The last couple of weeks of March 1944 were quite busy for the Waddington bomber crews. In the last ten days, they had flown four operations and had three scrubbed. Tonight they would be operating again, five of the crews involved being on their third consecutive raid in as many nights.[1]

The target was what the 467 Squadron Operational Record Book called “an old favourite:” Essen. It would be the first major attack on that “already half-devastated” city, home to a good portion of the German arms industry, in about eight months. The crew of B for Baker were on the Battle Order for this trip but for unknown reasons wireless operator Dale Johnston was not included. He was replaced by Pilot Officer Thomas Ronaldson, who appears to have been a ‘spare bod,’ completing operations with many different crews after his own pilot was posted tour-expired in December 1943. Curiously Phil Smith’s logbook does not mention Ronaldson by name, containing only ‘crew as above.’

Two aircraft were not ready in time for take-off and there was one early return but the groundcrews nevertheless managed to get a total of 31 aircraft away from the two Waddington squadrons. They were part of a total force of 705 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos on their way to Essen. Other heavy bombers out tonight attacked railway facilities in Cortrai in Belgium and laid mines off the French Atlantic coast while Mosquitos flew Serrate patrols and attacked airfields in Belgium, Holland and Northern France.[2]

The Main Force flew east from their airfields heading towards Holland, passing close to the Dutch town of Julianadorp, which that night was subjected to a raid by three Mosquitos. The most recent few targets attacked by large forces of bombers had mostly been far inside Germany, and it’s likely that the German defenders were once again expecting a deep penetration. The Main Force flew a course that looked like it might have been headed for Hanover, and indeed a small force of Mosquitos made a harassing raid on that city, but just past the Ijsselmeer they suddenly turned south east and headed straight for the Ruhr. More Mosquitos raided Aachen but the bombers’ true target was now dead ahead.

Not that the crews could see it, looking at the ground. They had been flying over a solid layer of cloud since they had been half-way across the North Sea. This was not entirely unexpected but the forecast, reproduced in the Night Raid Report, had not been particularly confident and included the words “very uncertain conditions” for the north of the country:

Probably much strato-cumulus, but cloud may clear right away.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. The crews found that the cloud had not cleared at all. One pilot, albeit only on his second trip, was unnerved by the complete lack of anything to be seen: [3]

The navigator said to me, “Five minutes to the coast.” And then he said we were crossing the coast. And it was pitch black. There were no searchlights; there were no guns, nothing. And I thought, “Something queer here. I think we’re lost.” And on we went, and we were ten minutes from the target, and there was still nothing. Eventually, not long after that, I saw some flares go down ahead of me. So I realised then we weren’t lost.

Despite a small risk of some strato-cumulus cloud over the target itself, the met. boffins thought that at Essen it would “probably” be clear. On the strength of that, the attack was planned using ‘Musical Parramatta’ ground-marking tactics: Oboe-equipped Mosquitos would drop red Target Indicators that would be backed up visually with greens by Pathfinder crews following in Lancasters.

There was only one tiny flaw in the plan.

The forecast was entirely wrong.

The crews, trailing huge white contrails at high levels, arrived over the target to find it blanketed in 10/10ths thick cloud up to about 10000 feet. The Mosquitos dropped their target indicators but they quickly dropped out of sight in the murk. Consequently most crews could only bomb the estimated position of the target indicators via their glow coming through the clouds. At least two 463 Squadron crews saw no Pathfinder pyrotechnics at all and bombed on estimated time of arrival instead.

The cloud made it difficult to see any results of the raid while it was in progress, but there were signs that the bombing had been reasonably concentrated. The glow of fires was visible up to a hundred miles from the target and two distinct palls of thick black smoke were becoming evident as the crews left the target. Despite this, though, a number of crews were not certain if the raid had indeed been successful, and couldn’t understand why the Pathfinders had not carried skymarker flares to transition to an ‘Emergency Wanganui’ attack as soon as the solid cloud cover at the target was recognised. “An excellent Wanganui night”, lamented Wing Commander Arthur Doubleday. In fact the plan did include Wanganui flares, but they were dropped by Mosquitos as intended two miles east of the actual aiming point to distract the flak guns. In this they succeeded, with flak flashes seen nearby the falling parachute flares, and they also served to assist the Main Force in locating the general area of the target, but finding definite markers at which to aim the bombs proved more frustrating for the crews. “Wanganui backing up would have given [a] more definite aiming point than was possible with TI passing through cloud,” suggested Pilot Officer Laurence Hawes.

