Martin Bowman - The Heavy Bomber Offensive of WWII (Visiting the Fallen)

First Published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Martin W Bowman, 2015
ISBN: 9781783831937
EPUB ISBN: 9781473861138
PRC ISBN: 9781473861121

The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to all the contributors for their words and photographs. Equally I am indebted to Intercom; The Official Quarterly Magazine of the Aircrew Association and The Mildenhall Register.

Thanks also go to my fellow author, friend and colleague, Graham Simons, for getting the book to press ready standard and for his detailed work on the photographs; to Pen & Sword and in particular, Laura Hirst; and Jon Wilkinson, for his unique jacket design once again.

Prologue

Gary Campbell

It came in the mail during April 1981, in a fat envelope from England. There were plans for creating an association of remaining members of a rather unique Lancaster Squadron which had flown out of Fiskerton, Lincolnshire. Enclosed were biographical data of the first 50 members to join. Memory slipped into neutral, as it has a habit of doing when one is crowding 70 and then into reverse. Thirty-seven years clicked away. Could it be that long? Seems only yesterday that we, so eager, were putting our youth on the line for an ideal. I walked into the kitchen and looked at the photo hanging over the refrigerator. There they were; the crew of C for Charlie, standing under the wing of Charlie 2 after Charlie 1 went missing. Well into their tour they looked a bit tired and serious, in scruffy battle dress with whistles hanging close to collars if we should ditch in the channel on a dark night: Scrib, the Canadian rear gunner; Digger, our Aussie wireless op; Andrews; English, one of our engineers; the skipper (me); Jock, our unflappable Scot bomb-aimer who later made it big in the Edinburgh distilling business; Smitty, our English navigator; and Dixie, mid-upper gunner from Ontario who picked up some shrapnel in daylight over Cologne. After that shudder we heard Jock over the intercom: Left, Left, Steady Then Bombs Gone and we had completed the run-in. We got Dixie home without using a needle, which helped the MO.

Tucked away somewhere in the house was a collection of snaps, memorabilia and log books out of which dropped a few lines penned by a winsome bride to her pilot.

From Yorkshire moors

To scrubbing floors!

How oft in the stilly night

The planes flew overhead

You in your cosy Lancaster

And I in my chilly bed.

The Fiskerton File held names that included our CO whose inspired leadership kept up our morale through the bad days. It was his second or third tour and he had a CBE, DSO, DFC. Our flight commander was repeating a tour and wore a few ribbons himself, DSC, DFC & BAR, AFC. When their names headed a battle order for a nights caper we knew it would be a tough one. They had no time for any target but Chermany. Only Naziland was marked down as an op. They figured we owed them a few. In spades.

It goes without saying that morale throughout the Squadron was high. A wonderful mix of aircrew about evenly divided between English, New Zealand, Canadian and Australian services, paired off by friendships in training. Many crews were as mixed as ours. The Canadians played baseball, the English and the black troops from down under talked cricket and soccer. And every crew, within my ken, had the press on spirit to do as well or better than the others. Each crew had the best skipper, navigator, bomb-aimer, gunners, right down the line. And that included the ground crews.

The Battle Order was posted in the morning for a night job. The crews who were on, gathered after breakfast, climbed a bus for dispersal, checked the kite, sometimes doing an air test. If they were bombing-up, guessing the target was the game for some. Whats the load, how much petrol are we carrying and how about the weather? We would know when it was time for briefing.

Sharing the transport with other crews as we circled the perimeter to dispersals made it easy to develop a bond of comradeship, a discovering of backgrounds that often grew into friendship. A bomb-aimer was engaged, a gunner was getting married and a skipper was about to become a father. Among close-knit crews who spent their hours off together the sharing, the caring, the confidences between officers and NCOs developed by mutual concern.

After the final meal for the day some listened to music, or the news, or wrote last letters home. Crews gathered and drifted to briefing. The CO explained the job; the intelligence chief outlined its importance, navigation, bombing and engineer specialists pointed out highlights in their departments, including flak and fighter dangers. Cloudy Joe told us about the weather, often how to go out and how to come back, over or under the weather.

Crews were thrown together again in the locker room struggling for space to climb into bulky sweaters and awkward flying suits, long stockings over long Johns and into obstinate flying boots.

Bomb-aimers, navigators and skippers tried not to lose their notes, clip board and flimsies in the sweaty, nervously charged milieu. The crews in groups shoved their way into a transport again, fighting for space with the added handicap of a clumsy parachute. Someone always had time for a wisecrack at each dispersal point, making a date with the other crew for a rendezvous at the Carpenters Arms or the Saracens Head. At dispersal there was climbing in and out of the aircraft, sorting bits and pieces, checking connections and just time for a last cigarette, a quiet word with the ground crew.

The Squadron would be lucky for a spell and then a crew would be diverted for a day or so with some minor trouble. Some would fail to return but their beds and places in the mess were quickly filled by a strange crew who had to make their own place by performance. The Squadron changed constantly with crews completing a tour, going on to other duties. Those who joined the squadron at the same time had the same number of trips to complete, were the closest. Only midway through a tour or toward the end did a loss mean so very much. Inevitably a new crew arrived who lost no time in making itself noticed. They were English, but several Canadian skippers noticed them on the bus to dispersal and liked what they saw and heard. They were that kind, popular, cheerful and great to be with. Good sorts, they were accepted quickly into the squadron without reservation.