that we would have to proceed with the take-off. I climbed away at a much smaller angle than usual. I remember wondering if anybody on the ground noticed our unusual take-off and wondered if we were in trouble.
They were able to climb away flying on recommended power settings, and decided to jettison their bomb load before returning. This required going well out to sea to avoid endangering lives on the ground. Once over the water though, and after attempts by both Phil and flight engineer Ken Tabor to fix the problem behind the instrument panel, they were well on their way towards Denmark and could feel the slipstreams of other aircraft around them.
“Clearly,” Phil wrote, “we were on track and with the mob going to the target.”
And having got that far, he thought, why not keep going?
I put it to the crew who came to agree with me, so we carried on and dropped our bombs somewhere in the Berlin area.
A long way in front of Phil Smith and his crew, the first Pathfinders arrived at Berlin and began marking the target, a little early, at 21.11. The planned ground-marking was once again foiled by cloud, but the skymarking attack that developed appeared to most crews to be well concentrated.
Jerry Parker, in the bomb aimer’s position in the nose of EE143, could see no skymarker flares in the early stages of the run-up to bomb,[6] but just in time some fresh ones were dropped by a preceding Pathfinder aircraft and he pressed the ‘tit’ that sent the bombs tumbling from their hangers at 21.31, twenty minutes after the first flares went down.[7] The attack was scheduled to finish four minutes later but there were some stragglers. The final aircraft from Waddington bombed at 21.45. Pilot Officer Freddy Merrill and crew, of 463 Squadron, would have felt quite lonely, having the defences of Berlin more or less to themselves by that time.
Having completed the entire operation without an airspeed indicator, Phil Smith was becoming a little concerned as he neared home about how a landing would go without such a vital instrument. But in the end it was a non-event.
Following the usual settings and techniques and with much help from the glide path indicators we landed reasonably with only a slight bump. What a tremendous relief it was to be safely on the ground and taxying back to our dispersal.
They landed at 00.40 hours having logged seven and a quarter hours in the air. Thirteen minutes behind them was Pilot Officer Clive Quartermaine and crew in LM338, who had arrived back overhead the airfield at the same time as a big bunch of other aircraft They were delayed in the air, and Quartermaine felt compelled to note his frustrations in his interrogation report:
Had to circle base for 40 minutes before landing. Quick Landing Scheme disappointing.
Though Quartermaine may have found it ‘disappointing’, it was still an impressive display of safely recovering many aircraft in a reasonably efficient manner. Between midnight and 1am, 30 aircraft landed at Waddington – including three in a single minute at 00.15.[8] All Waddington aircraft returned safely, though there had been a couple of early returns due to oxygen problems in one aircraft and an overheating engine on another.
Raising a mug at Waddington to their rear gunner (Sgt Cliff Fudge) after the Berlin raid of 15 February 1944 is the crew of Pilot Officer John McManus (on right in hat). It was Fudge’s 21st birthday. The Waddington Collection, RAF Waddington Heritage Centre
It was not as successful a night elsewhere however. In all, 42 aircraft were missing. Of these, fourteen were observed to fall victim to flak (eight on the way out, two over the target and four on the way home), and seventeen were lost to fighters, the German controllers failing to fall for the spoof raid on Frankfurt-on-Oder. A further seven aircraft were destroyed in landing accidents.
Against this cost, German broadcasts reported some damage to “residential districts, cultural monuments and hospitals.” The bombers left the target burning steadily with a column of smoke later reported rising to 20,000 feet.[9]
[5] This and subsequent quotes on this story are from Smith, Phil, Phil’s Recollections of 1939-1945 War
[6] Night Raid Report No. 530 records no flares were burning between zero+12 and zero+14. Other details of this raid come from the same report, or from Smith, Phil, Flying Logbook 1940-1945
[7] Time of bombing is from 467 Squadron ORB, 15FEB44
[8] Figures from my own analysis of landing times as recorded in both 463 and 467 Squadron ORBs for 15FEB44.
