Michael Oliver - Bomb Aimer Over Berlin

BOMB AIMER
OVER
BERLIN

BOMB AIMER
OVER
BERLIN

The Wartime Memoirs of
Les Bartlett DFM

by

Peter Jacobs
with
Les Bartlett

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Copyright Peter Jacobs 2007

ISBN 978-1-84415-596-5

The right of Peter Jacobs to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Palatino by
Phoenix Typesetting, Auldgirth, Dumfriesshire

Printed and bound in England by
Biddies Ltd, Kings Lynn

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation,
Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History,
Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.

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To Les Bartlett DFM and all the other brave men
who served with Bomber Command during
the Second World War.

F irst and foremost I would like to thank Les Bartlett, the main subject of this book, for allowing me access to his diary and material over so many years. Without his cooperation and that of others, authors such as myself would not be able to pass on the stories and experiences of the gallant men of Bomber Command during the Second World War. I must also thank the two other surviving members of Less wartime crew, Reg Payne and Sir Michael Beetham. Reg, in particular, has proved to be an excellent second source of information and has always provided me with material and information in a most timely manner.

There are many other former members of Bomber Command, far too many to mention them all, who have helped me with their stories and photographs over the years; my thanks to them all. I would also like to thank the staff at the Air Historical Branch at Bentley Priory, in particular Graham Day and Mary Hudson for their help and cooperation over so many years. Finally from my side, I would like to thank Peter Coles at Pen & Sword. I know how much this book means to Les and without Peters full support it would not have been possible.

Both Les and I would like to thank Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt for allowing the use of facts and figures from their excellent reference work Bomber Command War Diaries; if anyone is not familiar with this work, I fully commend it to you. Les would also like me to record his thanks to Dahlia Hill for typing his diary, Mark Chisnell, Patsy Ledger and Charlie Campbell of the Southampton Branch of the Air Crew Association for their continual encouragement over the years, and David Dowdell, who was Less guiding light with computers. Finally, Les would also like me to record his thanks to his daughter Christine, and to his late wife, Margaret, who always insisted that he should not throw away his diary but sadly died before she could see his story told.

I was still at Stockton Secondary School when a friend of mine told me that some aeroplanes had arrived at nearby Thornaby airfield over the weekend. That was enough for me. On the following Saturday morning I jumped on my bike and rode the 6 miles in record time. I found a hole in the hedge and got a glimpse of the Westland Wapitis of No. 608 (North Riding) Auxiliary Air Force; they were beautiful. It was June 1930 and I was still only twelve years old, but my mind was made up and the Royal Air Force would be the life for me.

Sixteen years later I returned to Thornaby once more. By then I was a flight lieutenant and was coming to the end of my time in the RAF. I was soon to be demobbed but I thoroughly enjoyed my short time back at the airfield where, for me, it had all begun. Much had happened to me in those sixteen years, some of which I would never forget. Although my five years in the RAF did not particularly change the overall pattern of my life (I was in pharmacy before I joined up and returned to my profession at the end of the war), my time in Bomber Command certainly changed my outlook and the memories of my tour of operations during the winter of 1943/4 remain unforgettable. There was never an easy time to complete a tour of operations but that particular winter was a hard one and the Battle of Berlin was a difficult campaign. Ten of my operational sorties were flown against the Big City and the name Berlin became part of my life.

Anyone who survived a tour of operations with Bomber Command will appreciate how lucky we were. The odds were not good, as the list of more than 55,000 men killed or missing confirms. Now, more than sixty years after the end of the Second World War, I am glad that I had the presence of mind to record the events of my life during those difficult years. More recently, I always wondered whether I would get the chance to tell my story; not because I wanted people to know about me but because I wanted people to understand what it was like to serve in Bomber Command during the war. However, after too many unsuccessful attempts I felt about ready to give up. Then my close friend Peter Jacobs offered to help and here we are with this book, and I am so grateful to Peter and to the publishers Pen & Sword for telling this story.

L es Bartletts wartime experience, and indeed his life, would have been so different had he stayed in the world of pharmacy. Having qualified as a pharmacist soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, he was in a reserved occupation and exempt from military duty. The idea behind reserved occupations was that certain jobs and skills across the country were considered too valuable to the overall war effort and a male workforce was held back rather than being called forward for service in the armed forces. However, the increasing number of casualties as the war progressed soon led to the situation being reviewed. By the end of 1940 more than 5 million women were in employment all across Britain. Whilst most of these were employed in occupations such as factory work, working on the land or driving vehicles, the precedent had been set and the door opened for Les. Like many young men, he was keen to join up and do his bit for King and Country and so he volunteered for service as aircrew in the Royal Air Force during 1941.

Les completed his tour of operations as a bomb aimer with No. 50 Sqn Bomber Command during the long, hard winter of 1943/4. Based at RAF Skellingthorpe near Lincoln, he began his tour as a sergeant and ended it as a pilot officer, having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for gallantry along the way. Ten of his operational sorties were flown against Berlin during the bombing offensive that later became known as the Battle of Berlin.

Statistically there was never an easy time to do a tour of operations with Bomber Command. Its offensive against Germany lasted from the opening day of the Second World War and continued without rest until the end of the war in Europe. During that time Bomber Command lost over 55,000 men dead, the majority of whom were killed on operations; taking the number of wounded and prisoners of war into account, the total number of Bomber Command casualties was nearly 74,000. This is extremely high when one considers that 125,000 aircrew served in Bomber Command during the Second World War; in other words, each individual faced a 40 per cent probability that he would be killed or a 60 per cent probability that he would be killed, wounded or taken as a prisoner of war.