First published in Great Britain in 2016 by PEN & SWORD AVIATION an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire. S70 2AS Copyright © Norman Franks 2016 ISBN 978-1-47384-726-2 The right of Norman Franks 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 by Mac Style Ltd, Bridlington, East Yorkshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI 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 and Sword Select, Pen and Sword Military Classics 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:
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Contents Acknowledgements Introduction
Chapter 1: May to August 1944 Chapter 2: September to December 1944 Chapter 3: January 1945 Chapter 4: February to March 1945 Chapter 5: April to May 1945 Chapter 6: Other Veterans
Acknowledgements Most of the photographs in this book have been collected over many years of research into RAF history and in particular from former aircrew of Bomber Command, many of whom flew in these veteran aircraft. Families of those who have since died also contributed pictures and information. In particular, I should like to thank my good friend Andy Thomas for his help with photos from his massive collection of RAF aircraft. Other images came from the archives of the late Chaz Bowyer and Peter Green. Norman R. Franks January 2016
Introduction At the start of the Second World War RAF Bomber Command had only twin-engined bombers, such as the Hampden, Whitley, Blenheim and the Wellington plus, of course, the single-engined Fairley Battle. All had very limited capabilities, not only in their bomb loads but, more importantly, their range. Nevertheless the bomber crews struggled manfully with these types and did their utmost to deliver their bomb loads to their assigned targets, despite poor navigational and bombing aids. As the war progressed it became obvious that larger bomber types were needed, meaning longer range and larger bomb capacity. This could only be achieved by using aircraft with four engines. The first design was the Short Stirling, followed by the two that were to become the mainstay of Bomber Command, the Handley-Page Halifax and the Avro Lancaster. The latter was a development of the Avro Manchester, designed with two engines. Later, of course, the twin-engined DH Mosquito joined the ranks of long-range bombing aircraft. Of the three ‘heavies’ the Lancaster, the subject of this book, achieved the greatest fame. It carried a crew of seven: pilot, navigator, bomb-aimer, engineer, wireless operator, mid-upper and tail gunners. It had a range of 1,660 miles, carrying 14,000lbs of bombs or 1,040 miles with 20,000lbs. Bomb load make-up varied according to the target, but generally comprised General Purpose High Explosive bombs of 500 or 1,000lbs, and incendiaries. The most common was one 4,000lb bomb, known as the ‘cookie’ and a mix of 4lb or 30lb incendiaries. The object was for the 4,000-pounder to cause massive damage while the incendiaries would ignite and burn anything inflammable within the debris. Against heavy industrial targets they might carry one 8,000lb bomb and six 500lb bombs with either instantaneous or delay fusing. The Lancaster made its first flight in May 1941 and 44 Squadron became the first to re-equip with the type. Bomber Command was of course committed to night bombing although one of the first daylight raids came on 17 April 1942, an attack in the Messerschmitt factory at Augsburg, deep into German territory. With various modifications, a total of 7,366 Lancasters was built during the war and, as will be seen within these pages, only thirty-five achieved 100-plus operations. There
is no mystery why there are so few. It took several months to achieve this, sometimes a year or more, and one has to take into account that every Lancaster needed periodic minor and major servicing, engine changes, and repair of battle damage, and so could be off operations for long periods. Lancasters which did manage to record 100 or more operations lived charmed lives, for each bomber could just as easily fail to return from its very first mission as, say, its fiftieth. It would be nice to know who first began to record operations by painting a bomb symbol on an aircraft’s nose section, or even began to paint some sort of emblem too. One suspects that in the early days a squadron commander might have frowned upon the latter practice but very soon the vast majority of bombers, Lancasters, Stirlings or Halifaxes, began to be adorned with the fanciful whims of either aircrew, or ground crew personnel. Each aircraft, of course, ‘belonged’ to its ground crew. They serviced it, cleaned it, patched up any damage, and each night some crew or other flew it into a dark or darkening sky, and the ground crew would wait anxiously for ‘their’ aircraft to return to its servicing bay. It was also the ground crew who would paint the bombs on the fuselage, and the more they were able to add the better they felt about it. Most bombers would be assigned to a regular crew, but other crews could also be assigned. If their Lancaster was being serviced or being repaired, the crew would be assigned a spare aircraft. They might also be away on leave, meaning another crew would fly it on the next operation. Very few, if any, crews would fly one particular aircraft on every trip of their tour. A tour of operations generally hovered around thirty trips, but this figure was not hard and fast. If a flight or squadron commander felt a crew had had a particularly rough period, he might decide to end that crew’s tour at twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Some crews who, at certain times during the war, were asked if they would do a few more trips, might carry out some thirty-five operations, but again, not all on one Lancaster. There were crews who even volunteered to do a double tour of forty operations. Another problem with this numbers game was that, within the seven-man crew, each member might have flown a different number from the others. A new skipper had generally to fly one or perhaps two trips with an experienced crew before taking his own out over Germany. Therefore, when he had flown thirty most of his crew had only flown twenty-eight. Or perhaps a navigator or bomb aimer might fly a trip or two with another crew when his crew were on rest but this other crew was down a crew member through ill-health or injury. So he would reach his thirty while others of his crew were still in their late twenties. A man who felt he wasn’t going to chance his luck for anyone might elect to leave a crew when he had done his thirty, even though his pals had one or
two more to do. He had every right to do so. Sometimes a death or serious injury would necessitate a replacement on a permanent basis, and that man would be way below the number of trips of the rest, in which case, when the rest reached their thirty, he would need to be a spare body or crewman, completing his tour with one or two other crews who were suddenly short of a man. In the meantime, the ground crew, usually an NCO and two airmen, riggers or fitters, would soldier on with ‘their’ aircraft. As the total of bombs grew into a rather respectable number, they would be even keener to add another painted bomb on the nose. And there would be mistakes. If they had seen their aircraft go off, and return, they might add another bomb even though officially that raid had been aborted. It was not unusual for the ground crew’s tally not to agree with the squadron record keeper’s. The time it took for these high-scoring Lancasters to ‘do the ton’ is clear by knowing that the first to reach that total did not do so until May 1944 – about a year before the war came to an end. Others were well on the way but the end of hostilities did not allow that figure to be reached. Yet others survived many operations but time and everything else shortened their effective lives and they had to be taken off operations. In other words – they were clapped out. So let us look at these thirty-five and at some of the others that achieved a high volume of operational sorties.
Chapter One
May to August 1944 R5868: Queenie/Sugar Two main reasons why Lancaster R5868 is very well known are that she was the first to achieve a hundred operational sorties, and because she is preserved and may be seen at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, north London. She is also most probably the most photographed Lancaster. She was built as a Mark I by Metro Vickers at Trafford Park, Mosley Road, Manchester, and was the twenty-seventh off the production line. Delivered to Avro at Woodford she went through final assembly and testing on 20 June 1942. Just nine days later R5868 was delivered to No. 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, assigned to B Flight and had the code letters OL-Q painted on the fuselage sides. For the next several months the Lancaster became known as ‘Q’ for Queenie. The aircraft was given her own ground crew who would look after her during its time with 83: Sergeants Jim Gill and Harry Taylor, and Leading Aircraftmen Arthur Page and Ron Pollard. This squadron began re-equipping with Lancasters in May 1942 and Queenie’s first crew was captained by an experienced officer, Squadron Leader Ray Hilton DFC. He was about to begin his second tour of operations, his first having covered thirty-four sorties with both 214 and 83 Squadrons. Their first mission together came on the night of 8/9 July, a raid upon Wilhelmshaven. A couple of nights later they went ‘Gardening’, the code word for laying sea mines, off the port of Danzig. In total Hilton flew eighteen operations in R5868, out of a total of thirty-two, showing that fourteen other crews had taken off in her on raids between July and 19 February 1943. By that date Hilton had been promoted to wing commander and received a Bar to his DFC. An unusual fact is that Ray Hilton had complained that Queenie always seemed to fly one wing low and, despite several attempts by the ground crew, they never succeeded in rectifying it. No. 83 Squadron had become part of the Command’s Pathfinder Force in 1942, tasked with not only bombing, but marking the targets with a variety of target indicators (TIs). PFF squadrons also had crews who would linger over the target to ensure it had
been marked correctly, and Queenie did this on occasion. The next regular skipper was Flying Officer F. J. Garvey in February 1943. Rick Garvey, a Canadian, went on to complete nineteen operations in Queenie. He was the first RAF pilot to complete sixty operations, and earned both the DSO and DFC. Sadly he was later killed in a flying accident. Ray Hilton also completed over sixty bomber operations and was lost over Berlin in November 1943, whilst commanding 83 Squadron. Rick Garvey flew R5868 for the last time with 83 on 14/15 August 1943, a trip to Milan, Italy, which brought the bomber’s total to sixty-eight. Having completed a total of 368 operational flying hours, a major overhaul was needed. Once this was completed she was assigned to another squadron, No. 467 RAAF. Despite the refit, R5868 had a few problems which were sorted out before operations commenced with the new squadron on 27 September to Hanover. On the next raid she was piloted by Pilot Officer N. M. McClelland, who then became a more regular skipper. The man in charge of the ground crew was Ted Willoughby. With 467 Queenie became S for Sugar with the codes of PO-S. Sugar also flew a single operation with 207 Squadron, that unit obviously being short of aircraft. That winter saw the Battle of Berlin, Sugar going to the Big City five times between November 1943 and February 1944, but on the night of 26/27 November she collided with a Lancaster of 61 Squadron. Flying Officer J. A. Colpus was at the controls and, despite severe damage, losing five feet from one wing, got her home, for which he received the DFC. However, Sugar was out of action for repairs till February. Once back on operations, Pilot Officer J. W. McManus became the regular skipper, taking her on nine raids and, on completing his tour, he was awarded the DFC. By this time, R5868’s total of missions was nearing the 100 mark. Ted Willoughby had read Hermann Göring’s famous boast about British aircraft flying over Germany and got permission to update the bomb log, under which was painted: ‘NO ENEMY PLANE WILL FLY OVER REICH TERRITORY’. Sugar was now showing signs of her age and had another service at the end of March but, rejuvenated, she reached her hundredth operation on 11/12 May, with Pilot Officer T. N. Scholefield RAAF at the controls. Her next trip was during the D-Day landings. Sorties were mounted during June and July but on 20 July damage from an attacking night-fighter meant another major service and repair. She was sent off to the Repair Inspection Works (RIW) in Lincolnshire where she was stripped right down and reassembled. At that stage the bomb tally recorded 114. Back with the squadron in mid-December there were four more raids and then into
1945 almost anyone could be assigned to fly her. In fact, during the remainder of her war, Sugar had no regular skipper. As the war reached its end Sugar flew five EXODUS missions, to either Brussels or Juvincourt to fly home released British prisoners of war. Her total operations? It is not clear. Although the hundredth mission has been recorded as being 11/12 May 1944, later evidence appears to show this had only been the ninety-first. Part of the mix-up was that when Sugar left for its major service, a replacement Lancaster was marked S and whoever went back over the records failed to notice the change of aircraft serial. If, therefore, ninety-one is closer to the truth, then its last operation on 20 July 1944 was in fact its 106th. Therefore, rather than the accepted 137 operations, the actual figure was around 132. Sugar left 467 in August and was ‘struck off charge’ as an ‘exhibition aircraft’ in February 1956. In 1959 she became what the RAF call a gate guard, at RAF Scampton. An administration squadron leader at Scampton was organising a visit by the Queen Mother who was presenting a Standard to 617 Squadron on 14 May 1959 and managed to get R5866 moved there for the occasion. Possession being nine tenths of the law, Scampton managed to retain her. This same officer managed to persuade the RCAF to fly over its one flying Lancaster for a fly-past, a visit repeated in 2014. R5868 was moved to the RAF Museum in March 1972, following a refurbishment, and was repainted in 467 Squadron’s markings.
ED588: George This was an Avro-built Mark III machine assigned to 97 Squadron at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, on 8 February 1943, but a problem had her sent away, then returned in March, 97 having moved to Woodall Spa. Coded OF-E, her first operational sortie is recorded as 26 March, Sergeant K. Brown taking her to Duisburg. After taking part in nine sorties, seven with Sergeant Brown, ED588 went to 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire, in mid-April, and was re-coded VN-G for George, in which guise the first mission was to Essen in the Ruhr Valley, Sergeant D. A. Duncan becoming the regular skipper until the end of August. Duncan went on to complete his tour, was commissioned, and received the DFC. He had flown fifteen sorties in George. During the winter of 1943-44, Flying Officer F. B. M. Wilson flew George on several occasions, including three trips to Berlin. George went to Berlin fifteen times during the Battle of Berlin. In February George was assigned to Flight Sergeant E. Berry, flying most of his tour with it, twenty-three at least, while being commissioned and awarded the DFC. Flying Officer W. T. Enoch then took it over; he also completed twenty-three trips of his tour as the skipper.
Bill Enoch went on leave in late August 1944 but on the very next operation (29/30 August), George failed to return from a trip to Königsberg, with Flying Officer A. H. Carver in the pilot’s seat. George had flown on 128 operations, with over 1,051 flying hours. Shot down by a night-fighter, it had crashed at Höjalen, in southern Sweden, still carrying its full bomb load. In all, 50 Squadron lost four Lancasters this night, with just one crew member surviving as a prisoner out of the twenty-eight men involved. Fifteen Lancasters were lost on this operation, German night-fighters scoring heavily. There had been a twenty-minute delay in opening the attack due to cloud, the bomber force circling nearby until the Master Bomber ordered them in. This no doubt allowed the nightfighters to reach the area in good numbers. The hundredth operation is officially recorded as being flown on 4/5 July, to bomb the underground V1 storage facility at St Leu d’Esserent, with Enoch in command. He completed his tour of operations and was awarded the DFC.
ED860: Nuts/Nan This was another A. V. Roe, Manchester-built Mark III, produced in early 1943 and assigned to No. 156 Squadron at RAF Worboys, Huntingdonshire. Once on the squadron ED860 was given the code letters GT-N. Known as N for Nuts on 156, she later became N for Nan. No. 156 Squadron was part of the Pathfinder Force. The first operation was to Stettin, on 20/21 April with Canadian Pilot Officer J. M. Horan in command. He only flew two operations in her, then several other pilots flew her until Flight Lieutenant R. E. Young took over in mid-June. He flew nine or ten missions before his tour ended and would go on to receive the DSO and DFC for his wartime flying, although he ended up a prisoner on a Berlin raid on 28/39 January 1944, whilst commanding No. 7 Squadron. In mid-August 1943, ED860 was moved to 61 Squadron, at Syerston, Nottinghamshire, becoming QR-N, and flying her first sortie on 23/24 June – to Berlin. In late August, Sergeant, then Pilot Officer, Ernest Willsher became the regular skipper, their first trip being again to Berlin. After six operations, Flying Officers H. N. Scott and B. C. Fitch shared the honour of the Lancaster’s company, Fitch recording eleven operations and Scott, before Pilot Officer A. E. Stone and crew became the regular operators, during twenty-two missions to mid-May. Bernard Fitch, Henley Scott RCAF and Arthur Stone all received the DFC. Towards the end of May, Flying Officer B. S. Turner began flying ED860 on a regular basis and his fourth operation with it turned out to be the Lancaster’s hundredth trip. The target was a V1 site at Prouville. In all, Bernard Turner completed ten sorties plus at
least two more that were abandoned by the Master Bomber. He, too, went on to receive the DFC. Flying Officer N. E. Hoad took Nan over for a raid on Secqueville on 7/8 August, and flew her on five other missions before the end of the month. Hoad recalled that when he took over ED860 she was ‘well past its sell-by date’, but being a new boy on the squadron was not in a position to pick and choose. Norman Hoad’s last trip in her was on 29/30 August, to Königsberg, where, it will be recalled, ED588 had been lost. Approaching, and over, the target night-fighters were in evidence and he was constantly told to ‘corkscrew’ by his gunners. Nan was hit several times, mostly by fighters but perhaps by some AA fire too. The worst damage was to the starboard wing root and the starboard main fuel tank. However, he got her home but she became Category-3 damage. This usually meant being repairable on site but might require assistance from a repair and salvage unit or civilian repair organisation. She remained unserviceable until October. On the 18th she flew one more mission and was then deemed too clapped out for any more. She did not survive long, being ‘struck off charge’ and scrapped on 4 November. Norman Hoad recorded in his log book that the missions he had flown in her numbered 118, 119,120, 121, 124 and 129; therefore that final mission, to Flushing with Flying Officer L. A. Pearce and crew, was her 130th. She had flown 1,031 hours.