[9] Casualty figures and extract of German broadcast in Night Raid Report No. 530
A new crew arrived at 467 Squadron today. Led by Flying Officer Jim Marshall, the crew included an Australian navigator by the name of Arnold Easton. “We were pleased to see them,” wrote Flying Officer Alan McDonald, the compiler of the Operational Record Book, “our ranks were becoming depleted.”[1]
The crew of Flight Lieutenant Jim Marshall, in front of the Lancaster that would become ‘theirs’ – DV372 PO-F ‘Old Fred’ (The Fox). Marshall himself is on the far right; third from right is navigator Arnold Easton. From the Waddington Collection, RAF Waddington Heritage Centre
January had been a grim month and, though the first few weeks of February had been quiet in terms of operations, these were only the second new arrivals since Flight Sergeant John Sayers and crew arrived on 24 January.
It was a foggy day and the lack of trips for 463 and 467 Squadrons – which had now not operated in more than two weeks – continued. Jack Purcell and Jerry Parker attended a lecture about ‘Photographic Interpretation’, along with all the rest of the Squadron’s Air Bombers and Navigators, but otherwise, very little happened.[2]
Gil Pate wrote a letter home.[3] He’d also spent his leave in London and, as a consequence, was “quite worn out [from] running about”. It appears he was feeling a little homesick: “I would like to spend an afternoon at the cricket just to be in the sleepy atmosphere of Australia.” Perhaps the reality of life on an operational squadron was beginning to make itself felt.
Moon period and from what can be seen only the Orderly Room staff and Adjutant remain. Everyone else seems to be on leave. – 467 Squadron Operational Record Book, 5 February 1944
With the coming of the moon period, there was little chance of operations for the Main Force of Bomber Command in the early part of February 1944. The opportunity was taken, then, to send on leave anyone who was due for it – which included Phil Smith and all of his crew.[1]
For those not on leave, there was a party in the Officers’ Mess (with Air Vice Marshall Cochrane himself attending) on Saturday night (5th). But in the following days, despite few aircrew being in attendance at Waddington there was a fairly busy training regime underway. In the week from 5 February, 467 Squadron did fighter affiliation on Saturday, and again on Monday with practice bombing also carried out later that night, sent ten crews on Bullseye exercises on Tuesday night, did bombing practice on Wednesday and sent a delegation to visit the Avro factory at Manchester on Thursday. There was also a lecture about minelaying from a visiting Naval Liaison Officer on Saturday 12 February.[2] Their counterparts at 463 Squadron spent their week in a similar fashion.
Bomber Command carried out no large-scale operations during this time, but the Mosquito Light Striking Force was out regularly and there were a couple of other interesting raids mounted. Berlin, Duisburg and Hannover were attacked on Saturday 5 January. Two nights later they raided Elberfeld, Krefeld, Aachen, Mannheim and Frankfurt. Mosquitos went to Brunswick and Elberfeld on 8 February, and a small force of Lancasters attacked the Gnome et Rhone aero engine works at Limoges, France on the same night. This was a very significant operation, carried out by twelve aircraft from 617 Squadron. It was one of the first raids on which Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire tried a low-level method of target marking using a Lancaster, and was a spectacular success: four of five 12,000lb blast bombs dropped made direct hits on factory buildings[3] and the target “sustained crippling damage”[4] for no casualties to the attacking aircraft.
Mosquitos continued the offensive over the next few nights, attacking Elberfeld, Krefeld and Aachen on the 9th, Berlin and Aachen again on the 10th, Brunswick, Duisburg, Aachen and Elberfeld on the 11th and Elberfeld and Duisburg on the 12th. Also on 12 February 617 Squadron were out again, attacking a railway viaduct at Antheor, though with less success than the Limoges trip a few nights previously. On most nights that the Mosquitos were out in this period, various other aircraft took part in minelaying operations off France, the Frisians and in the Bay of Biscay, or scattered leaflets over parts of France. [5]
All of this, though, was far from the minds of those of the Waddington crews sent on leave. Because Phil Smith wrote so many letters home, we have a good idea of what he got up to in his time off. He travelled south from Waddington and spent the first few nights staying with his Uncle Jack Smeed and Aunty Pat who had just moved to a new house in Denham, just outside London. “They have settled down very comfortably in their new home and both seem to be thriving”, he wrote.[6] Next came a few days in London, where he saw a film (Citizen Kane – “I quite enjoyed it despite the fact that it was a rather miserable story”), and a play called Junior Miss (“Quite amazing but not a show that is worth making an effort to get to”). As promised to his mother, and on the advice of the Boomerang Club (an institution set up to support Australian servicemen in London), he visited a photographer in Bond Street to get a formal portrait taken: “quite a lot of professional flourish and a pretty stiff price – I do hope that the effort will be worthwhile”.