The cloud did, however, mean that searchlights were all but ineffective. While the heavy flak guns fired a loose barrage it was “not like old times.”[4] Some fighters had been led astray by the raid on Courtrai and the rest, probably distracted by the feint raid on Hanover, were held in reserve deeper in Germany in anticipation of an extended penetration by the bombers. There were reports of one or two combats on the way in to the target (there is some evidence that these were possibly attracted by the contrails[5]) but in general the fighters caught up with the stream late, claiming one bomber near Bonn just after leaving the target and four more on the way to Brussels. Flak got two bombers over the Ruhr and one when the stream turned for home near Charleroi. One more aircraft was seen to go down to unknown causes on the south-eastern run out of the target. These nine were the only aircraft that failed to return – a loss rate of just 1.2%. One returning bomber was damaged beyond repair by a fighter attack and two were written off in landing accidents.[6]

Every bombing photograph obtained by returning crews showed solid 10/10ths cloud, and the 463 Squadron diarist thought it was too early to assess results yet. As it turned out however, the Pathfinders, with the benefit of the highly accurate Oboe, dropped what the Night Raid Report called an “excellent concentration” of target indicators on the aiming point, and enough bombers aimed accurately at the correct glow to drop a “great weight” of bombs on the centre and south of the town. The Krupps munitions factories were seriously damaged.

 

This post is part of a series called 467 Postblog, posted in real time to mark the 70th anniversary of the crew of B for Baker while they were on operational service with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. See this link for an in-depth explanation of the series, and this one for full citations of sources used throughout it. © 2014 Adam Purcell

Sources:

Just after 10pm on the night of 24 March 1944, more than 800 bombers were bearing down on Berlin. The first Waddington aircraft bombed at 22.27 and the last at 23.01. But much stronger winds than realised were playing havoc on navigation and timing. The crew of Flight Sergeant Ed Dearnaley, for example, first sighted Pathfinder flares behind their aircraft. They overshot the target, turned around and lost so much time flying back into the headwind that they bombed at 22.57, the second last aircraft from Waddington to do so.

Despite flying doglegs to try and waste some time on the final leg to Berlin, the tailwind was too strong for Dan Conway’s crew and they also overshot the aiming point. So they turned back and went around again:

This was quite an experience. Here we were chugging along at something like 120kmh groundspeed, taking about 15 minutes. Meanwhile other aircraft were flashing past us at over 600kmh. There was no way of avoiding them, so we just held on and prayed.[1]

They ended up bombing on a reciprocal heading to the rest of the stream. “We would not have been too popular,” Conway later admitted.

As always, the Germans defended their capital city fiercely. The fighters were still active, making many interceptions and shooting down four aircraft over the target itself and at least two more just south-west of the city.[2] There were many searchlights in the area and the heavy flak guns put up a fearsome barrage, claiming seven more bombers. With thin cloud below the bombers and explosions from bursting cookies all around, it was a “most dramatic spectacle”.[3]

In the end, even the Pathfinders were not immune to the effects of the wind. While their initial markers appear to have fallen close to the aiming point, later in the attack the concentration drifted some miles to the south-south-west. The Night Raid Report places the blame for this drift squarely at the feet of the wind, though it notes that German decoy flares may also have contributed. Either way, like on many Berlin trips the raid became rather scattered, despite the Master Bomber’s reported encouragement (“Keep it up, good show!”[4]).

Squadron Leader Phil Smith and his crew bombed target indicators burning on the ground, visible through “thin filmy cloud.” Their bombing photo showed “fire and cloud.”[5] It probably looked something like this one, though this is from a different crew and was taken some eleven minutes later:

After bombing, the plan was to continue on past Berlin for some 40 miles before turning to the west near Luckenwalde, to avoid known areas of heavy defences. But the wind was still making navigation difficult and many crews wandered. As a result, the Night Raid Report records that aircraft were engaged by defences at places significantly off the planned track: Leipzig, Münster and Kassel without apparent casualty, and Magdeburg, where four victims fell to flak and two to nightfighters, Nordhausen  where one bomber was shot down by a nightfighter, and Osnabrück (six to flak and one to a nightfighter).