ED888: Mother/Mike Squared Another Manchester-built Mark III, ED888 rolled off the production line in early 1943 and by 20 April had arrived at 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds, Lincolnshire, assigned to B Flight. The code letters PM-M were painted upon her fuselage sides and she became known as M for Mother. Her first operation was to Dortmund on 4/5 May, with Warrant Officer N. R. Ross in command. The next raid, to Duisburg on 13 May, Sergeant D. W. Rudge was in the hotseat, and would continue to be so for another twenty-three operations, only sharing the odd mission with a few others during this period which ended on 23/24 August, a trip to Berlin. There was no regular skipper until Flying Officer G. S. Morgan took her over, his first trip being to Hanover on 18 October. He flew her on seven missions before the end of November, at which time Gomer ‘Taf’ Morgan and the rest of his flight were hived off to help form a new unit, 576 Squadron, on the same station. Morgan had already taken part in three trips to Berlin, during the Battle of Berlin, and continued for a further six with his new unit. He received the DFC. From mid-January 1944 a variety of crews took Mother to Germany and it was not
until April that Pilot Officer J. S. Griffiths became her regular custodian. James Griffiths operated twenty-nine times in ED888, including the night of D-Day, bombing the Vire marshalling yards. By this time ED888 had become known as M for Mike, and because a small 2 had been marked beside the letter, it was known as ‘Mike Squared’ – as well as ‘Mother of them All’. His tour completed, he received the DFC. On his final trip, on 14/15 July, his gunners shot down a Ju88 night-fighter. They had downed an Me410 on 24/25 June. By this time ED888 was pretty much clapped out, and, when Griffiths and crew were on leave, nobody else would fly her. Pilot Officer J. B. Bell, however, took over from Jim Griffiths on 20 July, flying a straight thirty operations between then and 19/20 October, some being daylight trips with fighter escort. In point of fact, Bell took ED888 on her hundredth sortie on 20 July, a raid to Wizernes. Jim Bell also received the DFC. After 133 operations, ED888 returned to 103 Squadron, coded PN-M². There were now 131 bombs painted beneath the cockpit area and she completed a further nine before her last trip, on Christmas Eve, a raid on Cologne, with Flight Lieutenant S. L. Saxe RCAF in command. Those last nine were all flown by different pilots, suggesting her disposition had not improved any. Mike became Cat.Ac, i.e. repaired on site but by another unit or contractor, on 26 January 1945, so went back to Avro for an overhaul and returned to 103 afterwards. However, she saw no further operational service and ended up at No. 10 Maintenance Unit in August. She was reduced to scrap in early 1947.
EE176: Mickey the Moocher A Lancaster III that also came off the Avro production line in early 1943 and went to No. 7 Squadron, but within ten days was transferred to 97 Squadron at Bourn, Cambridgeshire, coded OF-N, but later changed to OF-O. Her first operation was to Cologne on 3/4 July 1943, with Flight Lieutenant J. H. J. Sauvage DFC (later awarded a Bar), but her first regular skipper was Flying Officer D. McN. Moodie RCAF, who took her on seven trips until lost in another aircraft in October. By mid-September she had accomplished fifteen operations, including the famous attack on the German rocket establishment at Peenemünde in August, and was then moved to fly with 61 Squadron at Syerston, where she became QR-M. Ordinarily, aircraft marked M would be known either as Mother or Mike, but one of her crew began calling her Mickey. Flight Lieutenant J. E. R. Williams then took over from 4/5 October, a raid on Frankfurt, and in total did a dozen operations including several to Berlin that winter. A
variety of skippers flew her during spring 1944, but Squadron Leader S. J. Beard, the flight commander, took her out on at least a dozen raids before Pilot Officer D. E. White RCAF became the more regular pilot. Sidney Beard had already been awarded the DFC with 61 in 1942 and would receive a Bar in 1944. Delbert White also received the DFC, but for a raid on a V1 site at Beauvoir on 29 June. On the way to the target the hydraulic line burst, but despite severe problems the crew carried on and bombed successfully. White flew twenty-nine missions in EE176. After this, the Lancaster became the mount of whoever needed an aircraft during that summer. One pilot to fly her was Flying Officer Norman Hoad – one operation – who had flown ED860 (see above). Flying Officer F. A. Mouritz RAAF flew EE176 on her last five sorties in October and November, although the last, to Gravenhorst on 6 November, had to be aborted due to ground smoke obscuring the target. Taken off operations, EE176 was sent to No. 1653 Heavy Conversion Unit at Chedburgh in December where she was marked H4-X but by April 1945 had become Cat-Ac. Total operations flown by EE176, which had now become known as ‘Mickey the Moocher’, a play on a popular tune ‘Millie the Moocher’ are not certain. Again Norman Hoad had recorded in his log book that his one trip in her was her 110th. Counting from there makes the total 118 if her last aborted trip is discounted. A picture of her is said to show 115 bombs. Mouritz also noted in his log book that an aborted trip to Bremen on 11 November was carried out before being called off, and he had dropped his bombs before this order was received. Perhaps the 118 became 128 at some stage, but whatever the actual total, it was at least 118.
Avro Lancaster Mark I R5868, OL-Q 83 Squadron, May 1943. The artwork depicts a red devil thumbing its nose amidst flames; the written phrase is ‘Devils of the Air’. The bomb tally records fiftyeight operations, although the last eight have had to be painted more to the right to avoid the devil’s tail. Note the small Q beneath the front turret. The crew are: Rick Garvey in the cockpit, the others, left to right: Sgt W. L. ‘Bill’ Webster (F/engr), Sgt Len L. J. Thomas (M/upr gnr), Sgt C. E. Turner (W/Op), Sgt S. ‘Jimmy’ Sukthanker (Nav), Sgt Jack A. Cooke (B/aimer) and Sgt Hugh A. Ashton (R/gnr).
Garvey with crew and ground personnel in front of ‘Queenie’, May 1943. Rick Garvey is on the left. Cooke is 5th from left, Turner (7th), Sukthanker (8th), Webster, Thomas and Ashton (9th-11th). Note the small windows along the fuselage side; these were blocked out on later Lancasters. R5868 having a major service and refit in late 1944. The engines and front section forward of the wings have been taken off. Note the wing support trestles. The OL-Q codes are easily seen and it seems likely that this was around early August 1943.
Neale McClelland and crew with R5868 in November 1943, having now moved to 467 Squadron. The devil insignia and the original bomb tally have been painted out and a naked lady with bomb put on instead. The nose letter has also gone, being replaced with an S. A new bomb tally has been started, showing ten symbols. Standing l to r: P/O Wally Booth (N), Sgt Steve G. W. Bethell (M/upr gnr), Sgt Ken L. Warden (R/gnr), Sgt Albert W. Martin (F/engr); Front: PO H. ‘Bill’ Griffin (B/aimer), McClelland and Sgt Stan Bray (W/Op). The bomb tally was not carried on until ‘Sugar’ was nearing her hundredth trip.
Sugar preparing for a raid on the marshalling yards at Lille on 10 May 1944. The large drum-like bomb is the 4,000lb cookie. Note the S now appears on the nose. As the hundredth operation approached it was decided to update the nose art because of the expected press interest, so the naked lady was painted out and a new and complete bomb log put on.
Sugar surrounded by ground crews preparing her for the hundredth operation. Ted Willoughby is chalking on the ‘100 not out’, while Air Commodore Allan Hesketh CBE DFC, OC 53 Base, which included RAF Waddington, looks on. The recently marked bomb tally shows eight rows of twelve plus three more to total ninety-nine. Göring’s boast had now been painted on the aircraft with a DSO and three DFC ribbons. Sometimes these fictitious ribbons were ‘awarded’ to the aircraft, but sometimes they reflected awards to various crew members flying in it. This photograph was taken on 12 May 1944, believing the crew had just completed the hundredth trip for R5868 although in fact it was only ninety-one. L to r: F/O T. N. Scholefield RAAF, F/O I. Hamilton (Nav), F/Sgt R. T. Hillas (W/Op), F/Sgt F. E. Hughes (B/aimer), Sgt R. H. Burgess (F/engr), F/Sgt K. E. Stewart (R/gnr) and Sgt J. D. Wells (M/upr gnr).
Air and ground crews celebrate for the press on 12 May 1944. The bomb tally shows 100, although she still had nine more trips before reaching that total. Scholefield and crew raise their tankards. Tom Scholefield later flew with 97 Squadron, being awarded the DFC and Bar by the war’s end.
Lancasters on a daylight operation. Sugar is at the centre rear, dwarfed by JO-A (ED949) of 463 Squadron RAAF. R5868 undergoing another major service and once again the front cockpit section has been detached. The bomb tally shows the first so-called hundred plus a further fourteen. The work took from 3 August to 3 December 1944 and was undertaken by No.16 Party at RIW (Repaired in Works) under Cpl H. Smith (2nd from the right) and consisting of: Cpl Cox, LACs Symonds, Pursglove, McCombie, Price and AC2 Mitchell.
Not looking much like a Lancaster, R5868 during her major service, minus engines and cockpit area. One of R5868’s last operations was to Pilsen on 16/17 April 1945. The all-NCO crew who flew this mission in her was captained by Flying Officer R. A. ‘Bob’ Swift (centre).
Sugar, now sporting 125 bombs, as well as a large S on the tail fin (for quick identification during daylight sorties), taken at Kitzingen, north of Nuremburg on 7 May 1945. The squadron CO, Wing Commander I. H. A. Hay RAAF DFC, had flown her there to organise EXODUS operations, for flying released prisoners of war back from Germany to Britain.
R5868 as Gate Guardian at RAF Scampton in the 1970s, repainted in 83 Squadron codes of OL-Q.
Flight Lieutenant E. Berry DFC. Ernest Berry RAAF began flying ED588 in February 1944 as a sergeant-pilot, being commissioned halfway through his tour of operations. In total he flew her on twenty-four trips. On his last sortie he took with him Flying Officer H. W. T. Enoch as second pilot, to ‘show him the ropes’. After this, Howell Enoch took over ED588.
Ernie Berry, with air and ground crew, taken at the end of his tour of operations, June 1944.
Lancaster ED588 G for George, in April 1944, with seventy-two bomb symbols marked. There are no personal identity marks or painting. Note the G marked on the wheel cover and the starter trolley by the same wheel.
Howell Enoch in the cockpit of ED588 while his crew pose for a picture. George had now notched up 116 operations. Note the crew mascot of a teddy bear in RAF uniform. The man holding the bear is, appropriately, named as Flying Officer Andy George, the navigator, who, like Enoch, would be awarded the DFC.
Flight Lieutenant H. W. T. Enoch DFC (on the left) survived the war and was with 100 Squadron afterwards, operating Avro Lincoln bombers. On the right is Squadron Leader (later Group Captain) D. B. Bretherton DFC, also with 100 Squadron on Lincolns. He had flown Lancasters with 106 Squadron during the war.
ED588 (VN-G) in the background, and ED860 (QR-N) in front, both veterans being waved off by ground personnel in August 1944. Both 50 and 61 Squadrons were flying from RAF Skellingthorpe at this time.
G for George, now with 125 painted bomb symbols, 19 August 1944. The Lancaster failed to return from Königsberg on the night of 29/30 August, flying its 128th mission. Flying Officer A. H. Carver and his crew all perished.
Among the first crews to fly ED860 was that of F/Lt R. E. Young, later W/Cdr DSO DFC. This picture shows him and some of his crew at one stage: W/Cdr R. E. Young, F/Lt T. Burger (DFC) (Nav), W/O T. Evans (DFC) (B/aimer), Sgt A. G. Ryder (W/Op), -?-, F/Sgt J. W. Boynton (R/gnr), Sgt I. T. Taylor (F/engr). Young and Ryder became prisoners after being shot down on 28/29 January 1944, while Burger and three others were killed. Tom Evans flew forty-six operations and was awarded the DFC but, as his wife was about to have their first child, decided to stop flying at Christmas 1943, so avoided being shot down a month later. Bernard Fitch and his crew flew their first operation in ED860, QR-N, laying sea mines off Texel, on 2/3 September 1943. In front of another 61 Squadron Lancaster (QR-S) they are: P/O A. Lyons (B/aimer), Sgt Len Whitehead (M/upr gnr), Sgt Les Cromerty (R/gnr), Fitch, F/O Syd Jennings (Nav), Sgt Johnnie Taylor (F/engr) and Sgt C. Kershaw (W/Op). Fitch and Jennings both received the DFC. Fitch flew ‘Nan’ on seven trips.
ED860’s hundredth operation came in June 1944, the ground crew posing for a picture showing the hundredth bomb symbol going up. From the discolouration behind these bombs it looks as if they were all freshly painted on for the occasion. Use of the engine scaffolding was essential for this job.
Air and ground crew pose for the camera on the occasion of the hundredth operation. Flying Officer B. S. Turner, the pilot at this period, stands eighth from the left. Basil Turner later received the DFC.
Another posed publicity shot with armourers putting the tail fins on the bomb load, while Norman Hoad (in the cockpit) and his crew watch. In real life the bombs would already be aboard by the time the parachute-holding air crew arrived. The six men watching are: F/O K. W. Ball (Nav), F/O W. H. Pullin (B/aimer), Sgts C. V. Embury (R/gnr), N. England (M/upr gnr), C. P Boyd (W/Op) and C. S. Webb (F/engr). Neither Boyd nor Webb survived the war.
A close-up of the bomb tally with 118 on show. Two swastika emblems denote two German nightfighters claimed as shot down. Norman Hoad is in the cockpit.
A framed record of ED860’s trips, noting 130 operations between 7 April 1943 and 30 October 1944. Although it says it is the holder of Bomber Command’s record, that record was later broken.
Sergeant D. W. Rudge and crew were ED888’s first regular crew. Seen here are Denny Rudge, Sgts Charlie Baird (M/upr gnr), T. W. ‘Chiefy’ Catton (F/engr), J. D. ‘Jack’ Fitzpatrick (R/gnr), H. Trevor
Greenwood (W/Op), George Lancaster (Nav) and Sid Robinson (B/aimer). Rudge was later commissioned and awarded the DFC.
Lancaster ED888 had flown with 103 Squadron, completing fifty-one trips as M for Mother, between May and November 1943, and before going to 576 Squadron where it became M² – Mike Squared. Pilot Officer J. B. Bell and crew flew the hundredth mission on 20 July 1944, a raid on Wizernes. It was their first trip with her. Jimmy Bell with his crew and ground crew pose for the picture, with 100 bombs, plus two swastikas for German aircraft shot down, and the DFC ribbon.
One of ED888’s fitters, Bert Booth, sits on a 4,000lb cookie, with Jack Kirkpatrick, Rudge’s rear gunner, from Sydney, Australia.
Sergeant R. C. ‘Bob’ Shilling, rear gunner in Flying Officer G. S. Morgan’s crew, gives his turret a final polish. It was always a lonely ride sitting in the rear turret at the back of the aircraft. Note the chute where spent shell cases were ejected.