Phil Smith in London, February 1944
An industrial chemist at a sugar refinery before the war, Phil maintained a keen interest in his peacetime profession. While in London he looked up a comparable company and simply wandered into their offices one day and introduced himself. They were more than hospitable: “They treated me to a meal in town and then took me to their works and back in their car which I thought was very hansome [sic] treatment for a complete stranger”.
The final couple of days of his time off were spent with more family, this time Uncle Harold who lived in March, Cambridgeshire. “I am so pleased to have had Philip here from Friday night to Sunday morning”, Harold wrote to Phil’s father, Don Smith, on 13 February.[7] “I put him on the train to London at 12 this morning, he looks well + evidently made a good job of his instructing.”
Phil arrived back at Waddington later that night to find a bit of consternation happening. A team from R.A.A.F. Overseas Headquarters (in London) had made the journey to Lincolnshire to play Australian Rules Football against a combined 463/467 Squadron team. But with operations planned for the evening, Waddington struggled to find sufficient numbers for a full game. They scraped up five players so the Headquarters side was split up and a game of 11 a side was played. It finished at about 4pm… at which time the planned operation was scrubbed. “It was not surprising”, says the Operational Record Book, “that the lads were somewhat hostile” as a result.[8]
[1] Service Records for the four Australians in the crew confirm that they were on leave at this time, and it is reasonable to assume that the three Englishmen were also on leave at the same time. Gil Pate was definitely in London (mentioned in a letter he wrote to his mother 14FEB44), but no details are known of what he did and who he went with.
January had been a tough month. Though the Waddington Squadrons operated on only nine nights, they had lost, between them, sixteen crews – with five of those going missing on the second last night of the month. Berlin had been targeted no less than six times and, overall, Bomber Command had lost 5.5% of sorties it had despatched.[1]
It was with some relief, then, that February got off to a very quiet start. Crews were stood down on Monday afternoon following Raid Assessment lectures. On Tuesday ‘A’ Flight 467 Squadron held a “conference on the recent losses of ‘A’ Flight crews. Intensive training was stressed and it is hoped that all crews will now become ‘gen’ crews and so cut down those losses.”[2] As the relatively new Officer Commanding ‘A’ Flight, this conference was perhaps Phil Smith’s way of stamping his quiet authority on the men. On the same day Waddington held Station Defence Exercises and on Thursday there was a visiting American officer who gave a lecture to both squadrons about his home country and countrymen.