But it was the Ruhr area that aircrews feared the most, and though a dogleg to the north had been designed into the route to avoid it, disbelieving crews found themselves flying into what at the time was probably one of the most heavily defended areas from air attack on the planet. The experience of Warrant Officer Clayton Moore’s crew was probably not unique: [6]

 An unusual and most heated argument blew up between our Captain (Bill Siddle) and the Navigator (Dick Lodge) concerning our position. Siddle insisted that we were heading for the heart of the dreaded Ruhr and the Navigator insisted this was far from being the case: he was using the latest wind speed and direction radioed from Bomber Command, anyway, we were in the centre of the bomber stream – we couldn’t all be wrong and off course! […] Finally, the argument ended with the Navigator being invited up to the flight deck to ‘see this bloody lot ahead for yourself’. There followed a brief pause in the dialogue after which the Navigator was heard to remark, ‘You’re dead right Skipper, that is the Ruhr – let’s get to hell out of it…’

No fewer than seven bombers fell to the Ruhr flak guns. It was, said Flight Sergeant Roland Cowan afterwards, “no fun.”

The extent of the navigational chaos became clear when crews got pinpoints upon crossing the enemy coast on the way home. The crew of B for Baker came out 20 to 30 miles south of track, and they were not unusual. At least six other 463/467 Squadron crews reported the same thing. But all the Waddington aircraft returned safely, two diverting to nearby Metheringham.[7]

This was the sixteenth and last of the mass raids on Berlin (though the Light Night Striking Force – Bennett’s Mosquitos – would continue to harass the city until the end of the war). It was also by far the most expensive. In all, 72 bombers failed to return, almost nine percent of the force sent. This operation was a good example of how things could go wrong for Bomber Command, even with mechanisms in place to impart some flexibility in case things changed after the bombers had taken off. The ‘floating’ zero hour concept and the Broadcast Winds system were good in theory but as seen on this raid Bomber Command was by this time a very large and complex organisation and just one error could cascade throughout the entire raid. In this case that error would appear to have been misjudging the true strength of the wind which then led directly to navigational difficulties. In an effort to reduce losses, Bomber Command’s tactics at the time involved an organised ‘stream’ flying a carefully designed route that would avoid known areas of heavy defences wherever possible. Accurate navigation to remain in the (relative) safety of the stream and to stay clear of those ‘hot’ zones was therefore critical. Navigating to the required standard of accuracy was very difficult without an accurate wind value and as seen particularly in the Ruhr area on this trip, wandering off track could have disastrous consequences. When the error was made by a single navigator, just one aircraft blundered over a defended area and could have been shot down. But when it was in the ‘official’ broadcast winds it became a systemic error and affected the entire bomber stream, causing loss rates like those seen on this Berlin raid.

There were two other interesting incidents that also occurred on this night. One of the aircraft that failed to return from Berlin was DS664 of 115 Squadron. Somewhere near Schmallenberg (east of Kassel and, unsurprisingly, well south of the planned homeward track), it was shot down by a nightfighter. Four members of the crew died and two made successful parachute jumps, but the rear gunner’s ‘chute had been damaged during the attack. Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade jumped anyway, apparently preferring death by impact than by fire. Incredibly, his fall was apparently broken by a fir tree and he landed in a deep snow drift, surviving with only a few superficial cuts and bruises. He was captured by the Germans (who naturally were reportedly suspicious of his story) and remained a prisoner for the remainder of the war.

The other episode is perhaps one of the most famous stories of all that came out of the Second World War. At a camp known as Stalag Luft III, seventy six prisoners of war escaped through a tunnel dug out under the wire. The Great Escape, as the episode became known, would turn to tragedy. Seventy three of the escapees were recaptured and fifty were executed as a result. Just three of the men made ‘home runs’. Stalag Luft III was near the town of Sagan (now Zagan in Poland), about 100 miles south east of Berlin. It’s not inconceivable that while they were breaking out, the escapees could hear the bombs as the attack on the German capital progressed.

 

This post is part of a series called 467 Postblog, posted in real time to mark the 70th anniversary of the crew of B for Baker while they were on operational service with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. See this link for an in-depth explanation of the series, and this one for full citations of sources used throughout it. © 2014 Adam Purcell

Sources:

Since 18 November 1943, Bomber Command had made no fewer than fifteen major attacks, each of 380 aircraft or more, on Berlin. The last time the Main Force visited the German capital had been in mid February, more than a month ago, and there were some who believed that “we might well have finished with Berlin.”[1] But they were wrong.