Two trips later ED888 is awarded the DSO. The picture shows Group Captain W. C. Sheen painting on the DSO ribbon, while Jim Bell and Jimmy Griffiths, who had flown many operations with her, including the ninety-ninth, look on. Both pilots received the DFC. With total operations having reached 140 by Christmas, 1944, the DFC ribbon has a rosette painted on by the Station Commander of Elsham Wolds, Group Captain Hugh Constantine DSO, to denote ED888 being awarded a Bar. Bombs were in yellow, with white for day trips; the swastikas were also in yellow.
Mike-Squared flying over Elsham Wolds with full bomb tally, victory marks and medal ribbons in full view, as well as the M² marking astern of the fuselage roundel. With 140 operational sorties flown she held the record for an Avro Lancaster of Bomber Command. Flight Lieutenant N. D. Webb RNZAF and crew October 1943. L to r front: F/Sgt C. J. ‘Bert’ Collingwood (W/Op), Norman Webb, Sgt Roy Westcott (R/gnr); rear: Sgt Jack Bailey (B/aimer), Sgt John Brown (F/engr), Sgt Pat Watkins (Nav), F/Sgt L. J. ‘Bluey’ Purcell RAAF (M/upr gnr). They only flew EE176 twice. Webb went on to receive the DFC, while Bailey and Collingwood were awarded DFMs. Brown was killed in February 1944, the night this crew were shot down by a night-fighter. The other six crew members became prisoners of war.
The Mickey Mouse emblem and bomb tally was not started immediately but by the time eighty-three bombs had been painted on in July 1944, she had her full plumage and moved from 97 to 61 Squadron. Mickey, of course, is pulling a bomb along on a trolley, with ‘Mickey the Moocher’ written underneath. Written on the flag in front of him is ‘3 Reich’ (and) ‘Berlin’. As EE176 went to Berlin on at least seventeen occasions during the winter of 1943-44 perhaps this gave rise to the flag. Aircraft code was QR-M in red, edged yellow. Mickey’s body was black, with a white face. Shorts, shoes and gloves were red. His name was in red too; the signpost and bomb trolley were white.
Mickey with ninety-seven bombs up and with air and ground crew in the picture. Comparing this image with the previous one, it is curious that, rather than painting the bombs in straight rows of ten, as previously, they continued in fives and in this photo the fives have started to be increased to ten.
Norman E. Hoad and crew: F/O K. O. W. ‘Bill’ Ball (Nav), Sgt G. V. ‘Moosh’ Embury (R/gnr), F/O W. H. ‘Bill’ Pullin (B/aimer), Sgt N. England (M/upr gnr), Sgt Wilson (W/Op), Sgt C. S. ‘Lucky’ Webb (F/engr); In front: Sgt C. P. ‘Hoppy’ Boyd (W/Op) and P/O Hoad. Norman Hoad flew operations in two veteran Lancasters, EE176 and ED860.
EE176 with 119 bombs painted on and, once again, the new rows are in fives rather than tens. Frank Moritz and crew are in front, l to r: Sgt A. Jim Leith (F/engr), Sgt Den C. Cluett (R/gnr), F/O Pete M. R. Smith (B/aimer), Mouritz, Sgt Arthur G. B. Bass (M/upr gnr), F/Sgt Laurie A. Cooper (Nav) and Sgt Davy Bloomfield (W/Op). Mickey after transfer to No. 1653 Heavy Conversion Unit, at RAF Chedburgh, Suffolk, at the end of 1944. She still carries her nose art and bomb tally, but the code letters have been changed to H4-X.
Chapter Two
September to December 1944 The five Lancasters referred to in Part One all achieved one hundred operations during the period May to August 1944. The following eight bombers all reached their hundreth during September to December 1944.
EE139: Phantom of the Ruhr This Mark III was assigned to 100 Squadron at Waltham, near Grimsby, Lincolnshire, on 31 May 1943, and was coded HW-A, but quickly became HW-R for Roger. EE139 was taken over by Sergeant J. R. Clark and crew, who were just starting their tour, and who took her on their first raid to Düsseldorf on the night of 12/13 June. Once operations began, Sergeant Harold ‘Ben’ Bennet, Ron Clark’s flight engineer, came up with a design for a piece of nose art for their aircraft, a skeleton in a hooded robe, emerging from a cloud and hurling a bomb downwards while holding another in readiness. This white-and-grey image appeared quite eerie and the name ‘Phantom of the Ruhr’ was painted in an arc above it. Apparently Bennett had conceived the idea as a form of revenge for all the bombing attacks he had endured as a ground engineer in Fighter Command during 1940. Clark and crew flew ‘Phantom’ on twenty-four trips, (twenty-three plus a half to Hamburg which was later upgraded) and came close to ‘buying it’ over Mannheim on 23/24 September when they were coned by searchlights and hit by flak which damaged the starboard elevator. Another shell passed up through the bomb-bay and out through the top of the fuselage, without exploding, narrowly missing the wireless operator, Sergeant L .J. ‘Lish’ Easby. The aircraft went into a dive while still held in the blinding lights and was then attacked by a night-fighter, but Ron and Ben overcame the headlong plunge and gradually pulled the Lanc out into level flight. Both men were decorated, Ron, now commissioned, with the DFC, Ben Bennet the DFM. Towards the end of 1943, ‘Phantom’, having achieved twenty-nine operations, was moved to 550 Squadron and coded BQ-B for Baker, but retained her nose art. She was
involved in the Battle of Berlin that winter, and went to the German capital on fifteen occasions. The new regular skipper was Sergeant V. J. Bouchard RCAF, who flew EE139 on thirteen raids before completing his tour, being commissioned and awarded the DFC. Two of his crew also received DFCs. ‘Phantom’ had a major service in mid-March 1944 and once back on the squadron Flight Sergeant T. M. Shervington took her out on thirteen operations, but he failed to return from another trip on the night of D-Day. ‘Phantom’ had not been part of D-Day, having been damaged by a night-fighter on 3/4 June. On her bomb run, the mid-upper gunner opened fire on an attacking FW190 whilst the rear gunner fired at a Messerschmitt 110. ‘Phantom’s’ new regular pilot was Pilot Officer J. C. Hutcheson. They were operating against V1 sites in France and supporting the Allied armies after the landings. On 5 September he and his crew flew EE139’s hundredth mission, against le Havre. Joe Hutcheson was a Scot from Troon, Ayrshire. No doubt he got on well with his ground crew for they too were from Scotland: Sergeant Cuthbertson, from Kilmarnock, fitter LAC R. Taylor from Dollar, near Stirling, and rigger LAC J. Birney from Glasgow. Probably just as well, for Joe not only brought the aircraft back damaged on 3/4 June but twice returned on three engines during July. Tour expired, Hutcheson received the DFC, and a DFC ribbon was also painted on ‘Phantom’s’ nose. Flight Lieutenant R. P. Stone flew her once, on 3 August, again to le Havre. Robert Stone also flew another veteran Lanc, ED905. As he took off the G-box burnt out, filling the cockpit with smoke. (This was a radio navigational aid that measured the time delay between two radio signals to produce a ‘fix’.) This so unnerved his navigator that he abandoned his compartment and refused to take any further part in the Second World War. Handing over the controls to his flight engineer, who had some knowledge of flying, Stone worked on the navigation but found no work had been done since take off, so he decided to fly straight back to England, with his bombs. Again a variety of different pilots flew EE139 on her final missions, no doubt because she was starting to become unreliable and a bit ‘dodgy’. When someone told a new flight commander about how dangerous she had become, he took her out on what was to be her final operation, a raid on the Aschaffenburg marshalling yards on 21 November. Squadron Leader Willie Caldow AFC DFM did not have a happy trip and, upon his return, recommended the aircraft be taken off operational flying. It had been her 121st trip. The ‘Phantom’ was sent to No. 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Lindholme, but in February 1945 she went to 58 MU and upon her return in early June became Cat AC
in January 1946. She was ‘struck off charge’ in February.
ED611: Uncle Joe This Mark III arrived at No. 5 Maintenance Unit on 14 February 1943 and was assigned to No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire on 5 April, although the squadron moved to Dunholme Lodge, north of Lincoln, in May. She was coded KM-U for Uncle. At some stage she became known as ‘Uncle Joe’, after the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, but whether this was prior to the move to 463 Squadron RAAF, when her code became JO-U, is not known for certain. Also at some stage, the face of Stalin was painted on the nose, superimposed on a red star, with the name ‘Uncle Joe’ underneath. On her first few missions she had no particular pilot, the first trip being a long haul to La Spezia, over ten hours, with Flying Officer D. McN. Moodie RCAF. Sergeant D. R. Aldridge became the regular skipper from early May and he and his crew made fourteen raids. They had to abort one, in July, due to trouble with both starboard outer and port inner engines, which had to be closed down; this also put the rear turret out of action. Then, during the famous Peenemünde raid on 17/18 August, Uncle was badly damaged by AA fire and by the attentions of an Me210 night-fighter. However, she was back again in October. In November she became the regular mount for Pilot Officer R. M. Higgs and crew. They made nine trips, having one abort due to engine trouble on the first operation of 1944 (14 January) and two trips later the gunners had to fight off two Messerschmitt 109 night-fighters, one of which was seen going down pouring smoke. At the end of January, Uncle moved to 463 Squadron RAAF, also at Waddington, and was re-coded. Marked on the nose ahead of Stalin’s portrait were forty-three bomb symbols but her new squadron began marking raids with red stars on the other side of the portrait. Chiefy Turrell was in charge of the ground crew. A variety of crews flew her, including the CO, Wing Commander D. R. ‘Rollo’ Kingsford-Smith DSO DFC, nephew of Sir Charles, the famous Australian aviator. Pilot Officer N. W. Sanders flew her on several operations from April to August. On the night of 8/9 June he had a tyre burst on take-off but continued to the target. Over the target they made three runs to hit the rail network they were going for, and were hit by flak, but got back and landed safely. On the night of D-Day senior officers from No. 5 Group HQ decided they wanted to be part of the action, so Wing Commander G. G. Petty DSO DFC assembled a crew of one squadron leader, two flight lieutenants, two more junior officers and a flight
sergeant. George Petty would fly another unofficial mission in R5868 on 20 July 1944, one not recorded in Sugar’s flight log, on which the aircraft was damaged by a nightfighter. Flight Sergeant A. G. Stutter lost the starboard-outer engine over Brest on 14 August, then lost the port-outer on the return journey. Uncle was now nearing its hundredth operation, the honour possibly going to Pilot Officer T. A. Perry on 11/12 September, a raid on Darmstadt. It is not known for certain if this was the date, but a count from the squadron records seems to indicate this was about right. At the end of September Uncle went off for a major refit, not returning until 15 December. Between then and early February she made nine more raids, the last being to Pölitz on the 8th/9th. Flying Officer M. S. Wickes was in command, his fifth in Uncle, but they were attacked by a Ju88. Despite claiming the Ju88 shot down, the Lancaster was badly damaged but Milton Wickes RAAF got her home. It appears she was damaged by Feldwebel Egon Engling of 12./NJG3. For this operation, Wickes received the DFC. Damage to Uncle included the port-inner engine knocked out, fuselage and tailplane damaged, hydraulics rendered useless and one port fuel tank set on fire. With flames coming from the wing, Wickes continued over the target and bombed before the flames subsided. With the loss of petrol, the navigator brought them out over Denmark and they only just reached RAF Carnaby. Subject to serious repairs at RIW Uncle eventually ended up at West Freugh as a hack aircraft with the Bombing Trials Unit until finally ‘struck off charge’ in June 1947. She was credited with 115 operations and replaced on 463 by another Lancaster, RF141, also named ‘Uncle Joe’, with a similar portrait of Stalin on the nose.
W4964: Johnny Walker W4964 was a Mark I Lancaster that left the Avro factory on 12 April 1943 and after a short period at an MU, went to No. 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney, Lincolnshire. With the squadron codes of WS and an individual letter J for Johnny, she soon became associated with Johnny Walker whisky. A painting of the distillery’s well-known dandy, striding out with top hat, cane and red coat, with the company motto of ‘Still going Strong’, was emblazoned on the nose and a long line of bomb symbols began to appear behind him. W4964’s first operation was to Stettin on 20/21 April in the hands of Warrant Officer W. E. Wood. Wood did another trip in her on 13/14 May, her fourth operation, then Sergeant T. H. Gill began flying her, but only on four occasions. There were a few hairy trips in those first weeks. Gill was hit over the target on 11 June, lost his hydraulics and had to fly home with the bomb doors hanging open. The very next night the 4,000lb
cookie would not release over Bochum but eventually it was loosened and let go over Münster. Gill and crew were lost in another bomber in early September. She then seemed to be shared by Flight Sergeant G. Ward and Pilot Officer C. P. Newton as the winter drew on, Charles Newton heading the list with twenty-five trips until mid-January 1944, including twelve to Berlin, six by Newton. He received the DFC and most of his crew received DFMs. Pilot Officer P. E. Plowright then achieved eighteen sorties, taking Pilot Officer J. D. Melrose along as second pilot on his last. Melrose then took over W4964 from May and, interspersed with other crews, got in nineteen operations till mid-September. Philip Plowright received a DFC. James Melrose later took over J for Johnny, completing another twenty-two operations with her, including the hundredth that was flown on 15 September, a daylight attack with a Tallboy bomb (12,000lbs) upon the German battleship Tirpitz, lying in Kaafjord, Norway. The attack was made from the east, Lancasters from 9 and 617 Squadrons flying to Yagodnik, via Archangel, in preparation. One Tallboy, considered to be the one dropped by Melrose, hit the ship while other near misses caused damage. Melrose added a Bar to his DFC for this trip and his bomb aimer, Flying Officer Stuart Morris, was also decorated. A handful of operations following this attack brought Johnny to the end of her war, with a total of 106 trips, the last being flown to Bremen on 6 October 1944, by Flying Officer A. E. Jeffs and crew. Rested from operations Johnny was sent away from the squadron and was finally ‘struck off charge’ on 2 November 1949. An interesting observation by James Melrose was that of the nine new crews who had joined 9 Squadron at the time he arrived his was the only one still flying two months later.
JB138: Just Jane Another veteran Lancaster marked with a J was JB138 but, rather than Johnny, she was known as J for Jane. A Mark III, she came off the Avro production line in summer 1943, and went to 61 Squadron at RAF Syerston, Nottinghamshire, on 22 August. Once here she was marked QR-J. She was named ‘Just Jane’, after the then famous Daily Mirror strip cartoon character, Jane, drawn by Norman Pett, from 1932 to 1959, thus a favourite for troops as well as civilians during the Second World War. Almost never seen naked in the cartoons, the nose art on JB138 was of a nude blonde reclining on a bomb, with the name ‘Just Jane’ above her.