Wing Commander Sam Balmer – the 467 Squadron Commanding Officer – was required in London for a medical board from Wednesday, 2 February, and Phil Smith took temporary command of the Squadron. Phil remembered just one additional duty arising from this – interviewing an applicant for a commission. It was “quite a difficulty for the untrained and unprepared.”[3] The results of this interview are not recorded. On the same day, however, Jack Purcell returned from the Station Sick Quarters.[4]
As always, Bomber Command didn’t rest completely. Mosquitos attacked Berlin (again!), Aachen and Krefeld and carried out Serrate anti-nightfighter patrols on Tuesday. On Wednesday the Mosquitos attacked Elberfeld and Rheinhausen, on Thursday they went to Dortmund, Krefeld and Cologne, and on Friday to Frankfurt, Elberfeld and Aachen. Various other aircraft laid mines in Kiel Harbour on Wednesday, off the French Channel and Atlantic ports on Thursday and in the Bay of Biscay on Friday (4 February).[5]
The Luftwaffe launched a raid on London and south-east England on 3 February. 95 made it to the coast, seventeen reached London and fourteen did not return. Mosquito nightfighters accounted for at least four of the victims.[6]
There was little respite for the crews of Bomber Command, with yet another trip to Berlin laid on for tonight. As Flight Commander, Phil Smith did not go on quite so many operations as a ‘normal’ squadron pilot might, and his navigator was still sick, so he and his crew sat this one out again. Phil was however able to write a letter home. Leave was due in a week or so and he intended to spend it with his Uncle Harold. He also said he would try to get a current photograph of himself made, and perhaps even procure a film from somewhere to take some snaps of his new crew: “I have an English engineer – bomb aimer and gunner – and Australian navigator wireless operator and gunner. They are quite a good crowd all keen and hard working types.”[1]
Fourteen aircraft left for Berlin from 463 Squadron, but just ten from 467. Take off began just before 5pm. There was one early return, with 463’s Pilot Officer Charles Schonberg returning in ME614 with an overheating cabin and a sick navigator a couple of minutes before 9pm.
Flying Officer Dave Gibbs and crew (in DV277) just before take-off on 30 January 1944. It will be their seventh raid on Berlin. From the Waddington Collection, RAF Waddington Heritage Centre
The rest of the Squadrons (part of a larger force of some 540 aircraft on the target) once again found Berlin covered in thick cloud, necessitating a skymarking attack that was later described as “concentrated”. The Night Raid Report for this night includes reports heard on German radio that “extensive areas” of the city had been hit, with “heavy damage caused to cultural monuments etc”.[2] Meanwhile, smaller forces of Mosquitoes attacked Elberfeld and Brunswick, along with some radio counter-measure sorties, Serrate anti-nightfighter patrols and minelaying in the River Gironde.
The nightfighters, it seems, caught up to the main bomber stream quite late in the piece, but once in it they didn’t lose it again and many combats were witnessed. A nightfighter was engaged and destroyed by 467 Squadron’s Flight Sergeants Henry Thompson[3] and Col Campbell, in Pilot Officer Bruce Simpson’s crew, on their way out of the target.[4] The aircraft was seen crossing underneath them and the gunners called for a corkscrew. They “brought all [their] guns to bear on the [aircraft]. Hits were observed and it was seen to turn its back and disappear.” It was not over for this crew however. Later one engine required feathering, and they came home on three.
One aircraft of 467 Squadron failed to return, probably DV378,[5] with Flying Officer Alex Riley and crew aboard. It was hit by flak and crashed near the target area. The only survivor was the Canadian bomb aimer, Warrant Officer J Valastin who became a POW.[6]
It was far worse for 463 Squadron, however. They lost no less than four crews, led by Pilot Officers Lindsay Fairclough, Peter Hanson, George Messenger and Doug Dunn. There appear to be some errors in the Operational Record Book concerning which aircraft they were flying when all four crews disappeared without trace, but they were most likely HK537,[7] JA973, ED772 and ED949.[8]
[3] Thompson’s first name from The National Archives: AIR78 (thanks Graham Wallace)
[4] Account of this – from which the subsequent quote is taken – is in 467 Squadron ORB, 30JAN44. The type of nightfighter is unknown – in one section the ORB states a FW190 but in the other it states ME110.
[5] Recorded in the Operational Record Book as DV372 but in Blundell, 1975, Robertson, 1964 and Storr, 2006 as DV378. Robertson records DV372 as surviving the war to be scrapped in October 1945.
[7] Recorded in ORB as ED545, but Robertson, 1964 has that aircraft lost on 14MAY43. HK537, in the same source, is shown as being missing on 31JAN44 – there were no major raids on that night (no NRR), and the 30JAN44 trip returned near to or just after midnight so it is reasonable to take this as being the same raid.
[8] ORB and Blundell, 1975 agree on the latter three serial numbers, though Blundell wrote his entry under the wrong date (29JAN44) and misattributes ED772 as a 467 Squadron aircraft when Robertson shows it was actually with 463 Squadron.