It was a dull and hazy Friday morning at Waddington on 24 March and the two Australian Squadrons received word that an operation to the Big City was to be laid on for that evening. Some Pathfinder squadrons, looking at the prevailing poor visibility and chance of further fog in the evening, were expecting a cancellation about lunchtime. Indeed, John Searby writes that a planned American day raid to Berlin had been cancelled on the strength of a weather recce flight which found solid strato-cumulus from the German coast all the way to Nordhausen.[2]  But a mid-morning flight discovered that, as forecast, the cloud had begun to break up along the route for that night’s planned raid, so it was decided to go ahead. Also on the forecast was a strong north-westerly wind of up to 60 miles an hour. “For the assembled crews in the many briefing rooms throughout the Bomber Groups it was very much the mixture as before”, wrote Searby. “The navigators shrugged their shoulders – a strong headwind pulled back the groundspeed on the way home but it was nothing new.”[3]

As well as more than 800 aircraft in the Main Force, various other diversionary operations were planned for the evening. Eleven Mosquitos were to fly ahead of the Main Force across Denmark dropping Window as they went, then turn south and bomb Kiel. Nineteen more Mosquitos, led by two Pathfinders equipped with H2S, were to bomb Berlin ten minutes before the Main Force arrived, dropping Window and spoof fighter flares. 150 aircraft from Operational Training Units would make a sweep west of Paris, without dropping any bombs, as a distraction while the Main Force was on its way to Berlin. Meanwhile other Mosquitos were to attack Münster and Duisburg and airfields in Holland and Belgium, and carry out Serrate patrols.[4]

467 Squadron put nineteen crews on the battle order for tonight, and 463 mustered up fourteen. There appears to have been a delay taking off from Waddington, perhaps caused by a wait for bombs to be loaded. Many crews reported needing to try and make time up enroute and indeed one crew, ten minutes behind the last bombers in the stream at the first turning point on the route (near Hull), decided that was too much and, after jettisoning their bomb load half way over the North Sea, returned to base.[5] This was one of four crews to return early to Waddington.

The bomber stream headed north east over the North Sea towards Denmark. They were well out to sea when the first signs of trouble began to appear. Flight Lieutenant Dan Conway was the pilot of a wind-finder crew from 467 Squadron. While still in Gee range, his navigator Sergeant Joe Wesley calculated a wind from the north that was considerably stronger than that forecast. “He expressed his surprise to me”, wrote Conway after the war,[6] “and I told him that if that was his considered finding to report it back [to base].”

Wesley’s wind report was one of many received by the various squadrons and passed on to Command Headquarters. It would appear that the commanders decided that the wind could not possibly be as strong as the reports they were receiving, so the ‘Broadcast Winds’ were reduced to what they considered a more appropriate level.[7]

Calculating their courses using a broadcast wind value that was some twenty to thirty miles an hour less than reality meant that most crews in the Main Force were now being pushed south much faster than they expected. The result was that the stream began to scatter as aircraft wandered over the heavily defended areas that the route had been carefully designed to avoid. The Germans drew first blood at Sylt (twenty miles south of the nominal track) where six bombers fell to heavy flak. Four more were shot down at Flensburg[8] and some crews were crossing as far south as Kiel.[9] Up to seven more aircraft are believed to have been destroyed by flak on the outward journey at locations that are not recorded in the Night Raid Report.

It was also as the crews crossed the Danish coast (or German, depending on how far south they had drifted) that the enemy nightfighters arrived. Having quickly recognised the Paris sweep as the distraction it was, the fighter controllers sent their aircraft to the Hamburg-Heligoland area. The fighters got stuck into the bomber stream early, destroying two each at Sylt and Flensburg and one each at Rostock and Prenzlau. Searby quotes a Flight Lieutenant Moore of 83 Squadron: [10]

German night fighter activity was the fiercest I had ever known it to be and so many aircraft were being shot down in our vicinity that we stopped recording them and detailed all available crew members to maintain a sharp look-out.