An experienced pilot took her on several of her early trips. This was Flying Officer N. F. Turner DFM, who had flown thirty-seven operations with 61 Squadron in 1942, and had returned for a second tour. He took Jane on her first sortie, to Nürnberg, on 27/28 August. This was the first of seventeen trips for Norman Turner, who received a DFC to add to the DFM. Pilot Officer F. Norton began operating with Jane from the end of May and on his second trip on 5/6 June (D-Day) to Toulouse, the front hatch blew off on the bomb run and he had to go round again and make another approach. Frank Norton made twentyseven trips in her altogether, and received the DFC. However, there were several mishaps along the way, in addition to the loss of a hatch. On 28/29 April the Master Bomber abandoned an attack on St Médard-en-Jalles, and against Eindhoven on 24/25 May he had to abort due to engine problems. On 19/20 June they were recalled from attacking a V1 site and, two days later, against Gelsenkirchen, their starboard-inner engine caught fire, while on 7/8 July they lost their port-inner engine. On 7/8 August there was another abort by the Master Bomber, but they survived their tour. Seventeen operations by Flying Officer A. P. Greenfield RAAF also had their moments. On 11/12 September they had a scrap with an Me109 over Darmstadt, then an abort on 19 September due to R/T failure, followed by the irritation of the bomb load not releasing over Kaiserlautern on 27/28 September. On 14/15 October Albert Greenfield was taken ill on the way to Brunswick and had to turn back. However, he survived to receive a belated DFC in 1946. Jane’s major problem came on a daylight raid to Düren on 16 November. She was hit by a bomb dropped by an aircraft overhead which smashed an engine, but Flying Officer H. R. Smith RCAF got her home. It was his second – and last – trip in her. After this she went off for repair at No. 54 MU, returning on 2 December. Her first trip back was on New Year’s Day 1945. At the controls for just this trip was Flying Officer F. A. Mouritz, who had flown veteran ‘Millie the Moocher’ (EE176) in October. Jane’s last trip was to Merseburg on 14/15 January, her total missions being recorded as 123, although this is suspect. She reached the hundred mark in September and has variously been credited with 123 or 113 operations. Surviving records might indicate around 120, so perhaps it was nearer to 123, although with some aborts not being counted and trips credited to her while she was being repaired – a clerical error – it might well be 113. On 2 February Jane left 61 Squadron for No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School (LFS), then, on 22 April, moved to No. 4 School of Technical Training where she became airframe 5224M for instructional purposes. Jane was finally ‘struck off
charge’ on 16 October 1946.
ED905: Fox/Extremum! This aircraft arrived on 103 Squadron, at RAF Elsham Wolds, on 21 April 1943. A Mark II Lancaster, coded PM-X for X-Ray, she began operations in May, the first, a raid on Duisburg, on the night of the 12th/13th. The pilot on that occasion was a Belgian, Flying Officer F. V. P. van Rolleghem. Rollo Rolleghem had been a regular in the Belgian Air Force since 1933 and had escaped to England, via Spain, in 1942. In his diary for 6 May 1943 he wrote, ‘I receive a brand new Lancaster III coded X-Ray. I shall keep her during my tour.’ On his second mission, on 18/19 May, while they were taking off, a front escape hatch blew off, but the crew carried out the trip. After her fifth sortie, the bomber received some damage on the ground; a tractor driver, misjudging his clearance, collided with the stationary ED905. At this stage LAC John Lamming painted on the nose of the Lanc the crossed flags of the United Kingdom and Belgium. On the night of 12/13 June ED905 was hit by flak approaching Düsseldorf but, despite an uncontrollable and smoking engine, Rolleghem carried on and dropped his bombs on target, returning home on three engines. He received the DFC for his actions. On the 25th/26th she was hit again, returning with 125 holes in her, seventeen through van Rolleghem’s cockpit canopy. Two of his crew were slightly wounded. In August ED905 went off for an overhaul and van Rolleghem flew LM335, again coded X. It seems that the records clerk noted this Lancaster as being ED905 during her absence. Back on the squadron, van Rolleghem completed his tour, including the raid on Peenemünde in August, although he lost his brakes upon landing and had to abandon the aircraft on the taxi-way. The Belgian’s last trip in ED905 was to Munich on 6/7 September which was also her last with 103 (a recorded total of thirty) from she was then sent, with the other aircraft of C Flight, to become the nucleus of 166 Squadron, reforming at RAF Kirmington, and coded AS-X. She was flown by a number of different crews, including one American USAAF officer, First Lieutenant J. C. Drew. She went to Berlin a couple of times that winter but not until after D-Day did Pilot Officer D. A. Shaw, from Glasgow, begin to be her more regular pilot. However, by this time ED905 had moved yet again, following a service, to 550 Squadron, in June, where she was re-coded BQ-F for Foxtrot. Their first mission together was on 22 June, against a V1 flying-bomb site in the Pas de Calais, and on their next, the following night, the raid on Saintes was carried out on
three engines. On 30 July, returning from a daylight mission to bomb German positions in the battle area, Shaw dived down and circled on his way to allow his gunners to shoot up a column of German lorries and armoured vehicles along the Caen-Falaise road. After making one run, Shaw turned and repeated the exercise. It was witnessed by no less a person than Wing Commander J. E. Johnson, the famous fighter ace, who recorded the event in his book Wing Leader. Amazingly, after the war Jock Shaw became Johnson’s adjutant for a while. Shaw received a Bar to his DFC at the end of the war. Jock Shaw, in all, took Fox on thirty-three operations by the end of October, having now been promoted to flight lieutenant, although there had been a few problem flights with Shaw and other pilots. She was badly damaged by a night-fighter over Düsseldorf on 3/4 November, with Flying Officer R. J. Robinson in command. On 29 December, with Pilot Officer J. Horsley on his twenty-second trip, the starboard inner engine failed over Holland but he carried on to the target – Berlin. Over the Big City one of the port engines was hit by AA fire and had to be feathered, while both the artificial horizon and directional gyro were knocked out. They were two hours late getting home. Horsley and his navigator were awarded DFCs but both were lost with the rest of the crew on 29 December in ND382. On the 30th Fox’s crew had to abort another Berlin trip as both turrets became unserviceable. Unable to gain operational height during a raid on Schweinfurt, on 24/25 February, Flight Sergeant R. V. F. Frandson carried on and bombed the target. ED905 had a rest from operations, probably due to a major service, from May to June, and then in late June she was once more in the hands of David Shaw. This postlanding period was largely against V1 flying-bomb sites or supporting the Allied armies in France. Shaw flew thirteen more missions until early September, and another pilot who took her out was Flight Lieutenant R. P. Stone, who had flown veteran EE139 on her last operation on 3 August. Robert Stone would also fly missions in veteran PA995. Bomber Command were also flying daylight missions and the bomb symbols on F slowly mounted. As far as can be deduced, Shaw flew her on the hundredth trip on 2 November 1944, taking Flight Lieutenant J. P. Morgan and his crew for experience. Unhappily, Morgan and his crew failed to return on 6/7 December in another bomber. No doubt ED905 was pretty war weary by this stage and, having reached the ‘ton’, was quickly released from operational flying and on 4 November was flown away to No.1 Low Flying School at RAF Hemswell, but then moved to No. 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit on the 10th. She continued here until 20 August 1945, the date a pilot allowed the old girl to swing on landing. The undercarriage collapsed and a crash
followed. What remained was ‘struck off charge’ the same day.
JB663: King of the Air This Mark III came off the production line at Woodford in autumn 1943 and was assigned to 106 Squadron at RAF Syerston, Nottinghamshire. Coded ZN, she carried the individual identification letter A for Able. No. 106 flew Pathfinder missions. The squadron then moved to RAF Metheringham, Lincolnshire. The Battle for Berlin was taking place during this winter, Flight Lieutenant M. I. Boyle and his crew flying her first mission to that city on 26/27 November. Leipzig was next, on 4/5 December, with the flight commander, Squadron Leader A. R. Dunn, in command and she went back to Berlin nine more times before pre-Normandy operations began in spring 1944. Squadron Leader Dunn flew her several times, taking the Squadron CO (Wing Commander R. E. Baxter DFC) on a raid to Schweinfurt on 24/25 February, and again on 10/11 March, Baxter being the raid controller, against an aircraft factory at Châteauroux. Pilot Officer B.F. Durrant became her next more regular skipper, and flew JB663 on the night of D-Day, 5/6 June, followed by an attack on the Caen bridgehead at dawn on the 7th. Brian Durrant recorded twenty-seven trips (plus one abort) in this Lancaster, which had now been named as ‘King of the Air’. He received the DFC. The aircraft’s name was painted in an arc above the growing list of bomb symbols beneath the bomber’s cockpit, and a large red eagle with outstretched wings was painted on. The bombs were marked in slanting rows of twenty. On 31 July she was flown to attack Rilly-la-Montagne by the Station Commander, Group Captain W. N. McKechnie GC. (He had been awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal (EGM) in 1929, converted to the George Cross in 1940). He did not, of course, need to fly operations at all. It was a precision attack, being the end of a railway tunnel used as a flying-bomb store. Lancasters of 617 Squadron were also involved, and both ends of the tunnel were blown in. Sadly William McKechnie and crew were lost on the night of 29/30 August. Earlier, Flight Sergeant P. C. Browne and his crew had flown JB663 on 7/8 May 1944 and at the beginning of August started to fly her more regularly, by which time Browne had been commissioned. After seven trips, including one during which they were hit by flak, Flight Lieutenant S. H. Jones took her on four operations. After this she was flown by a number of crews, and her hundredth was recorded as having occurred on 4 November, a raid upon the Ladbergen-Dortmund-Ems canal, by Flying Officer F. E.
Day, seemingly his one and only trip in her. From then on she was usually flown by the crew of Flying Officer L. P. Bence, their last coming on 16/17 January 1945, to Brux, a synthetic oil plant in western Czechoslovakia. Records indicate a total of 111 operational sorties, while further statistics credit her with 985 operational flying hours, covering 150,000 miles, having carried over 600 tons of bombs and marker flares. She became Category B on 11 April after being sent to No. 24 MU. Eventually moved again to No. 15 MU in August 1946, she was ‘struck off charge’ on 26 October.
JB603: Take it Easy Another Mark III from the Manchester works, this aircraft was sent to 100 Squadron at Waltham, near Grimsby, on 3 November 1943 and given the codes HW-E for Easy. From this came her name, ‘Take it Easy’, written beneath the artwork of a duck or goose in flight. The Battle of Berlin was just hotting up and Easy flew there twelve times out of her first fifteen sorties. Her first was flown on 15/16 November in the hands of Pilot Officer F. H. Tritton. She had several encounters in those early days: flak damage on 22 November, a scrap with a night-fighter on 2/3 December, which was claimed as shot down, while on the first trip of 1944 (2 January) she received bullet damage to a petrol tank and inner-engine cowling, thought to have come from another Lancaster gunner. She was flown by a variety of crews over the next weeks, and also suffered several aborted shows due to mechanical failures. Her regular captain later became Flight Sergeant T. F. Cook, whose first trip was on 24/25 February, to Schweinfurt. He flew her on at least twenty-two trips, not only with his own crew but on occasion with other, presumably new, crews. Terry Cook also flew Easy on the night of D-Day, and then, with other crews, began bombing V1 flying-bomb sites. Pilot Officer D. W. Lee RNZAF started operating with her in July, flying in some eighteen operations by early October. Flying Officer L. T. Harris came next, with a further eighteen, although some had to be abandoned for various reasons. The hundredth trip came some time during November 1944, the exact date uncertain because of the aborted missions. By the end of the year she had been credited with 109 operations, the 110th coming on 2 January 1945. She failed to return from her next operation, to Hannover on the night of 5/6 January. Her pilot this night was Flying Officer R. Barker. He and his crew were shot down by a German night-fighter, flown by Leutnant Rolf Ebhart of 8./NJG8, his sixth victory. Easy crashed at 23.00 hours near the hamlet of Harbroek, Gelderland. The
last that was heard of her was the crew’s target attack message timed at 22.06 – then silence.
EE136: Spirit of Russia The last Lancaster to achieve a hundred operations during 1944 was EE136 ‘Spirit of Russia’. This Mark III arrived on No. 9 Squadron at Bardney, Lincolnshire, on 31 May 1943. Bomber Command had several aircraft with names associated with Russia and this was yet another. As the name was painted beneath the cockpit, where ordinarily the bomb tally might be, the bombs began to be painted on behind the aircraft letter by the nose. The codes were WR-R. The German city of Düsseldorf was the first target, with Spirit of Russia flown by Sergeant J. H. S. Lyon, on 11/12 June. He flew her nine times, including the trip to the German rocket factory at Peenemünde in August. Sergeant W. W. W. Turnbull RCAF also had his share at this time, with five. She went to Berlin more than a dozen times during the Battle of Berlin and it was not until May 1944 that she began to have a more regular pilot and crew, that of Pilot Officer R. C. Lake. With eighteen or nineteen operations, including, on 24/25 June, an encounter with a Ju88 which the gunners shot down, Roy Lake completed his tour and received the DFC and Bar. The first decoration came for his part in the attack on the Tirpitz, although by this time, EE136 had left the squadron. He would receive the Bar at the war’s end. His two gunners, Sergeants Stan Major and Robert Kerr, received DFMs. Sergeant Robert Baird, the flight engineer, also received the DFM for forty-five operations. The gunners’ citations mentioned three successful encounters with Ju88s, all whilst flying in EE136. This crew had done exceptionally well, for, in addition, the navigator, Pilot Officer John Peterson RCAF and George Watts RCAF, bomb aimer, received DFCs. EE136 had another encounter with a night-fighter on 5 September, during a raid on Mannheim, with Pilot Officer J. McCubbin in command. Near the target the attacking fighter scored hits that almost destroyed the port tailfin, damaged the R/T and mid-upper turret and wounded the gunner, Flight Sergeant C. J. Houbert, in the head and shoulder. It had been a single-engined fighter – a FW190 – first spotted by the rear gunner; as he yelled for the pilot to perform a corkscrew manoeuvre, the fighter opened fire. Finally, after more passes, Flight Sergeant J. L. ‘Geordie’ Elliott, in the tail, got in a telling burst and saw the enemy machine burst into flames. The engineer and bomb aimer saw it falling on fire. The crew were later told that the holes in the Lancaster were too numerous to count. McCubbin received the DFC. Spirit of Russia was out of action until November, just in time for the long hauls to
Berlin that winter. Eleven trips were to Berlin, plus others to the Ruhr Valley. She also flew on D-Day as well as on army support missions over the battle areas. In October EE136 moved to 189 Squadron, forming at Bardney, before going to RAF Fulbeck in November. It appears that she had flown ninety-three operations, so it was strange that 9 Squadron should let her go, with the hopefully upcoming publicity if she reached the hundred mark. Perhaps she was getting old. With 189 she began operating on 1 November, again with a variety of pilots, although Flight Lieutenant E. J. Abbott flew her on six out of her sixteen trips, including the last, to Karlsruhe, on 2/3 January 1945. She was coded CA but retained the ‘R’ letter. The hundredth was probably to Munich on 17/18 December, with Flying Officer I. V. Sedden RAAF and crew aboard. By strange coincidence, Warrant Officer A. G. Denyer was on 189 Squadron and part of Flying Officer J. S. Fenning’s crew who took her to Munich on 7/8 January. He had been in Lyon’s crew when Spirit of Russia began operations in June 1943. As he remarked, whilst flying in her again, ‘she creaked in the joints, but who wouldn’t’. With an operational total of 109 missions, she became Cat-B and went to No.1659 HCU and then to 20 MU on 20 April, becoming airframe number 5918M at No. 1 Radio School, at Cranwell. Reg Carter remembers her being one of four Lancaster fuselages kept in a hangar and used for maintenance training of the wireless equipment. Reg was impressed by the bomb tally. She ended up at the RAF Fire School, Sutton on the Hill, in the early 1950s, used for fire-fighting practice – an inglorious end for such a fine lady. Pilot Officer Ron Clark DFC, 100 Squadron. He flew ‘Phantom’ on its first operation on the night of 11/12 June 1943 and most of his tour with her.
Some of Clark’s crew, taken with two post office ladies whose shop was just to the rear of ‘Phantom’s hard-stand. L to r: Sgts Geoff Green (R/gnr), Clark, post office lady, Les Simpson (M/upr gnr), Ben Bennett (F/engr), post office lady, P/O Lish Easby (W/Op).
Leaving 100 Squadron after thirty-one operations, she flew with 550 Squadron, changing codes to BQB. This picture of her was taken at RAF North Killinghome in 1944. Note the protective covers on the rear guns and the main undercarriage wheels. Four crew members who flew an operation in EE139 on 24/25 May 1944 in 2/Lt G. P. Fauman’s crew (USAAF): Sgt W. A. Drake (R/gnr), Sgt P. E. Cooksey, F/Sgt A. E. Stebner RCAF (Nav), while in front is Sgt J. A. Ringrow (M/upr gnr). Stebner, Ringrow and Drake also flew PA995 with S/Ldr P. A.