It was just after midnight last night that the Lancasters of 463 and 467 Squadron roared into the air, en route once more for the German capital, Berlin. There were three early returns. Pilot Officer Thomas Foster, in DV229, encountered icing that he couldn’t climb above, landing back at base just after 03.30 hours. Pilot Officer Lindsay Fairclough, in ED545, had the same problem, returning some two hours later. And an embarrassing navigational error saw Pilot Officer John McManus boomerang early in JA901, when he misinterpreted a new course passed to him by the navigator and inadvertently flew its reciprocal instead. By the time the error was realised, they had lost about half an hour and did not relish the prospect of having all of Berlin’s defences to themselves after the rest of the force had left the target area, so they set course for home, arriving a quarter of an hour before Fairclough.[1]
The outbound route took the bombers out over Denmark, before they turned south east towards the target. Defences were fairly active, with six bombers shot down by flak on the outbound route and at least twelve by nightfighters before the target was reached.[2]
Once again Berlin was covered in broken cloud, and though some groundmarking was possible the attack eventually required the less accurate ‘Wanganui’ skymarking technique. Despite this, most crews thought that this appeared to be one of the best attacks on Berlin yet. Phil Smith reported “three distinct areas of fire glow on clouds; good fires must have been below.”[3] The defences, he wrote in his logbook, “seemed weak”. His impression was later confirmed when it was determined that flak probably destroyed only one aircraft over the target itself. There was a moderate barrage of heavy flak and some intense light flak near the marker flares, but the searchlights were much hampered by the heavy cloud cover.
Fighters were however very active. Over the target at least 150 were sighted – including one which followed DV372, with Gil Pate and Eric Hill keeping a very close eye on it from their turrets until it sidled off into the darkness once more.[4] “Altho’ the place was lit up by the fires like the worlds fair”, wrote Dale Johnston,[5] “we never saw another kite. Bar a Jerry, but we gave him the slip and he disappeared in the clouds.” Some 27 combats were reported over Berlin and six more heavies were shot down there.
In all, 43 aircraft were reported missing, or some 6.3% of the attacking force. Seven were known to have been lost to flak and 21 to fighters. The rest, thought the scientists of Bomber Command’s Operational Research Service, were “almost certainly due to fighters”.[6]
Despite Phil’s later recollection of this as a “straightforward”[7] trip, it was not entirely without trouble. After dropping their load of 4000lb high explosives and 5000lb incendiaries towards the end of the attack at 03.30hrs (only one of Waddington’s aircraft bombed after them, at 03.32), they were on the homeward journey when Gilbert Pate’s oxygen failed in the rear turret. Wireless operator Dale Johnston went back to give some help, but his portable oxygen also failed. When flight engineer Ken Tabor went to help and suffered the same fate, Phil needed to descend to about 15,000 feet to bring everyone around again.[8] They eventually arrived back at Waddington at 08.30 on the morning of the 29th – the third last aircraft to return.
Sadly each Waddington squadron lost a crew on this operation. Flight Lieutenant Norm Cooper, flying HK537, and Ivan Durston, in ED867, both disappeared without message or signal being received. Post-war it was discovered that Cooper’s aircraft had collided with an 83 Squadron bomber, crashing on the Danish island of Als. All on board died. Durston, who had been the last to depart Waddington last night and was “one of our most popular pilots and an excellent crew,”[9] had been on his 27th trip. His aircraft crashed at Schmachtenhagen, three miles east of Oranienberg and approximately 25 miles north of Berlin. All seven members of the crew are buried in the Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery.[10]
Because of the very late return this morning from the Berlin operation, there was much sleeping during the day and the squadrons were stood down for the afternoon. There was “the usual Saturday night dance” but very little else happened.