Somewhere enroute, the half-hourly Group broadcast also included a change to the planned zero hour, bringing it forward by five minutes. This was a result of the stronger than forecast winds aloft and in recognition that the southerly run in to the target would be completed with a significant tailwind. The alteration, however, caused much confusion. The 463 and 467 Squadron Operational Record Books are full of comments like these:

We heard T.O.T. alteration but as we were late it made us even later. (Flight Lieutenant Jack Colpus)

Earlier T.O.T. unexpected and impossible to make up time already wasted. (Pilot Officer Leo Ainsworth)

Briefed for fixed T.O.T. and arranged timing for same but received W/T message z-5. No chance at all to catch up on this timing. (Flight Sergeant Roland Cowan)

Received zero hour correction, it made no difference to us as we were already late due to delay before take off. (Squadron Leader Phil Smith)

Perhaps these crews had not yet grasped the true wind situation. Other comments in the ORBs were much more positive, and Dan Conway even called the correction “very helpful as we were already running early.”

Next post: The bombers arrive over Berlin.

This post is part of a series called 467 Postblog, posted in real time to mark the 70th anniversary of the crew of B for Baker while they were on operational service with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. See this link for an in-depth explanation of the series, and this one for full citations of sources used throughout it. © 2014 Adam Purcell

Four nights ago, forty Waddington aircraft took part in a highly successful attack on the German city of Frankfurt. On each of the three days immediately after that raid, the crews were briefed for more operations but each time the trips were scrubbed. They were briefed again on 22 March and – finally – this time they went. The target again was Frankfurt, and it was to be another big raid with more than 800 aircraft sent.

The night’s ‘offering’ from 463 and 467 Squadrons was 36 aircraft. Among those on the battle order was Phil Smith and his entire crew: Ken Tabor, Jack Purcell, Jerry Parker, Dale Johnston, Eric Hill and Gilbert Pate. They took Lancaster R5485 to see if they could work out why multiple crews had complained that it would not take a full bomb load to a Lancaster’s normal operating height. Also flying tonight, on their first trip, was Flying Officer Dudley Ward and crew. It’s likely that they had been listed to fly on the last few scrubbed operations, and one suspects that they felt trepidation but also a certain degree of relief that their tour was finally underway when they took off at 19.03 in LL881, nineteen minutes behind the first aircraft from Waddington.

One Lancaster returned early. Pilot Officer Bill Mackay and crew encountered significant mechanical trouble in DV240: their starboard inner engine failed at 14,000 feet on their initial climb to cruising height, and along with it went the electrics and intercom in the mid-upper turret, the main compass, the autopilot compressor and the bomb sight. They turned around immediately, jettisoned their bombs and the Operational Record Book shows they were back at Waddington before half past eight.

Other Bomber Command operations tonight involved Mosquitos attacking Dortmund, Oberhausen and airfields in the Low Countries, radio counter-measure sorties, leafleting and Serrate patrols. There was also a large mining effort in Kiel Harbour and the Fehmarn Channel (off Denmark) and diversion raids on Berlin and Hanover.[1]

These last few operations, in particular, were a critical part of the plan, designed to draw attention away from the Main Force attacking Frankfurt. The chosen route for the bomber stream was a novel one. From their bases in England, the bombers flew towards Denmark. Further to the north, and also heading towards Scandinavia, were the 146 Halifaxes and Stirlings of the mining force, on German radar looking for all the world like a significant attack bound for Berlin. But half way across the North Sea, the Main Force suddenly turned south east. Now they looked like they might have been making for Hanover, Brunswick or even via a southerly route to Berlin.

Ahead of the main bomber stream flew a number of Mosquitos. They dropped target indicators, Window and spoof fighter flares near Hanover, then went on and did the same near Berlin. Following Mosquitos then bombed the markers.

The result was confusion on the part of the German fighter controllers. The Bomber Command Night Raid Report describes the “complex movements” undertaken by the nightfighters as they attempted to intercept the bomber stream. Those that took off from airfields in Holland were first sent out over the North Sea following a radio beam to find the bombers before they crossed the coast. Some combats occurred in the Emden area and the first bomber was shot down near Leeuwarden. The fighters next caught up with the stream near Osnabrück, where they accounted for five more. But then, probably deceived by the diversion raid, the fighter controllers announced over the running commentary that Hanover was the main target for the night and many fighters headed that way.