Nicholls on 10 June 1944, and in it with Fauman on several trips.
Bombing up EE139 for her ninety-sixth mission. Unusually the bomb symbols have been painted on in rows of thirteen, so seven rows, plus four make the total ninety-five. The DFC ribbon has also been
painted on. Note the fourth, tenth and thirteenth symbols in the first row show an ice-cream cone, denoting a sortie to Italy – Turin, Genoa and Milan, etc. The first cone of the second row denotes a second trip to Milan. Although the bomb log still shows ninety-five. this picture was taken after returning from the hundredth trip, in September 1944. The crew is that of Flying Officer J. C. Hutcheson. Obviously the painter had got behind in his work. The small aeroplane shape immediately behind the phantom is a crescent moon behind a white cloud.
The ‘Phantom’ taxies out at RAF Killingholme in 1944, about to fly off on another operational mission. Squadron Leader Willie Caldow AFC DFM (later DSO DFC AFC DFM) and his crew, who flew EE139 on her last operation on 21 November 1944. F/Lt Jim Cassidy DFC RAAF ((Nav), F/O Derrick Gear (W/Op), F/O Jack Marston DFC (R/gnr), Caldow, F/O Sam Squires DFC (M/upr gnr) and F/O Steve George DFC RAAF (F/engr).
ED611 shortly after leaving 44 Squadron and moving to 463 Australian Squadron during the snowy winter of 1943-44. The portrait of Joseph Stalin on a red star is clear, with the name ‘Uncle Joe’ beneath it. The bomb record shows forty-three operations completed by 44 Squadron, while the two stars to the right of Stalin show that 463 has already flown two more trips – long hauls to Leipzig and Schweinfurt – towards the end of February 1944. The crew would be that of Pilot Officer V. H. Trimble RAAF, who flew her on her first missions with 463.
By the time the hundredth operation had occurred, the forty-three bombs had been painted out and replaced with the same number of stars, in keeping with the stars used by 463 Squadron, with someone having painted ‘100 Up Tonight’, possibly that being flown on 12/13 September. When this picture was taken, the forty-three stars had been overpainted and incorporated in the overall tally further back. There are now 100 stars, although below the Stalin image someone had written ‘104 not out’. The words ‘Good-bye old Faithful’ would seem to indicate the photograph was taken after her last operation when she was about to leave the squadron. The stars were red.
ED611 was replaced by another JO-U, this being RF141. RF141 was similarly named, ‘“Uncle Joe” Again!’ This time, however, the portrait of Joe Stalin was shown on a flag. Two stars beneath the cockpit show the Lancaster has been on two operations, and it is known that she flew at least eighteen before the war’s end. Initially she was taken over by Flying Officer M. S. ‘Pete’ Wickes DFC RAAF, who had flown ED611 six times, including her last mission.
The crew of W4964, believed to have been photographed following a raid on Stettin on 5/6 January 1944, skippered by Flying Officer A. E. Manning. The tail serial number is pretty clear as is the 9 Squadron code of WS. Note the clip-on parachutes rather than attached-to-seat types, used in order to aid crewmen to move about inside the Lancaster. If this is Manning’s crew then the man on the left,
with flying officer shoulder tapes, is either Manning or his navigator, F/O J. W. Hearn. The hundred bomb symbols not only record W4964’s achievements but the hundredth is larger, because a Tallboy bomb was dropped during it. Since that date (15 September 1944) four more bombs start another row. She was credited with 106 operations. Of interest is the long list of achievements recorded by the ground crew artist. The first four denote two DFC and two DFM awards, with crew recipients’ initials below each; a chevron denoted one year of service; and there are three wound stripes for damage received; the ribbon of the 1939-43 Star; a swastika for a German aircraft shot down; a searchlight, meaning its gunners had knocked one out, then two more DFM ribbons. Finally a red star denotes the mission they flew to Russia in order to attack the Tirpitz. The kangaroo by the navigator’s window, is for Melrose’s Australian navigator, Flying Officer Jimmy Moore. There was a similar one by the W/Op’s window for Flying Officer R. G. Woolf RAAF.
James Melrose and his crew: Melrose, F/O S. A. Morris (B/aimer), Sgt E. C. Selfe (F/engr), F/O J. W. Moore RAAF (Nav), Sgt E. E. Staley (R/gnr), Sgt E. Hoyle (M/upr gnr) and F/O R. G. Woolf RAAF (W/Op). The bomb log and nose art of JB138 ‘Just Jane’, a naked lady reclining on a bomb. Unusually, some of 550 Squadron’s Lancasters had their bomb tallies painted in long lines of thirty. This image shows sixty-four at this stage, indicating September 1944, the time Flight Lieutenant F. Norton was her regular skipper. There is a lone swastika too, perhaps in regard to the fighter that attacked them on the bomb run over Hannover on 8/9 October 1943 and was hit by fire from the rear gunner, Sergeant R. S. Parle, in Flying Officer K. R. Ames’ crew.
Another Lancaster of 61 Squadron that also had similar bomb markings was W4236 QR-K. The tally is seventy. She was lost over the Belgium/Luxembourg border on the way to Mannheim on 9/10 August 1943, shot down by Leutnant Norbert Pietrek of 2./NJG4, on her seventy-seventh operation. Three of the crew were killed, but the pilot, Sergeant J. C. Whitley, and the other three crewmen not only survived, but successfully evaded capture and got back to the UK. The same Lancaster with its then crew after the seventieth, and its ground crew in front. L to r: F/L Hewish, P/O W. H. Eager RCAF (pilot), Sgts Stone, Vanner, Petts, Sharrard RCAF and Lawrence. Bill Eager received the DFC. RAF Syerston, 30 July 1943.
Ground personnel pose for a picture in front of ED905, after twenty-one operations, August 1943. Note the crossed Union flag and Belgian flag painted ahead of the bomb log. The third symbol is a parachute, denoting a mine-dropping sortie. In the forefront, the airmen are sitting on a 4,000lb cookie. John Lamming, who painted the flags, is seated third from the left. Captain of ED905 from its arrival on 103 Squadron was Flying Officer F. V. P. van Rolleghem, who completed a first tour with her. He is receiving the DFC at a ceremony on 17 August 1943. Air ViceMarshal E. A. B. Rice CBE MC, AOC 1 Group of Bomber Command, is pinning the Cross on his tunic. Rollo van Rollenghem, who had escaped to England in 1942, went on to complete three bomber tours and receive the DSO. In 1972 he retired from the Belgian Air Force as an air marshal. He died in 1982.
Pilot Officer D. A. Shaw and crew pose for a picture in August 1944, Shaw being in the cockpit. Now with 550 Squadron, the original nose markings have been painted out in favour of straight rows of fifteen bomb symbols with the name ‘Press on Regardless’ written above them. The rather intricate coat of arms reflect foxes for her individual code letter, a blue cross for Shaw’s Scottish ancestry
while a blonde and a foaming pint of beer presumably represent the crew’s off-duty pursuits. Note the different colours of the bombs: red represented night raids, yellow ones were for daylight trips. They total seventy at this stage. Fox starting its take-off run on the afternoon of 2 November 1944, heading for Düsseldorf on her hundredth operational sortie.
Fox, waved off by cheering ground personnel, heads down the runway on her hundredth mission on 2 November 1944. As well as being her last operation, it was also Bomber Command’s final raid upon this city.
David Shaw is again photographed by the pilot’s cockpit window on the morning of 3 November 1944. The hundredth bomb has yet to be painted on the bomb log.
Air and ground crew of Fox pose for a photograph following her hundredth mission. Shaw stands fifth from the left, with Flight Lieutenant J. P. Morris on his left, having flown as second pilot on the trip. (He was killed on his next operation one month later.) On the far left is Flight Lieutenant R. P. Stone. Far right is the CO of B Flight, Squadron Leader B. J. Redmond DFC, and to his right is the Squadron Intelligence Officer, Flight Lieutenant Murray. This is JB663, known as ‘King of the Air’, a name written over a large painting of an eagle with outstretched wings. The bomb log has been painted with sloping bombs in rows of twenty, and its crew, if taken at the time, is that of Flying Officer F. E. Day, who had flown the hundredth trip on 4 November 1944, to Ladbergen, by the Dortmund-Ems canal.
The same, or the next, day, JB663 was photographed again, with its ground personnel taking centre stage. Note that, since the previous picture, a large white bomb has been painted on the nose. The bomber’s personal code letter of A-Able is in view. Underneath this is the aerodynamic H2S radar blister. The cockpit of an Avro Lancaster
A photograph of a Lancaster taken from immediately above. This particular aircraft was HK535 on one of its first air tests, built for Avro by Vickers Armstrong and lost on 11 May 1944 flying with 463 Squadron RAAF. JB603, HW-E for Easy, 100 Squadron. At the time she had eighty-four bomb symbols on her nose and known as ‘Take it Easy’, this being painted below what appears to be a flying duck or other bird. She was lost on 5/6 January 1945 on a raid to Hannover on her 111th operation.
A crew shot of Warrant Officer T. V. Hayes and his crew who were flying ‘Easy’ in December 1944. L to r: Hayes, Sgts Peter Ashenden DFC (F/engr), Sid Emmett DFM & Bar (Nav), William Kondra RCAF DFM (B/aimer), Glyn Jenkins (W/Op), Ken Kemp DFM (M/upr gnr) and Jock Ross (R/gnr). Head-on view of the Avro Lancaster in flight.
Sergeant J. H. S. Lyon, the pilot of EE136 ‘Spirit of Russia’ in the cockpit after she had completed seventeen operations. Note four ice-cream cones denoting raids to Italy, all four on Milan. Directly above Jimmy Lyon sits his flight engineer, Ken Pack (third from the left). Lyon went on to receive the DFC, Pack a DFM.
‘Spirit of Russia’ with ninety-nine bomb symbols registered, both red (night) and yellow (day) shown. She flew with 9 Squadron from June 1943 to October 1944, then with 189 Squadron from November 1944 to January 1945. A sad end to EE136, used for RAF firefighters to practise on. The hundred bomb symbols stand proudly nevertheless, in front of her name, and her final nine start another row aft of it. The lighter (yellow) bomb symbols in the last three rows show daylight missions, but the lighter first-row bombs do not.
Chapter Three
January 1945 By the end of 1944, thirteen Lancasters had achieved, or exceeded, one hundred operational sorties. These had been bombing raids carried out over Germany, Italy, France, or laying sea mines off hostile harbours or sea lanes. During January 1945 a further five would join this exclusive club.
LL806: JIG Produced as a Mark I by the Armstrong-Whitworth factory at the end of 1943, LL806 was sent to No. 15 Squadron on 22 April 1944, at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk. Squadron codes of LS were painted on the fuselage, together with the individual letter J for Jig. The squadron had only recently exchanged its Short Stirlings for Lancasters. There was never any artwork painted on the forward cockpit area, just a steadily increasing row of bomb symbols. The first of these resulted from her first mission, a raid upon the railway store and repair depot at Chambly, in northern France, on the night of 1/2 May, piloted by Pilot Officer M. J. Sparks RNZAF. It was only marred by the failure to release one of the 1,000lb bombs. Mervyn Sparks flew several of Jig’s first missions, and in all eighteen out of his tour. He left as a flight lieutenant with the DFC. His navigator, Lancelot Elias, and bomb aimer, Edward Spannier RCAF, were similarly decorated. Other pilots flew her during the D-Day period, and then operations were focused mainly on V1 flying-bomb sites and the transport network. On 10/11 June, on a raid to Dreux, Flight Lieutenant B. G. F. Payne and crew were attacked by an Me109 nightfighter, his gunners shooting it down. That summer it continued to operate with few problems, including such famous raids as that upon Caen ahead of the breakout from the bridgehead, and against the retreating German armies through the Falaise Gap. Another crew at this time was that of Flight Lieutenant W. Leslie, flying ten missions. Jig must have left a lasting impression, for one of his crew, Bill Grundy, the rear gunner, developed a hip problem in the 1990s which forced him into an electric buggy in order
to remain mobile. He had a number plate put on this, reading LL806 LS-J. Willie Leslie was killed in a flying accident only a few months after completing their tour. Jig’s eightieth trip is believed to have been flown on 2 December, Flying Officer L. H. Marriott RAAF (later DFC) taking her to Dortmund. The hundredth came on 5 January 1945 with a raid on Ludwigshafen, piloted by Flying Officer R. H. HopperCuthbert RAAF. He and his crew carried out some eighteen operations in her, including the night the Gee apparatus caught fire following an electrical failure. By this time LL806 was starting to show her age, and Hopper-Cuthbert’s crew were wondering if she would see them through their tour, not helped, as one crewman remarked, by the skipper’s landings. Daylight operations became the norm as the end of the war approached, escorted by RAF and USAAF fighters. Flight Sergeant W. Sievers RAAF flew her on six of her last operations, the very last being to Bremen on 22 April. This took her total to 134, which was marked by her bomb tally. Yet there were still operations to be flown, by her and numerous other Lancasters at this time. First came MANNA trips, flying supplies to the starving civilians of Holland, under an agreement with the Germans. Jig flew three of these, followed by three EXODUS sorties, flying to the continent to bring home released Allied prisoners of war. Her final tally of operations that appeared beneath her cockpit was 134 bombs, three sacks and three running figures. She also flew on several sightseeing tours, taking RAF ground personnel, men and women, to view the devastation of German cities. Jig remained with 15 Squadron until finally being ‘struck off charge’ on 6 December 1945.
DV245: The Saint Assigned to No. 101 Squadron at RAF Ludford Magna, Lincolnshire, on 19 September 1943, DV245 was a Mark III Lancaster, coming in from No. 32 MU. Coded SR-S for Sugar, she became known as ‘The Saint’. Artwork on her nose shows the famous Leslie Charteris’ ‘Saint’ figure, complete with halo, sitting astride a falling bomb. No. 101 Squadron usually flew with an eight-man crew, having a special radio operator aboard to man what was called the Airborne Cigar (ABC). This operator had an apparatus that could pick up German radio traffic and it was his job to jam the German operators, or even interrupt them, talking German to confuse the enemy in the air and on the ground. The Saint’s first skipper was Flying Officer R. R. Leeder, who took her to Stuttgart on 7/8 October, remaining her usual pilot for at least fifteen trips, before his tour ended at
the end of February 1944. Roy Leeder received the DFC; most of his crew were also decorated. Flying Officer H. Davies and crew took her over from March, with thirteen trips flown, including the disastrous raid on Nürnberg on 30/31 March; this night 101 lost seven aircraft. The crew could clearly see aircraft being attacked and falling in flames all around them on this most gruelling of operations, in which ninety-five RAF bombers were lost. This was Bomber Command’s biggest night’s loss of the war. DV245 flew on nine operations to Berlin during the winter, although she had to abort twice due to mechanical problems. Harold Davies DFC also flew on to Aachen on one raid, despite losing an engine. Following D-Day operations, Sergeant S. Bowater began flying her regularly, making twenty-two trips in all. He was commissioned and received the DFC. Stan Bowater DFC AFC was killed in a Shackleton crash in December 1958. By August The Saint had passed the fifty-operations mark, and some of the crew were beginning to wonder if her luck might soon run out. She was then flown by numerous crews during the winter of 1944-45, making the hundredth trip on 5/6 January 1945, raiding Hannover. Flying Officer R. P. Paterson was in command; he was on his second trip in her. There were two Lancasters almost racing to reach a hundred, DV245 and DV302, H-Harry. When The Saint made it, Harry was still on ninety-eight. One of her last regular captains was Flying Officer K. Hanney, who took her to Karlsruhe on 4 December. He made thirteen trips in all, sometimes with a special operator. Over Pforzheim on 23/24 February 1945, with Flying Officer G. Withenshaw RCAF in the pilot’s seat, a German jet aircraft was seen closing in, probably an Me262. The bomb aimer, Flying Officer J. R. Drewery RCAF, manned the front turret guns, firing three bursts at it and the jet caught fire, and was seen to crash and explode. For this he received the DFC. The Saint was lost on a daylight raid to Bremen on 23 March, with Flying Officer R. R. Little RCAF, an American, in command. It crashed near Stöttinghausen, south-east of Twistringen at 10.30 am. All seven aboard were killed, and she was the last aircraft lost by 101 during the war. By strange coincidence, Lancaster LL755 of 101 Squadron, flown by Flight Lieutenant Paterson, was also lost shortly before on this same raid. Paterson had been the pilot who had flown the hundredth sortie, back in January; he and two of his crew survived as prisoners.