Elsewhere, Bomber Command sent small forces of Mosquitos to attack a steelworks on Duisburg and a flying bomb site at Herbouville in France tonight, and a small group of Whitleys dropped leaflets over Northern France.[11] A force of enemy aircraft was seen on radar heading towards the English coast during the night. Bombs were dropped across Hampshire, the Thames Estuary and Suffolk. It’s thought that one of the raiders was shot down by a Beaufighter of 68 Squadron.[12]
For the first time since joining 467 Squadron, Phil Smith’s name was on the Battle Order tonight as captain of his own aircraft. The target – as if anyone expected anything different – was, once again, Berlin, now being attacked for the thirteenth time this winter. Two members of Phil’s normal crew did not take part in this raid. Navigator Jack Purcell, who was still off sick, and bomb aimer Jerry Parker were replaced by Flight Sergeants Leonard Connolly and F.G. Craven respectively.[1] In any case, twelve aircraft were detailed from 463 Squadron, and fourteen from 467. They joined a total of 679 heavies and four Mosquitos sent to the German capital.
In an effort to support the force attacking Berlin, Bomber Command also sent a mining force to Kiel Harbour and several Mosquitos to harass Hannover and to bomb Berlin a full four hours before the main attack was due.[2] On the other side, sixteen Messerschmitt Me410s and ten Focke-Wulf Fw190s made a small incursion into East Anglia, Kent and Sussex. A Mosquito nightfighter accounted for one of the raiders but a defending fighter was also shot down.[3]
At Waddington, take off was scheduled for midnight. The first Lancaster – ED949 of 463 Squadron, under the command of Flying Officer Doug Dunn – roared down the runway at two minutes past the hour, and most were away by 00.36. Flight Lieutenant Ivan Durston was somewhat delayed, departing in ED867 thirteen minutes after the previous aircraft, and Pilot Officer Noel McDonald encountered engine trouble on the takeoff roll and aborted the mission on the runway. Phil Smith and his crew, meanwhile, were in Lancaster DV372, the nineteenth aircraft to depart. They left the ground at 00.28, climbed away and set course eastwards.[4]
[1] Smith, Phil 1940-1945; Flying Logbook. Craven was RAF and as such does not appear on the Australian Nominal Roll so his name is unknown at this time
A week after the last big raid on the city, Berlin was once again the target for operations for tonight. This would be the twelfth major operation against the German capital since the so-called Battle of Berlin began in November last year. Each squadron at Waddington briefed sixteen crews. Once again Phil Smith’s was not one of them. Though Jack Purcell was still in the Station Sick Quarters it is unknown why the others did not go either. Flight Lieutenant Ivan Durston began the mass take-off at 17.18 hours. All were away a little over 40 minutes later – with an average of less than a minute and a half between each heavily-laden aircraft. One aircraft was “unable to take off,” possibly due to an engine failure on the runway, and there was one early return – Pilot Officer Bruce Simpson in ED657, who ‘boomeranged’ due to compass trouble three and a bit hours after take-off. [1]
In all Bomber Command sent 530 aircraft on this trip to Berlin. In a good example of how the entire Command was coordinated to support the main force, significant diversionary and harassing operations were carried out across a wide front. Halifaxes laid mines in the Heligoland Bight and Wellingtons and Stirlings did the same off the Dutch coast (one Stirling was lost); Mosquitos dropped imitation fighter flares well away from the bombers’ route to and from the target and other aircraft flew radio counter-measure and intruder sorties targeting nightfighters. Though the fighters did intercept the bomber stream early, it appears that the spoof operations had the desired effect and “half the German fighters were lured north by the Heligoland mining diversion”.[2] Consequently fewer fighters attacked the bombers enroute to the target than usual. Even so, fighters were known to have claimed at least seventeen of the 32 aircraft that were lost on this trip.
The Main Force arrived over Berlin to find it once more blanketed in thick cloud, necessitating the use of less-accurate skymarkers. Crews reported a fair concentration of markers from the Pathfinders but there was no way to determine whether the markers themselves where anywhere near the target, so actual results of this raid remain uncertain.
The first successful aircraft arrived back at Waddington just after 01.30 in the morning. The last crew back, at 02.48, was that of Squadron Leader Bill Brill of 463 Squadron in DV274. They had been struck by incendiaries falling from higher-flying aircraft over the target and were close to baling out until Brill regained control and they set course for the long and uncomfortable trip home.