But before they got to Hanover the bombers turned sharply to the south. Many fighters saw this and followed, claiming a further five bombers along the way, and it was here that Pilot Officer Len Ainsworth of 467 Squadron reported seeing “considerable” fighter activity. But it took a full 17 minutes after the first markers had gone down at the real target – Frankfurt – before the controllers directed their forces there. Meanwhile at least two bombers fell to flak near the point where the stream turned. Interestingly some crews reported seeing rockets fired from either the ground or the air in the same area, though it is not known whether these accounted for any bombers.[2]

Not far ahead now was Frankfurt. The weather was clear on the final run in to the target with a little low cloud thickening in patches. Heavy predicted flak was being fired, which later loosened into a moderate barrage called by the Night Raid Report “rather more accurate than on the previous visit.” Numerous fighters were seen and many crews reported that the searchlights were highly active but, as Pilot Officer Clive Quartermaine described them, “a little clueless.” Three bombers were shot down by fighters and four by the ground defences over the target.

Early target marking was bang on. The first six salvoes of Newhaven ground markers, all falling as scheduled before zero hour (which was 21.50), were within a mile of the aiming point and spread on each side of the river running through the centre of the city. Three minutes after zero hour there was already a significant concentration of incendiaries burning in the middle of the city.

Later in the attack the bombing became a little scattered with smaller concentrations developing up to five and a half miles north and west of the aiming point. But it didn’t matter. It had, said Flying Officer Jack Dechastel, “every indication of a concentrated attack.” Flying Officer Jim Marshall described how the “whole of centre of target area” was “well alight.” Phil Smith said it “should be [a] very successful prang if PFF were on target.”[3]

After bombing, the stream carried on beyond the aiming point for a short distance south. On this leg searchlights were quite active and many crews were coned but only one bomber is known to have fallen here. Once again, though, crews were jettisoning incendiaries that had hung up along the route, and it wasn’t making the crews feel especially happy. “Why couldn’t these have been jettisoned in the sea as they light our bombers up?” complained Pilot Officer John McManus, captain of S for Sugar (R5868).

Near Mannheim the stream turned west for a short time (one more bomber being shot down from the ground near Trier), then northwest towards the coast. Over the middle of Belgium the last few casualties were incurred: one aircraft to flak and five to fighters.

All Waddington aircraft returned safely, but not without a couple of scares. In an incident worryingly reminiscent of the loss of ED606 with Pilot Officer Graham and crew on board a week ago, while the two Squadrons were arriving back at Waddington an unknown Lancaster “crossed across [the] centre of [the] aerodrome”, and nearly took out another aircraft. It was well and truly “too close for safety”, and Pilot Officer Victor Baggott, who was flying the second aeroplane, called it the “stickiest” incident of the trip. And Pilot Officer James McManus didn’t notice it at the time but at some stage during the flight it’s likely the tailwheel on the venerable S-Sugar collected a piece of flak. They found out when the tyre collapsed on landing, though no great damage was done. “It is hoped”, remarked the Operational Record Book drily, “that the rear gunner wasn’t in his turret or he would have had a rough ride.”

In all, 33 aircraft failed to return from this raid, a tick over four percent of the force sent. The effect on Frankfurt, however, was severe. German records[4] said the damage was worse than the earlier raid on the city, and gas, water and electricity services were cut in half the city “for a long period.” Industrial areas to the west of the city suffered badly. This was the second of what turned out to be three major raids on the city inside a week: as well as the two Bomber Command night raids, 162 American B-17s which had been sent to attack Schweinfurt on 24 March could not reach their primary target and used Frankfurt as a secondary instead, causing more damage. The three raids destroyed 90,000 homes, killed 1,870 people and made 180,000 more homeless.[5]

Phil Smith and his crew completed a relatively uneventful trip. They discovered that the old Lancaster – R5485 – did make it all the way to its normal operating height (indeed, they bombed from 21,000 feet, well inside the range of bombing heights recorded in the Operational Record Books), but “only by running the engines at above the recommended maximum temperatures.”[6] Less experienced crews, perhaps, had not been prepared to run the engines over temperature and so could not use full power – which explained the aircraft’s reluctance to climb when fully laden. Armed with this information, the Squadron’s engineers decided it was a cooling problem and replaced all of the machine’s radiators. Following the work there were no further complaints about the aircraft, and the mystery had been solved.