DV302: Harry/Howe The other Lancaster in No. 101 Squadron was DV302, a Mark I built in September 1943 which, after finishing work at No. 32 MU at St Athan, was sent to Ludford Magna, and
101, in October. With squadron codes of SR and individual letter H, she became H for Harry, although sometimes she appeared as H-Howe. Arriving at the time the Battle for Berlin was starting, it is not surprising to learn that of her first twenty-five operations, no fewer than sixteen were to the Big City. It must have been a daunting prospect for her first crew, skippered by Flying Officer D. H. Todd RNZAF. He took her out for the first time on 18 November. Douglas Todd and three of his crew had earlier been flying with 98 Squadron, with B-25 Mitchell bombers, but had applied for a move to ‘heavies’. They had their crew increased to include a special German-speaking operator, as 101 was also used for radio-jamming work, but their first special operator decided to change crews after four trips and was lost the very next night. At the end of their tour, Todd received the DFC, while Vic Viggers (Wireless Operator), Ken Bardell (Bomb aimer) and Harry Whittle (Mid-upper gunner) were similarly decorated, and Stan Powell (F/engr) got the DFM. Todd was killed in a hit-and-run accident back in New Zealand in the 1970s. Flight Sergeant (later commissioned) E. T. Holland RAAF took over Harry, flying twenty trips, and then Flying Officer J. Kinman followed this with ten operations. For D-Day, DV302 flew a special mission on the night of 5/6 June, undoubtedly something to do with radio countermeasures, with Flight Lieutenant R. N. Knights in command. Several of Harry’s crews also flew in the other up-and-coming century-scoring Lancaster, DV245, including Flying Officers H. Davies and R. E. Ireland RCAF. By early July Harry was in need of an overhaul (there were around sixty bomb symbols by this time), going off to ROS, but she was back ten days later, although there was still some work to be done; she was not back on the flight line until August. Pilot Officer A. E. ‘Bill’ Netting became the main pilot, flying twenty-nine operations in Harry and receiving the DFC. A tour at this time was thirty missions, but Netting’s wireless operator had missed two due to sickness, so the crew gamely decided to fly two more trips so that he could complete his thirty with them. Apparently that cost him a few pints. On one of the operations, bombs from another Lancaster flying overhead almost put paid to their tour, one 1,000-pounder actually making a striking blow to the port-inner engine, removing the spinner. That was pretty close. The bomb symbols continued to mount, although the race to a hundred was lost at ninety-eight to DV245. Harry’s hundredth came on 7/8 January 1945, a mission to Munich, piloted by Pilot Officer J. A. Kurtzer RAAF. There was no real permanent skipper during her last missions, although Flying Officer H. J. West did seven, including the last four, to Hamburg, Kiel, Potsdam and, finally, Heligoland on 18 April. These
brought the total operations to 121 and the old Lanc was awarded a Long Service Medal, the ribbon painted on her nose next to the twelve rows of ten bombs, plus one. Surviving the war, DV302 was finally ‘struck off charge’ on 15 January 1947. For some time one of Harry’s engines survived. A former Lancaster pilot, Mackenzie Hamilton, owned a 1930 Rolls-Royce Merlin Competition Roadster, but in 1946 its Kestrel engine was beyond repair. Knowing that Lancaster bombers were being broken up at Lossiemouth, Hamilton went along and managed to obtain DV302’s port inner, which he just about managed to squeeze onto his car’s chassis. Hamilton was killed in a flying accident in 1965 and in 1990 the car was in the hands of a new owner, at the cost of £48,000, plus commission and VAT of course. The car is now known as the Handlye Special (or was in 2007) and registered as GH8803.
ND644: Nan Built at the A. V. Roe Chatterton factory, ND644 was a Mark III and came off the production line in early 1944. Assigned to 100 Squadron on 20 February, based at Waltham, near Grimsby, she was given the squadron code of HW and individual letter N. She began operations on 25/26 February, being taken to Augsburg by Sergeant A. R. Oxenham and his crew, although they had to abort due to the starboard-outer engine failing. On 1/2 March they tried again, this time to Stuttgart, and although they completed the mission, their radio went unserviceable, which forced them to land at RAF Ford on the south coast. After this somewhat disappointing beginning, Nan started an almost trouble-free tour, although she did lose the port-outer on 3/4 May; that forced Pilot Officer E. Wainwright to return home. Flight Lieutenant Peter Sherriff had by this time become the more regular pilot, beginning with a raid on Frankfurt on 22/23 March, and he flew twenty-three raids in all, also being involved the nights before, during, and after D-Day. Sherriff received the DFC. Taking over from Sherriff in mid-June was Pilot Officer W. Castle. Targets at this time were German V1 sites and transport centres. Castle flew Nan on seventeen trips, followed by Flying Officer P. C. Eliff with nineteen operations of his tour in her. Philip Eliff received the DFC. On 26 December Nan was taken to St Vith, to try to block the cross-roads there, which were to become a major artery for the famous German offensive in the Ardennes. Chris Johnson was thirty-seven years of age, and always had his wife living near to
whatever station he was based. He and his crew flew seven missions in Nan, and Johnson later received the DFC. I asked the rear gunner, the late Rex Cousins, if Nan was getting a bit shaky by the time they flew her. He did not remember her being any worse than most, as 100 Squadron had a fairly low loss rate, meaning that all their Lancasters were getting a bit long in the tooth. Originally Nan had a painting of what was described as ‘a lovely lady’ but this seems to have disappeared following a major service in early August, but the steadily increasing tally of bomb symbols, in neat rows of ten, continued. When one hundred bombs were up in January 1945, a new row was started at the top next to the original row. Unfortunately, the exact date of the hundredth operation is unclear. However, ND644 is recorded as completing 115 trips, although a number of aborts tend to distort the scorekeeping. She was damaged by flak over Stuttgart on 28/29 January, with Phil Eliff in command, but, feathering the starboard-inner engine, he still managed a bomb run – in fact two runs – over the target. She was lost on the night of 16/17 March 1945, captained by Flying Officer G. A. O. Dauphanee RCAF. They came down near Kraftshof, about eight kilometres from the target’s rail centre. Only Flying Officer D. B. Douglas RCAF and Pilot Officer R. S. Bailey survived as prisoners of war. Both were wounded; this had been their second operation in Nan.
NE181: The Captain’s Fancy This Lancaster was the last of a batch of 600 produced under order No. 1807, and was a Mark III that rolled out of the factory in spring 1944. Sent to No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron, based at RAF Mepal, Cambridgeshire, and coded AA-M (although C Flight suddenly had its codes changed to JN-M), she became known affectionately as ‘Mike’. Her first sortie came on 21/22 May 1944, a raid on Duisburg, under the command of Pilot Officer C. Crawford. However, a few trips later by various skippers, Mike had Flight Sergeant J. Lethbridge RNZAF as captain, flying twenty-five operations, among several more with other crews, up until mid-August. He also flew on D-Day operations and then against V1 sites. Flying Officer G. Cuming flew Mike on fourteen raids, and the flight commander, Squadron Leader N. A. Williamson, went on seven. Even the squadron CO, Wing Commander R. J. A. Leslie AFC, went in her on two operations. Anyone who has seen the film The Longest Day will recall those dummy parachutists used on the night of 5/6 June 1944 to create a diversion for German soldiers on the ground. Well, on the 16/17 September, 75 Squadron – and NE181 – took dummies to drop near Moerdijk aerodrome in Holland, helping to create a diversion for the Arnhem
operation, with Cuming piloting. Cuming also flew to Coblenz on 6 November, but on three engines virtually all the way, having to cut several corners on the way because of the reduced flying speed. Squadron Leader J. Bailey DFC RNZAF began operating Mike in October, the first mission being a daylight raid on Cologne on the 28th. Another to take a seat in Mike, on the 31st, with Cuming, was Group Captain A. P. Campbell, the Station Commander, to have a look-see at Cologne in the early evening. He flew as bomb aimer, so that his transgression of going on operations might not be picked up. At some stage Mike was named ‘The Captain’s Fancy’, which name was painted alongside the famous cartoon character of the day, Captain A. R. P. Reilly-Foull, squire of Arntwee Hall, as seen in the Daily Mirror (1938-52) in the ‘Just Jake’ comic strip. When painted first, the face, neck and hands were flesh-coloured, but later faded to white. The uniform was red, later khaki. He held a pint of ale in his right hand and a 25lb bomb in his left. In his mouth he had a corn-pipe. Being known as rather devilish, he had two horns sprouting from his temples. The overall colour scheme was later washed over to reduce its conspicuity. As Mike neared the hundredth operation there was some confusion about the exact number. According to a press release on 29 January 1945, in keeping with the squadron’s Form 541, it was flown on this date. However, there was an error on an earlier count, for the thinking was that the hundredth would be flown on 5 January. The flight commander, Squadron Leader Jack Bailey, feeling a bit superstitious, got his deputy flight commander to fly it, so Alex Simpson operated on the 5th. Bailey later flew it on the 29th, to Krefeld, only then to find this had been the hundredth. It was his own forty-seventh trip. NE181 flew just one more sortie, Bailey bombing Weisbaden, but was now showing her age and was retired. The New Zealanders hoped it could be flown to their own country for posterity but ‘higher authority’ thwarted that idea, so after a refit it was flown to Waterbeach on 17 February to join 514 Squadron. This unit was disbanded in August 1945. Mike’s final days were spent at No. 5 MU before being scrapped on 30 September 1947.
Lancaster LL806, LS-J, in flight. The code letters are not the more usual straight-sided paint jobs, but have overstated serifs. In contrast, these two 15 Squadron Lancasters have straight-sided lettering. Note, too, that while the nearest carries the codes with the squadron identification letters to the fore of the fuselage roundel, the other has its letters aft of the roundel.
The crew of LL806 shortly before taking off on the hundredth operation on 5 January 1945. L to r: a ground crewman, Sgt Ken Dorset (R/gnr), F/O R. H. Hopper-Cuthbert, Sgt Don Inglis (M/upr gnr), Sgt Sid Lewis; in the doorway, F/Sgt Bob Heatley RNZAF (Nav) and Sgt George Charlton, while on the ladder is W/O Wally Lake RAAF (F/engr). The code letters have also been repainted and are now straight-sided. Note the casual array of bombs on the ground and the trolley accumulator for starting the engines. Ken Dorset, who received a DFM, is typically well suited-up for his long stint in the rear turret. Jig’s 113th bomb symbol is stencilled on in February 1945, following the raid on the 23rd to Gelsenkirchen, skippered by Flight Sergeant A. Meikle, who flew four trips in her.
Flying Officer Doug Hunt RAAF took Jig on two operations in February 1945, and he and some of his crew take the opportunity to have their picture taken in the squadron’s veteran as the war came to an end. L to r: F/Sgt D. A. ‘Pat’ Russell (B/aimer), Paddy Kirane, Hunt, George Pitkin and P/O John Shepherd.
The final tally: 134 bomb symbols, three sacks representing MANNA trips and three running ‘stick’ men for EXODUS missions. Some squadrons would add all these symbols up to reach a total of operations flown, so while 134 is one total, one could also argue the total was 140.
Flying Officer Roy Richard Leeder flew The Saint (DV245) on her first operation, a raid on Stuttgart, dated 7/8 October 1943. Leeder had started his tour flying as second pilot with another crew on 27 September, to Hannover. Four of Roy Leeder’s crew: Sgt B. G. Lyall (B/aimer), Sgt R. S. Brown (W/Op), Sgt P. J. Drought (M/upr gnr); in front, F/Sgt W. E. V. Bickley (R/gnr). Roy Brown, Percy Drought and Eric Bickley were all awarded DFMs.
The Saint artwork on DV245 after forty operations with 101 Squadron.
A clearer image, provided by the 101 Squadron Association.
Sergeants Brown, Lyall and Drought outside their crew quarters. Note that each wears the ribbon of the 1939-45 Star, originally intended to mark service between 1939 and 1943, when it was first introduced; hence the awards to these three aircrew members.
Sergeant Stan Bowater (later commissioned and awarded the DFC) and crew. Sgts Gerry Murphy (B/ aimer), Ted Reeves (W/Op), Hugh Dickie (M/upr gnr), Ken Dickinson (R/gnr), Andy Oliver (F/engr) and Freddie Campbell (Nav). Bowater sits in front. A navigator’s flight log for the raid on Berlin on 15/16 February 1944. The outward journey is plotted across the North Sea, over Denmark, down into Germany and Berlin with three routes back across Germany and Holland. DV245 made the trip on this night.
DV245 flying over Cap Gris Nez on 26 September 1944, Stan Bowater being in command. The two ABC aerials can be seen on top of the fuselage, on the port side. Lancaster DV302, H for Harry of 101 Squadron. Note the ABC aerials that are slightly off centre atop the fuselage. The man is Sergeant M. A. ‘Basil’ Ordway, the mid-upper gunner in Flying Officer Netting’s crew.
Flying Officer D. H. Todd RNZAF took Harry on the Lancaster’s first operational flight, to Berlin, on
18/19 November 1943. This picture was taken after being awarded the DFC. Next to the DFC ribbon is the ribbon of the 1939–43 Star. Douglas Todd with three of his crew: F/O V. C. ‘Vic’ Viggars RNZAF (W/Op), F/Sgt W. M. ‘Bill’ O’Dwyer (R/gnr), Todd, F/O W. ‘Bill’ Fraser (Nav). When this picture was taken they were training on Ventura twin-engine bombers in New Brunswick, Canada. They subsequently flew Mitchells with 98 Squadron before volunteering to fly ‘heavies’.
Pilot Officer A. E. Netting and crew: Sgts M. A. Ordway (M/upr gnr), C. H. N. Complin (W/Op), E. A. Cantwell (Nav), Netting, P. R. Gunter (B/aimer), V. R. Burrill RCAF (R/gnr) and T. C. Brown (F/engr). Arthur Netting was awarded the DFC while Ernest Cantwell received the DFM. The crew who flew Harry’s hundredth trip was skippered by Pilot Officer J. A. Kurtzer RAAF DFC. L to r: F/O A. L. Woodhart (B/aimer), F/Sgt J. W. Fletcher (W/Op), F/Sgt J. S. Alexander RAAF (R/gnr), Kurtzer, Sgt J. Harris (F/engr), F/Sgt J. C. H. Dyke RAAF (M/upr gnr), and F/Sgt G. H. Honeysett RAAF (Nav).
DV302’s scoreboard: 121 bomb symbols, a German night-fighter claimed as shot down, and the Long Service Medal ribbon. Harry at the end of her operational career, with a number of ground personnel in 1945. The original caption for this picture says it was taken with ‘her’ NAAFI gang, saying it was their ‘champion’. One of the ABC aerials can be see, as well as her H and serial number.
