Bowman - Voices in flight : the night air war

First Published in Great Britain in 2015 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: 9781783831913
PDF ISBN: 9781473864269
EPUB ISBN: 9781473864252
PRC ISBN: 9781473864245

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.

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 10/12pt Palatino
by GMS Enterprises

Printed and bound in England by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail:
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents

Flight Sergeant Bob Massey-Shaw

Sergeant A. F. C. Smith

Edgar Ray

Peter Bone

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to all the contributors for their words and photographs. I am especially grateful to Christine Edwards, her family and her late father, Sydney Butler DFC. It was Sydney who very kindly allowed me full access to his autobiography I Did It My Way and he endeavoured to recall as many additional details as possible before he passed away shortly after my visits and telephone calls. I am also indebted to Eddie Edwards for his marvellous help in providing information and further reading material on his skipper, Brian Lydon and other crew members on 103 Squadron. And last but not least, my thanks to Peter Bone for his equally enthralling coverage of his operations on 626 Squadron from Wickenby. I found a rare copy of his superb autobiographical account A Square Peg in Norwich Library and he later phoned me to tell me that he was delighted I was making such good use of it! Jack Rude, a veteran American B-17 gunner living in Amarillo, Texas, who every year since 1991 has visited England to lay a wreath at Madingley on Memorial Day, kindly made me aware of the late Joachim Hoehnes story. I am grateful to each and every contributor for their memories and archive material, including some, like the late Don Prutton, Bob Davies and others in 100 Group, who corresponded for many years; all of whom have enriched this book.

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.

Chapter 1

The Big City

Coming back from Cologne on 29 June 1943, a German fighter sprayed our Halifax on the port side. I was the only casualty. I landed in Norwich Hospital with a penetrating gunshot wound in the chest, no one else was hit! I was in hospital for four weeks and got two weeks sick leave. On return I was crewed up with another crew, as my original crew had picked up another navigator. My new crew were being transferred from 76 Squadron to 35 Squadron the next morning, so we were stood down that night, but the rest of the Squadron went to Nuremberg that night. Two crews did not return and one of them was my old crew. I corresponded with their families but, sad to say, they were never heard of again. I, as sole survivor, carried on with the new crew with a Norwegian pilot and Norwegian engineer and completed a number of ops. On 2 December 1943 we were briefed for a do on Berlin, but were shot down before reaching the target. The pilot was killed, but the rest of us parachuted out and were eventually taken prisoner. This was my twentieth trip and was my last as we were prisoners for 15 months in Germany. So when you have time to think, it makes you wonder! I always say that that German bullet on 29 June 1943 saved my life.

Flight Lieutenant J. C. McDougall, navigator, Halifax EX167 TL-C. 1st Lieutenant Gunnar Hoverstad RNAF, the pilot was KIA; Sergeant Arne Storm RNAF the flight engineer, was taken prisoner, as were the other members on the crew. From 18/19 November 1943 (when 440 Lancasters and four Mosquitoes were dispatched) to 24/25 March 1944 Berlin was subjected to 16 major raids, which have gone into history as the Battle of Berlin.

Albert Speer, the Nazi Armaments Minister, was having a conference in his private office in Berlin on Monday 22 November 1943 when the airraid alarm sounded. It was about 7:30 pm he recorded. A large fleet of bombers was reported heading toward Berlin. When the bombers reached Potsdam, I called off the meeting to drive to a nearby flak tower, intending to watch the attack from its platform, as was my wont. But I scarcely reached the top of the tower, when I had to take shelter inside it; in spite of the towers stout concrete walls, heavy hits nearby were shaking it: Injured anti aircraft gunners crowded down the stairs behind me; the air pressure from the exploding bombs had hurled them into the walls. For twenty minutes explosion followed explosion. From above I looked down into the well of the tower, where a closely packed crowd stood in the thickening haze formed by cement dust falling from the walls. When the rain of bombs ceased, I ventured out on the platform again. My nearby Ministry was one gigantic conflagration. I drove over there at once. A few secretaries, looking like Amazons in their steel helmets, were trying to save files even while isolated time bombs went off in the vicinity. In place of my private office I found nothing but a huge bomb crater.

The attack on the Big City was the greatest force sent by Bomber Command to Berlin so far and it was also the last in which Stirlings operated as part of the Main Force. Altogether, 764 aircraft eventually took part in the raid (a Lancaster crashed on take-off) which opened with red TI and skymarker flares and were maintained without a break until the close of the planned period. Six blind markers had marked the target area and release point by zero-hour. The markers and flares were concentrated, although the absence of any photographic evidence made it impossible to assess their accuracy. Crews reports suggested a highly successful attack and this opinion was confirmed by the enemys complaint of a heavy terror raid. A Mosquito over the target at zero+7 reported that two main fire concentrations 7-10 miles apart were reflected on the clouds. This reflection could be seen for 80 miles on the way home. It was not until 20 December 1943 that a photograph of the Big City was obtained revealing damage caused by six major raids of which the operation of 22 November was the second and the most effective raid on Berlin throughout the whole war. Several firestorms were reported, approximately 2,000 people killed (500 in a shelter which received a direct hit and 105 crushed in a panicked rush at a shelter next to the Neukoln gasworks (where a large explosion took place) and 175,000 bombed out. Not least, more than 50,000 soldiers had to be drafted in to help in the following days. Twenty-six aircraft were lost and two Halifaxes collided on return near Barmby Moor, Pocklington killing both crews.