This post is part of a series called 467 Postblog, posted in real time to mark the 70th anniversary of the crew of B for Baker while they were on operational service with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. See this link for an in-depth explanation of the series, and this one for full citations of sources used throughout it. © 2014 Adam Purcell

Sources:

Operations, once again, were on for tonight. It was a big effort from the two Waddington squadrons: between them they got no fewer than forty aircraft airborne. Every crew from 467 Squadron were on the battle order, twenty two in all.[1] “Considering our establishment is 16+4 aircraft,” boasted the Operational Record Book, “tonight is certainly a good one and should be nearly a record for a two-flight Squadron.” The crew of B for Baker were among them, although on this trip bomb aimer Jerry Parker was replaced by the Squadron’s Bombing Leader, Flight Lieutenant Patrick McCarthy. They joined a total of 846 aircraft and crews sent to attack the city of Frankfurt.

As usual, there would be other Bomber Command aircraft out tonight. Almost a hundred of them were sent to lay mines in the Heligoland area, a trip also intended to look to German fighter controllers like a bomber stream possibly headed towards Berlin. A small force of eleven Mosquitos was to make a diversionary raid on Kassel, more Mosquitos attacked enemy airfields in Holland, Belgium and France or flew Serrate patrols to keep the nightfighters occupied and other aircraft flew radio counter-measure sorties. Meanwhile nineteen Lancasters bombed an explosives factory at Bergerac, near Bordeaux in France, with “devastating effect.” In all, more than one thousand sorties were despatched on this night.[2]

The first aircraft departed Waddington for Frankfurt at 18.45. There was one early return, Pilot Officer Jack Freeman and crew of 463 Squadron, though the ORB does not record the reason. Theirs was one of a total of 59 aircraft to abort the flight tonight. For the rest of the force the rendezvous point where the bombers began to form up into a recognisable stream was over the Channel, a position about 25 miles off Ramsgate. The bombers crossed the enemy coast between Dunkirk and Ostend, heading towards the south east.[3] They encountered stiff resistance from flak ships and the coastal defences in this area and it was here that the first casualty of the night fell, shot down from the ground.[4] “Do not recommend routeing in as flak quite active over coastal area,” said Pilot Officer Harold Coulson at interrogation later. Flak would claim one more victim south of Bonn after the stream crossed into Germany.

All across France and Belgium the route appeared free of nightfighters. The simultaneous arrival of two apparent bomber streams, one approaching on a northerly route and the second further south, seems to have induced the German fighter controllers to split their forces. Half were drawn towards the north by the minelaying force. Near the Belgian border with Luxemburg the Main Force turned east north east, onto a leg of some 100 miles that was aimed to appear to be threatening cities like Kassel or Leipzig. It was near this turning point that the first few nightfighters began to catch up with the bomber stream, shooting down four heavies before the target was reached. Most of the defenders, however, had been sidetracked for too long and were too late to make any appreciable impact on the bombers.

The diversionary Mosquitos went on ahead, Windowing furiously, to drop target indicators and high explosive bombs on Kassel and simulate the opening of a major attack on that city. But south east of Cologne the bomber stream altered course to the east before making a sharp right turn over the city of Giessen. Frankfurt – the real target – now lay almost directly to the south, about thirty miles or less than ten minutes flying time away.

One crew had a hair-raising experience at this point in the flight. It was gradually dawning on Pilot Officer Graham Fryer of 463 Squadron, flying in LM438, that his aircraft was behaving “erratically” and the controls were becoming heavier. With about twenty miles to run to the target, and climbing towards their bombing height of about 20,000 feet, the Lancaster very suddenly fell out of the sky in a violent stall. They lost considerable height before Fryer managed to bring the aircraft back under control. Their air speed indicator had been unserviceable for the entire trip and the artificial horizon and rate of climb indicator had both been “sluggish” so it was later realised that the upset had probably been due to severe icing.[5] They bombed from 18,000 feet, a little lower than most, but would return safely to Waddington.

Having failed to fall for the diversion to Kassel, the second force of nightfighters found the bombers as they approached the target. Heavy contrails were streaming in the wake of many aircraft and these were combining with haze and high level cloud, which might have reduced the effectiveness of the fighters.[6] Nineteen crews reported combats over the target but only one bomber was definitely seen to fall to fighters there, though it is likely that one more was also shot down.