Another 101 Squadron aircraft (SR-B) unloading a 4,000lb cookie and numerous incendiary bombs during a daylight operation. The cookie would smash buildings and factories, and the incendiaries would cause debris to ignite and turn into a blaze. Another good view of the ABC aerials. Lancaster ND644 ‘Nan’. Flight Lieutenant H. G. Topliss shakes hands with Sergeant H. W. Williams, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Nan’s ground crew NCO, after 112 operations. Other ground crew members are, on the left, fitters AC F. Turrell and LAC J. Atkinson, while on the right is LAC B. Gorst, fitter/airframes.
Six members of a crew which flew ND644 on seven operations in December 1944 and January 1945. Top l to r: F/Lt Chris S. Johnson (pilot), P/O William Hancock (Nav), Sgt Richard J. Barham (M/upr gnr); Bottom: P/O T. G. Campion (B/aimer), Sgt C. ‘James’ Albutt (F/engr) and Sgt Rex W. Cousins (R/gnr). Missing is Sgt R. Vickers (W/Op).
What it took to keep a Lancaster in service. Seven crew, Station Commander, Station Warrant Officer, parachute packer, ground crew, service personnel, armourers, drivers, crash crew, etc. Lancaster NE181, The Captain’s Fancy, in the snow at RAF Mepal, its bomb tally approaching 100. Clearly seen are the C Flight codes of JN.
Flying Officer Gordon Cuming RNZAF and five of his crew. Rear: Sgt D. P. ‘Paddy’ McElligott (R/gnr), F/Sgt J. D. ‘Jack’ Christie (W/Op) and Sgt W. ‘Bill’ Scott (M/upr gnr). Front: F/Sgt J. G. ‘Jack’ Scott (Nav), Cuming, and F/Sgt Syd Sewell (F/engr).
An end of tour picture by Mike’s rear turret on 12 December 1944. Syd Sewell, Bill Scott, Paddy McElligott, Sgt J. C. ‘Jack’ Lambert (F/engr), Jack Christie and Jack Scott, now commissioned. It must have been confusing having three men called Jack in the crew.
NE181 after fifty-one missions, and so around late September 1944. The artwork is very neat, the figure resplendent in a red hunting jacket.
Squadron Leader Jack Bailey DFC in the cockpit of NE181, with 101 bombs and the image of Captain A. R. P. Reilly-Foull. The colouring of the image was much reduced by ‘higher authority’.
Mike’s ground crew proudly paint on the 101st bomb, after it had flown what was thought to be its hundredth, but a recount showed it had flown 101. Other ground personnel look on while, in the centre, Squadron Leader J. Bailey RNZAF DFC checks their work. February 1945.
Another 75 (NZ) Squadron crew in front of their aircraft NG449, T for Tommy. The main squadron codes of AA can be seen clearly. Jack Plummer DFC is on the left. Coming back from one operation, having had the front windscreen smashed, his hands became frozen to the control column, which had to be cut through to release him. L to r: F/Lt J. Plummer, F/O R. J. Scott (M/upr gnr), Sgt A. L. ‘Tiny’ Humphries DFM (Nav), F/Sgt A. McDonald (R/gnr), Sgt M. Fell (F/engr), F/O J. Holloway (B/aimer). They and this aircraft were shot down on 21 March 1945, their thirty-second trip, and Plummer, Holloway and Scott were killed, the others becoming prisoners.
Chapter Four
February to March 1945 During February and March 1945 no fewer than ten RAF Lancasters reached the amazing number of a hundred operational sorties with Bomber Command. With eighteen having already reached that number by the end of January, this brought the total to twenty-eight
ND709: The Flying Kiwi This Mark III was built at the Chadderton works, rolling off the production line in early 1944 and being sent to 35 Squadron, of the Pathfinder Force, at Gravely, Huntingdonshire, on 7 March. Coded TL-M she flew just two operations as a ‘supporter’ aircraft, the first to Stuttgart on 15/16 March, the second to Frankfurt two days later. After these, ND709, along with seven other squadron aircraft, moved to 635 Squadron which was being formed at Downham Market, Norfolk. Assigned to B Flight, new codes of F2-J were applied, although the previous M could still be seen just in front of the rear elevator. Her main pilot became Squadron Leader R. P. Wood, whose first operation in her came on 22 March, another raid on Stuttgart. Four days later, Warrant Officer J. M. Bourassa, who had flown one of her two trips with the squadron, went to Essen but came home on three engines. As a matter of interest, Pathfinder squadrons usually had aircrew members advanced by one rank. Scott flew Kiwi another seven times during the build-up to D-Day, but any number of other pilots flew her too, including the flight commander, Wing Commander D. W. S. Clarke DFC, to Duisburg on 21/22 May. However, on the way to the target the Lancaster was fired on by a ‘friendly’ four-engined aircraft and both Clark and his Canadian navigator, Pilot Officer H. P. Laskowski RCAF, were wounded but not seriously enough for them to abort. Bombing successfully, they got home only to have a tyre burst on landing. Clark, it was discovered, had a bullet in his shoulder; Harry Laskowski was injured by shell splinters. They were not away for long.
Because Clark was a New Zealander, although born in Surbiton, Surrey, England, and would eventually transfer from the RAF to the RNZAF, his Canadian navigator designed an emblem for ‘their’ Lancaster – a kiwi, with two plasters on its behind, and a telescopic sight strapped to its beak, standing on a bomb, heading for a target, with a Canadian maple leaf painted on the bomb. During D-Day missions ND709 was usually captained by Flying Officer A. L. Johnson RAAF, who would go on to receive the DFC and Bar. Calais on 4 June was his first trip, followed by seven more, but then the wing commander operated with it another dozen times against V1 sites and during the Caen breakout. On a trip on 5 August Kiwi was hit by flak, which was repeated on 16/17 August. Cloud also caused a couple of aborts over targets during the summer. In all Clark would fly his Kiwi bird on sixteen trips, one at least while acting as Master Bomber, and a raid on Stettin on 16/17 August for which he received a Bar to the DFC he had won while with 419 RCAF Squadron in 1943. On the Stettin trip Kiwi was hit whilst being illuminated by searchlights. One engine was knocked out and a second became erratic, but Clark continued his run and bombed. A few nights later Kiwi was hit again, a fairly large hole being blasted through the starboard fuselage – but with another pilot. Kiwi carried on for some weeks without further hurt, but was hit again on 28 October over Cologne when both starboard engines were damaged. Flying Officer R. W. Toothill was in command and he was forced to make a landing on the unused airfield of Moorsele in Belgium, not helped by a frozen ASI indicator. Kiwi was the only 100veteran to land in Belgium during the war before EXODUS trips began. Toothill flew her home on the 30th. By the New Year Kiwi’s total operations were nearing a hundred. Squadron Leader P. R. Mellor took her to Oberfeld on 4 February, the ninety-sixth, and the CO, Wing Commander S. Baker DSO DFC & Bar, used her, flying as Master Bomber on the 7th, to Kleve. Her next trip was in the hands of Flying Officer J. D. Cowden DFC, who made thirteen sorties in her, including number ninety-nine and, finally, Peter Mellor and crew completed the century by going to Chemnitz on 14/15 February. It was also her final operation with 635 Squadron. By strange coincidence, Cowden and crew also operated this same night in PB287 and were shot down by a night-fighter. Only the rear gunner survived. Cowden, previously with 158 Squadron, had flown sixty-one missions in total. Oddly, the squadron records show that he should have been flying Kiwi that night, but obviously did not. They had been ready to fly Kiwi in spite of having problems with one engine. However, the CO forbade it and so they moved to another Lancaster. As there were two
waves of attacking aircraft that night, Mellor took Kiwi once it had the engine problem sorted out. He reported the hundredth trip as uneventful Cowden was apparently shot down by Hauptmann Kurt-Heinz Weigel of 11./NJG6 in a Ju88 at 21.37 hours, who reported it had crashed somewhere between Plauen-Eger. It was the German’s fourth victory. After a bit of a refit, Kiwi was sent to 405 (Vancouver) Squadron RCAF at RAF Gransden Lodge, Bedfordshire, still a Pathfinder. Re-coded LQ-G she arrived on 19 March and flew her first sortie on the 22nd, exactly one year to the day after she had flown her first-ever sortie. In all she completed eight operations with the Canadians, then added two MANNA trips and one EXODUS flight, bringing her overall figure to 111. On 11 June 1945 she returned to 35 Squadron but on 27 July was flown to No. 1667 HCU, but moved once more just before Christmas to No. 1660 HCU. Almost a year later she went to No. 1635 HCU and was coded A3-U. Finally, on 9 May 1947, Kiwi went to No. 15 MU and was ‘struck off charge’ on 28 August.
ND578: Yorker This Lancaster came off the production line at the end of 1943, or early 1944, being assigned to No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge, Lincolnshire. Marked with the squadron code of KM, and the individual letter Y, ND578 became YYorker. Pilot Officer John Chatterton was given this new machine and their first trip together was a big one – Berlin – on 15/16 February 1944. Chatterton flew Yorker on fifteen operations, although he had to share her with the squadron CO, Wing Commander F. W. Thompson DFC AFC, who had flown a tour on Whitleys with 10 Squadron in 1941. On one of Thompson’s raids, on 7 May, he controlled the attack on a munitions factory at Salbris, while Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire did the actual marking of the target. The problem was that the marker flares fell between the sheds of the factory and became invisible from the bombing height, so Thompson told Cheshire to put a marker on the roof of a shed, which he did, and the attack was able to proceed. An unusual operation came on 15 July, Thompson dropping mines along the Kiel Canal and two days later he was leading an attack on Caen as the Allied armies broke out from the Normandy bridgehead. John Chatterton meantime had completed his tour and been awarded the DFC and in mid-July Thompson had flown his required number of operations. There were few regular crews taking Yorker out that summer but Flying Officer L. W. Hayler flew her to
Königsberg at the end of August, and gradually took her on a more regular basis; in fact he took her out on twenty-nine operations, although a few were aborted for various reasons. On 16 November, for example, attacking Düren, he brought her back on three engines. Some days earlier, on the 2nd, over Düsseldorf, the rear gunner saw fighter flares to port and then two Focke Wulf 190s, in formation, crossed their stern. The 190s turned, began flying a parallel course and closed in to 800 yards. The rear gunner, Sergeant W. S. H. Knight, called for Hayler to go into a ‘corkscrew’ manoeuvre as he opened up with his four guns. One of the 190s also opened fire but was soon lost to view. Meantime, the mid-upper had been keeping an eye on a twin-engine fighter but it did not come close. Yorker’s hundredth operation came on the night of 2/3 February 1945, with a trip to Karlsruhe, Hayler flying and taking a new pilot on his first mission, to see how things were done. Lister Hayler completed his tour in early March, his last in Yorker being a minelaying operation. Although these were sometimes flown either at the start of a tour or at the end, being deemed a little less dangerous operation to fly, in point of fact they were often extremely dangerous, with no guarantee of returning safely. Flying Officer H. V. Parkin and crew had started flying her in early December and became her more regular skipper after Hayler had finished. He flew her on fourteen occasions, including her final five. Total trips appear to be either 121 or 123, the last to the Cham marshalling yards, deep inside south-east Germany, on 17/18 April. It was a very successful attack and suffered no losses among the ninety Lancasters and eleven Mosquitoes that took part. She carried no nose art, other than a bomb tally, with red for night sorties and yellow for day. However, someone had obviously taken a visit to London Zoo and had ‘liberated’ a sign which was placed inside the cockpit window on the starboard side. This read ‘These animals are dangerous’. Yorker became Cat-Ac on 18 May 1945 and was sent off to Avro at Lincoln for an overhaul, returning on the 24th. She was then placed on the strength of No. 75 (NZ) Squadron on 2 July, also based at Spilsby, until finally ‘struck off charge’ on 27 October. By the early 1990s John Chatterton’s son was a regular pilot in the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and often flew their famous Lancaster (PA474) on displays, and did so until at least 1997. He also flew his father and a couple of his old crewmates in her.
ND458: Able Mabel Another Chadderton-built Lancaster, this Mark III was completed at the end of 1943 and
on 10 January 1944 was assigned to No. 100 Squadron based at Waltham, near Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and given the code letters HW and individual letter A, thus becoming known as Able, followed by ‘Able Mabel’. The Battle of Berlin was raging that winter, so Able’s initial sorties wete during this period, with her first operation going to Berlin on 20/21 January, piloted by Sergeant K. W. Evans RAAF. It was his one and only sortie in her; shortly afterwards she was taken by Flight Sergeant T. F. Cook to Berlin on 27/28 January, and again the next night. After a few more trips flown by Warrant Officer P. R. M. Neal and Sergeant E. R. Belbin, she became the more regular aircraft of Warrant Officer J. Littlewood, who flew her on twenty-two trips, during which time he was commissioned. Some of these operations were in support of D-Day, including large gun positions at Merville, Dieppe, le Clipton and St Martin de Varreville. The last was on the dawn of D-Day and Jack Littlewood also flew her on D-Day itself. After the Normandy landings, Littlewood and crew were pounding V1 sites, and marshalling yards in order to disrupt German rail traffic to the beachhead. Her bomb doors were damaged on 2 July during a V1 site raid at Oismont and, five days later, an electrical fault caused the bombs to drop onto unopened doors, their weight forcing them open but resulting in damage once more. July wasn’t proving a good month for Mabel as she was hit in the starboard wing by AA fire over Villers Bocage on 30 July, and part of the trailing edge had to be replaced. She also had encounters with enemy night-fighters, including one during a raid on Rüsselheim on 25/26 August. They were at 16,000 feet near Luxembourg when the bomb aimer spotted a twin-engined Me410 above on the starboard bow. The rear gunner also saw it and ordered the skipper, Pilot Officer C. D. Edge RAAF, to corkscrew to starboard. The Messerschmitt and both Lancaster gunners opened fire, Able being hit and suffering damage to both rear and mid-upper turrets. The 410 also appeared to be hit and was seen to break away and go down. Severe damage was caused to the starboard elevator and one rudder fin, while the hydraulics were also damaged and the R/T knocked out. However, Charles Edge got her home. Edge later flew with 156 Squadron and received the DFC. His rear gunner, Fred Twist, also received the DFM. Soldiering on with several different crews, Able Mabel was hit by flak again on 4 November, by which time she was being flown irregularly by another Australian pilot, Pilot Officer G. K. Veitch RAAF, who skippered her on nine operations. She was shared by Flight Lieutenant J. D. Playford RCAF, who took her to Wanne-Eickel on 18 November and went on some twenty-six operations, although he had a couple of aborts. John Playford received the DFC in November.
Another pilot to share in Able’s total operations was Pilot Officer R. Barker and crew. He flew only four times in her, and should have been in her on 5/6 January 1945 but he and another crew swopped aircraft and Barker was lost in Lancaster JB603, Take it Easy, the other veteran of 100 Squadron, on the raid on Hannover. On 1 February 1945 came the hundredth mission, Playford taking her to Ludwigshafen. Her final operation was to Berchtesgaden on 25 April with Playford which was followed by an EXODUS trip on the 27th, and then six MANNA sorties between then and 7 May with other pilots. This brought her total operations to 132. By early 1945 Able had enjoyed over 800 hours of virtually trouble-free flying, except for enemy damage. This was due in no small measure to her ground personnel, who were Sergeant W. Hearne, Corporal R. T. Withey and LACs J. E. Robinson, J. Hale and J. Cowis. She was eventually ‘struck off charge’ on 29 August 1947.