When word was received that two aircraft had landed away (Flight Lieutenant Geoff Baker in ED545 landed at a Coastal Command base at Thorney Island, near the Isle of Wight, and Pilot Officer John McManus diverted to Coleby Grange in JA901), there were still three aircraft outstanding from Waddington. Flying Officer Alan Leslie in ME563 from 463 Squadron crashed near Teltow, 16km south west of the centre of Berlin. 467 Squadron’s Pilot Officer Cec O’Brien, in ED539, crashed in the Berlin suburb of Kopenwick, 8km south east of the city. And Pilot Officer Stephen Grugeon (who had flown Phil Smith and crew to Little Snoring a few days ago) crashed east-north-east of Kassel in Germany.[3] All members of the three crews were killed.
[2] Details of all operations from Night Raid Report No. 515. Further details and quote from RAF Bomber Command 60th Anniversary Campaign Diary, January 1944
While the weather did improve slightly from the snow and rain of the previous week or so, following the Berlin and Magdeburg trips last Friday there would be no operations scheduled for the crews at Waddington until next Tuesday.[1] On Saturday the Squadrons were stood down in the afternoon and many would have taken the opportunity to go across the road to the Horse and Jockey, a pub in Waddington village, for a few pints. Jack Purcell was not among them. He had taken ill and was admitted to the Station Sick Quarters this morning.[2]
The Horse and Jockey in Waddington, as it appeared in 2009
There was some training carried out during this period, with crews attending lectures about Flying Control and Flight Engineering. Some got some Fighter Affiliation flights in on Sunday. This was a common training exercise whereby it was arranged with Fighter Command to rendezvous with a fighter at a given place and height. Once visual contact had been made, the fighter would begin a series of mock attacks on the bomber, and the gunners would simulate shooting at it with camera guns while the pilot tried to manoeuvre the Lancaster away from the fighter. Occasionally fighter affiliation was even carried out at night, when instead of the camera guns the fighter would flash its navigation lights if he got within shooting range of the bomber without being spotted by the gunners.[3]
An unknown 467 Squadron crew carries out some daylight fighter affiliation with a Spitfre. A remarkable photograph from the Waddington Collection, RAF Waddington Heritage Centre
Operations, finally, were notified for Tuesday, 25 January. The two Waddington squadrons briefed their crews and fuelled up their aircraft. Phil Smith carried out two air tests in preparation, one of 25 minutes in DV240 and a second of ten minutes in an unknown Lancaster,[4] but at 16.45hrs, when all were set to go, the operation was scrubbed.[5] It’s unknown who was intended to replace Jack Purcell, who was still in the Station Sick Quarters, for this trip.
A small force of Stirlings, Lancasters and Mosquitos did attack military constructions (probably flying bomb sites) in the Pas de Calais and on the Cherbourg peninsula, but the Waddington aircraft were not with them. Bomber Command also sent Mosquitos to Aachen again and carried out a weather reconnaissance flight, and once again training groups sent Wellingtons to drop leaflets over Northern France.[6]
The only other Bomber Command operations during this time were carried out on Sunday night (23 January).[7] 37 Mosquitos were sent to a range of mainly industrial targets in the Ruhr (including Dusseldorf, Derendorf, Koblenz and Aachen), eight Stirlings and Wellingtons laid mines off Le Havre, Brest and Cherbourg, and a Mosquito made a weather reconnaissance flight.
Some members of 463 Squadron had a sad duty on Monday, travelling to Lowestoft for the private burial of Sergeant Bertie Turner, the unfortunate mid-upper gunner who died of oxygen failure on the Berlin trip on January 20.[8]
[3] Dennis Over, a 227 Squadron veteran rear gunner, described fighter affiliation (and mentioned the night procedure) briefly in a post on the Lancaster Archive Forum, 12 September 2008. Also mentioned in Keith Prowd’s interview for the Australians at War Film Archive.
[4] Smith, Phil; Flying Log Book 1940-1945. Interestingly these flights do not appear in Jack Purcell’s logbook. Although Phil wrote “Crew” in his there are no names.
Something Very Big 