The crews found only a thin layer of cloud below their bombing height, but there was much haze and visibility was poor. Even so, the first Pathfinder markers went down reasonably accurately, a minute early at 21.54. The initial markers were promptly backed up and “at no time during the attack”, wrote the scientists in the Night Raid Report, “were the main force without markers to aim at.” The flak guns put up a loose barrage and a large number of searchlights were active, but the haze meant that they were not as effective as usual. Consequently, though four fell to the target guns, the bombers were more or less unimpeded. The stream was so concentrated that Flying Officer Victor Trimble of 463 Squadron, flying ED611, expressed concern that perhaps there were too many aircraft there. They had other bombers on all sides during their bombing run and so could not manoeuvre, thus missing a chance at getting an aiming point photograph.[7] More seriously, they would also not have been able to evade a fighter, or for that matter another bomber: at least two aircraft are known to have been lost in a collision over the target.

A few other crews encountered difficulties over the target. While not many reported seeing any fighters, they were present and two Waddington aircraft were attacked. Flying Officer Arnold Easton, navigator in DV372, recorded in his logbook that his gunners fired at a fighter in the target area. Pilot Officer Noel McDonald in ED732 was attacked by a JU-88 but managed to dive and corkscrew away without a shot being fired. Flying Officer William Felstead was flying R5485, one of 467 Squadron’s ‘older’ Lancasters, on only his second trip as captain. All four engines overheated, necessitating use of a lower power setting which restricted the aircraft to 16,000ft until the bombs were dropped. They bombed from 15,000 and were among the last few aircraft to return to Waddington.[8]

The bombers hit the target hard. “PFF well concentrated,” said one 467 Squadron crew. “Good prang.”[9] At least two large explosions were reported by numerous crews during the attack. Bombing had strayed a little to the east of the centre of the city, but the docks received heavy damage and bombs had also fallen throughout the built-up area.[10] The last aircraft from Waddington to bomb was EE143 with Pilot Officer Ron Llewelyn at the controls. The aircraft (EE143, Phil Smith’s old one) would not fly faster than about 140mph indicated which made them late on target, bombing at the tail end of the attack at 22.19.

The bombers continued on their southerly track after bombing for another twenty or so miles, leaving the target with fires beginning to take hold. They were followed out by the nightfighters, which claimed three more victories over the first part of the homeward route. Two more bombers fell to flak near Darmstadt, just before the stream turned almost due west to point their noses towards home. Near the town of Morbach the bombers adjusted course slightly to the north west for the long journey to the coast.

At least seven crews complained bitterly that, once again, after leaving the target and for the rest of the way home some aircraft had jettisoned incendiaries that had hung up. “I wish blokes wouldn’t drop incs. all along track,” said Flight Sergeant Roland Cowan. Flying Officer Jim Marshall was more direct: “This lights up [the] track taken back by [the] Bomber Stream,” he said, “and causes much cursing.”[11]

Sadly, it probably caused more than cursing on this trip. It was on the long leg back to the coast that the first force of nightfighters – which had been kept to the north by the threat posed by the mining force earlier in the night – caught up with the stream. They are likely to have claimed two more bombers here. One more aircraft simply disappeared without trace.

The first aircraft arrived back at Waddington at 00.38. When Noel McDonald touched down in ED732 a little more than an hour later, one aircraft was still missing from the 463 Squadron dispersals. Pilot Officer James Gardner and crew, in EE191, were among the 22 aircraft which failed to return from Frankfurt, crashing just east of Frankfurt with the loss of all crew.[12] Their aircraft was on its 115^th operation. The Night Raid Report also records that 34 bombers were damaged on the raid and two Lancasters got home but were wrecked in landing accidents. Two other aircraft collided in mid air but “luckily escaped without serious injury.”

For such a large target and force of bombers sent, this was a remarkably small loss rate. On the other side of the ledger, the bombers shot down three German nightfighters, and the Serrate Mosquitos accounted for three more near Frankfurt. No further Bomber Command losses – other than the 22 Main Force aircraft – were sustained during the night’s operations.

It had been one of the more successful operations of its type: while just 64 aircraft were definitively plotted as having bombed the target area, at least 180 and possibly as many as 626 were believed to have bombed within three miles of the aiming point. The exact damage caused to Frankfurt was unable to be determined because photographic reconnaissance was not available until after further attacks on the city by separate British and American forces, but all three raids together caused considerable damage, hitting industrial and transport facilities as well as commercial and residential premises throughout the city.

This post is part of a series called 467 Postblog, posted in real time to mark the 70th anniversary of the crew of B for Baker while they were on operational service with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. See this link for an in-depth explanation of the series, and this one for full citations of sources used throughout it. © 2014 Adam Purcell