LL843: POD Built under licence at the Armstrong-Whitworth factory in Coventry, this Mark I was assigned to 467 Squadron RAAF on 28 February 1944, at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. Squadron codes of PO were applied and, with her individual letter being ‘D’, she became known as POD. Her first mission was rather auspicious in that the B Flight commander, Squadron Leader A. W. Doubleday DFC RAAF, took off on 9/10 March as part of a force of fortyfour Lancasters of 5 Group to bomb the aircraft factory at Marignane, near Marseilles, in southern France. Despite it being a bright moonlit night, there were no losses and the raid was deemed as accurate. Arthur Doubleday was an experienced skipper, having won his DFC in 1942 flying with 460 Squadron. Aged thirty-one he went on to command 61 Squadron, being awarded the DSO. His crew were experienced too, but flying with them this night was Group Captain S. C. Elworthy DSO DFC AFC (later Marshal of the RAF Lord Elworthy KG), the Station Commander. He was just short of his thirty-third birthday. Doubleday went on to fly POD five more times before her regular captain became Flight Lieutenant J. A. Colpus RAAF. Jack Colpus took POD out on some six operations. It was then the turn of Pilot Officer J. L. Sayers RAAF, beginning on 11/12 May. Ten days later he and his crew had an encounter with a Messerschmitt 110 nightfighter and POD was hit by AA fire as well, on a mission to Brunswick. John Sayers flew nineteen operations in all, mostly during the D-Day and post D-Day periods. They were operating on D-Day itself and over the next few days, then hitting V1 sites and other targets inland from the landing beaches. He went on to receive the DFC and later,
moving to 617 Squadron, was awarded a Bar to this decoration. In July, LL843 left the Australians, moving to 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire. Whether this was a straightforward transfer is not known for sure, but one of her new skippers was none other than Wing Commander A. W. Doubleday DFC, who had flown her in 467 and was now commanding No.61. He went on a few raids with her, but her main captain was eventually Flying Officer J. S. Cooksey, starting with a raid on Bremen on 6 October. Several pilots did fly her during this phase but Cooksey made at least eighteen trips in her during that winter, although he and his crew had several adventures, including aborts due to weather or a Master Bomber calling off a raid, returning with a sick crewman, or being so late getting to the target as their ASI iced up that he had to turn back when the Master Bomber called off the bombing. On a distant raid to Pölitz on 8/9 February 1945, they were heavily fired upon over neutral Sweden, but were the first aircraft to bomb the target. Flying Officer W. G. Corewyn flew her on thirteen operations during this time too, but he and his crew were killed in a flying accident on 14 January. They were returning from a raid on Leuna but collided with a radar mast on Bord Hill and crashed near Langham airfield, Norfolk. John Cooksey took POD on her hundredth trip in March, probably on the 5th/6th to Böhlen, right at the end of his tour. He was awarded the DFC. POD continued with a variety of pilots from then until her last mission on 25/26 April, the third trip in her by Flying Officer H. S. Beckett and crew. In all, she is recorded as having flown 118 operations. On 21 May 1945 LL843 was sent to No. 1659 HCU and then in early September to No. 279 Air Sea Rescue Squadron, but within three weeks was transferred to No. 20 MU. Finally, the veteran was sold to Messrs Cooley and Co. at Hounslow, Middlesex, for scrap, on 7 May 1947.
PA995: The Vulture Strikes! Produced in spring 1944, this was a Mark III assigned to No. 550 Squadron on 29 May 1944 at RAF Waltham, Lincolnshire, and coded BG-K. She carried K until September but was then changed to V-Victor. The V then took on other connotations, for a large vulture image with outspread wings was painted on the aircraft in red, outlined in white, with its name, The Vulture Strikes!, above. Bomb symbols began to appear following the first operation that took place on 3/4 June, a raid to Wimereux, with Flying Officer K. Bowen-Bravery in command. Kenyon Bowen-Bravery was well into his tour of operations and only flew PA995 on this occasion, but on the night before D-Day he was credited with the opening of the RAF’s
assault in support of the landings. He later received the DFC. His usual Lancaster was named Bad Penny II (LL811). He and all his crew were awarded the Croix de Guerre. Other crews flew PA995 during D-Day but on 13/14 June an American in the RAF, Flying Officer G. P. Fauman, took her to Gelsenkirchen and, on the next several missions, he and Flying Officer F. S. Steele RCAF shared her. Faumen completed five operations and Francis Steele some two dozen, receiving the DFC. On 12/13 July Steele took Flight Lieutenant R. P. Stone on his ‘second dickie’ trip, before starting a tour with his own crew. This operation, to Révigny marshalling yards, was supposed to be a quiet one. The CO, Wing Commander P. E. G. G. Connolly, even came up to Stone to make the point. However, night-fighters got in amongst the raiding force, and of the 133 men who had been in the briefing room with Stone, twenty-one were dead, including Connolly. Robert Stone began flying Bad Penny II after Bowen-Bravery became tour-expired. Stone flew this aircraft on several raids and at least three in PA995. He too received the French Croix de Guerre. Stone, of course, also flew in ED905 and EE139, both veteran Lancs. Fauman was an exchange NCO pilot, but was commissioned after completing his training. He received an Air Medal from the USAAF and transferred to the US Army Air Forces in September. PA995’s last regular skipper was Flying Officer G. E. Blackler and, from his first trip in her on 5/6 October (Saarbrücken), he flew her twenty-seven times, although a couple of aborts are recorded, including one to Stuttgart on 19 October, due to losing an engine. John Nicholson, the mid-upper, also shot down a Me163 rocket fighter – he saw it explode – on one raid. George Blackler recorded PA995’s hundredth trip on a raid to Chemnitz on 5/6 March 1945. There were the usual celebrations next morning, with most of the squadron turning out for the photographers. However, she was lost on her very next mission, a raid to Dessau on the 7th. She was caught by a Ju88 night-fighter at 21.30 hours and crashed at Schauen, just south of Osterwieck. Flying Officer C. J. Jones RCAF was the pilot and he and two of his crew were killed, the others becoming prisoners. One of the latter, Sergeant M. B. Smith (R/gnr), effected an escape and succeeded in reaching the American front lines, returning to the squadron in April. It is believed that Sergeant F. M. Main (W/Op) also managed to get back to Allied lines.
LL885: JIG Built under licence at the Armstrong-Whitworth factory in Coventry, LL885 came off the production line in early 1944 and was assigned to 622 Squadron on 23 March. She was
given the squadron codes GI and individual aircraft letter J, thus becoming J for Jig – that was also GI-J written backwards. She was lucky to return from her very first operation, taking part in the disastrous Nürnberg raid on 30/31 March, the occasion that saw ninety-five RAF bombers fail to return. She was skippered by Pilot Officer J. M. Lunn who got her back despite damage from a falling incendiary bomb over the target. In consequence she was out of action until May, and was flown fourteen more times by Jack Lunn during his tour. In spite of her inauspicious start, Jig did not sustain any further damage until 28/29 July, by which time she had taken part in D-Day operations and attacks on V1 sites. On the way to Stuttgart she was attacked by a night-fighter and suffered a number of hits, causing the pilot, Flight Lieutenant R. G. Allen, to order his crew to put on parachutes, but the mid-upper must have misinterpreted the instruction as he baled out. Neither of the gunners had seen the enemy’s approach. Some flares were set alight and Allen put the aircraft into a corkscrew manoeuvre. Jig then went into a steep dive but he and the flight engineer managed to pull her out and, with the flares having been put out, Allen flew the bomber home. Richard Allen received the DFC at the end of his tour. Following more repairs Jig was back again in August, but on her second operation, to Kiel on the 26th/27th, she was attacked by an FW190 night-fighter. The bomber was damaged and the rear gunner, Sergeant P. S. Withers was killed in his turret. The pilot, Flying Officer A. H. Thompson RAAF, first saw the fighter after it had dropped a flare but it then attacked unseen from the starboard bow. Thompson went into an immediate corkscrew and, as this began, the mid-upper gunner managed to fire at the 190 which was not seen again. Jig was once more in the repair shop until 20 September. She continued operating despite one or two more problems, such as having a hole shot through her port wing during a daylight mission to Osterfeld on 11 December, and on 1 February 1945, heading for München-Gladbach, the starboard-outer engine suddenly feathered itself and would not stay un-feathered. The bombs were jettisoned in the Frankfurt area before turning for home. It was the first trip for Flying Officer B. Morrison RCAF and crew but they flew another dozen or so operations in her, being hit again by flak on 14 March, but not sustaining any serious damage. The hundredth trip was recorded as being flown on 6 March, a daylight sortie against an oil refinery at Salzbergen, with Flying Officer C. B. Moore RAAF. Other skippers who flew a number of operations in LL885 were Flying Officer H. P. Peck with twentyone and Flight Lieutenant Ned Jordan RCAF, with thirteen. Both received DFCs. In all Jig completed 114 operations, then flew six MANNA trips and three EXODUS
sorties, for a total of 123. On one of her MANNA missions to The Hague on 3 May, she had as a passenger Lieutenant Colonel Morgan. At the war’s end Jig remained with 622 until she was sent to No. 44 Squadron on 27 August, then on to No. 39 MU on 3 January 1946. She was finally ‘struck off charge’ on 4 March 1947.
ME746: Roger Squared Built at the Metro-Vickers Works, Manchester, ME746 was a Mark I that rolled out of the factory on 2 April 1944. Assigned to No. 166 Squadron at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, on the 14th (just two weeks prior to another hundred-operations veteran, LM550) she was coded AS-C, originally known as C for Charlie, but this was later changed to R², thus becoming Roger Squared. Upon arrival, this Lancaster was allocated to one of the flight commanders, Squadron Leader A. S. Caunt – appropriate as A.S.C. were Arthur Caunt’s own initials. However, ME746’s first operation was undertaken by Flight Sergeant F. A. Mander to Cologne on 20/21 April. This crew would be lost on 27 May. Caunt then began to fly her fairly regularly until he completed his tour on 5 June, although his crew had to complete their required number of trips, so, except for the mid-upper gunner, were taken over by the CO, Wing Commander D. A. Garner. Caunt’s last operation, which was in LM746, was on D-Day and on the days following, apart from Garner, a variety of crews flew her until Flying Officer W. C. Hutchinson became the more regular skipper, with eighteen operations. ME746 collected a few flak hits and, over Revigny on 12/13 July, was even hit by gunfire from another Lancaster, but her maintenance record was pretty good. There was no nose art on the Lancaster, just steadily rising rows of bomb symbols. Her next more permanent skipper was Flying Officer H. J. Musselman RCAF, who took her out for the first time on 11 November, to Dortmund. Among his missions, that flown on 29/30 December earned Harold Musselman the DFC and his flight engineer, Sergeant J. R. Cogbill, the DFM. On the way to the target the starboard-inner engine failed but he continued and then the port-outer became defective. Determined to make some sort of effort, and with the superb skill of his engineer, he flew to nearby Duisburg where the bomb load was dropped, despite further damage by AA fire. On 22 January 1945, during a raid, a fire aboard the aircraft forced an early return, and on 1 February, on the way to Ludwigshafen, they lost an engine, but Cogbill worked his magic again and got them to the target. However on 13/14 February they were forced to abort due to instrument failure. It might be said that Roger was starting to show its age, but Musselman continued to fly operations and in all flew her on twenty-seven
starts, including the hundredth, flown on 11 March, a daylight raid on Essen. Upon his return, Musselman proceeded to beat up the Kirmington control tower. Two of the ground crew, Corporal Dennis Terry and Corporal Sid Woodcock, cycled frantically to the airfield, in time to see the final low-level fly-by. It was Terry who painted on the bomb symbols. Towards the end, Pilot Officer S. Todd took over Roger, completing eleven raids with her, plus five MANNA trips. In all the record stood at 116 operational sorties, plus six MANNA and three EXODUS trips, so a probable 124 in total. Roger remained with the squadron until 3 September at which time she became CatAC and was returned to Avro for an overhaul. Back to 166 on 22 September, when 166 was disbanded, she went to 103 Squadron on 12 November, then on to 57 Squadron two weeks later. On 29 December she was flown to RAF Lindholme until finally sold for scrap on 21 February 1946 to Hestons Ltd and ‘struck off charge’.
ME801: Nan Another Metro-Vickers built Lancaster, ME801 came off the production line as a Mark I in spring 1944 and was sent to 166 Squadron, but almost immediately was re-assigned to No. 576 Squadron, based at Elsham Wolds, south of Hull, on 18 May. Code letters UL were applied with an individual letter C, until Lancaster PD235 was lost in late September, when she was re-coded N² for Nan. Her first trip was to Duisburg on 21/22 May with Pilot Officer S. G. Hordal RCAF at the controls. In fact he flew the first fifteen raids in her, including operations in support of D-Day, plus one more on 29 June, to bomb a V1 site. Steve Hordal received the DFC that autumn. Pilot Officer J. McDonald then took her, flying twenty-four raids. James McDonald also received the DFC. Although fairly trouble-free, ME801 did have the occasional problem, such as on another trip to Duisburg, on 14/15 October, returning early due to engine problems. The squadron moved to RAF Fiskerton, just east of Lincoln, in late October. Flying Officer D. Fletcher flew six operations in her after the move but he and his crew were lost on 28 December in another aircraft. Otherwise, Flight Lieutenant H. Leyton-Brown flew her a number of times over the winter, his seventeenth being Nan’s hundredth operation, on 12 March 1945, an attack on Dortmund. Howard Leyton-Brown went to Misburg on the 15th/16th, his thirty-sixth and final operation, after which he was awarded the DFC. Leyton-Brown did spot a Ju88 just twenty yards away on his port beam over the target, but the German pilot didn’t see them, nor did his radar operator
locate the Lancaster. Nan had a few encounters with night-fighters, particularly on 20/21 February, playing cat-and-mouse with an FW190 but it failed to attack. On the 23rd came an attack by a Ju88 shortly after they had bombed Pforzheim. The rear gunner, Warrant Officer J. J. Hiscocks, saw the Junkers as it crossed by at a range of 400 yards, in bright moonlight conditions, helped too by the fighter being seen against fires of the town below. As it then climbed under the RAF bomber stream, Hiscocks opened fire with his four Brownings with a five-second burst. Hits were seen to smash into the German’s starboard wing. Just as Hiscocks ordered the pilot to corkscrew, the German opened up a quick defiant burst, but he still had it in his sights and another burst from 300 yards caused the enemy machine to disintegrate. Flames came from it too and later it was seen to crash and explode. Flying Officer D. E. Till, who would fly a number of operations in LM227, as we shall read, flew one trip in Nan, on 14 February, to Chemnitz. He was concerned about the route being fairly straight to the target, because of the distance and the amount of fuel they could carry. However, they had no problems. Flying Officer Don Graham and crew took Nan on her 102nd to 105th trips, bringing total operations to 110 by the end of April. To this can be added three EXODUS and one more MANNA flights, to make a grand total of 116. ME801 was ‘struck off charge’ on 16 October 1945, following a crash that left the aircraft Cat-E.
ND875: Nuts An Avro-built machine, produced in early 1944, following a few days at No. 32 MU, commencing 9 April, ND875 was assigned to No. 7 Squadron of the Pathfinder Force on the 14th, but a week later moved to No. 156 Squadron PFF at RAF Upwood, Huntingdonshire, and was coded GT-N for Nuts. Her operational tour began on the night of 24/25 April, a raid against Karlsruhe, with Squadron Leader H. F. Slade DFC RAAF in command. His navigator was the squadron’s Navigation Leader, Squadron Leader A. J. Mulligan DFC, who would receive the DSO during the summer. Herbert Slade had been awarded his DFC for a raid on Berlin in December 1943 and would follow this with a DSO in September 1944. Tony Mulligan had been Slade’s navigator, and had received his DFC in October. He would fly thirty-seven missions overall. Slade would achieve fifty-eight operations and also be awarded the American Bronze Star. Mulligan was lost in the fatal crash of the Avro Tudor which disappeared flying through the Bermuda triangle in January 1948 with Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham on board. Slade and crew flew Nuts on at least ten occasions including sorties in support of D-
Day and in mid-July her next regular skipper became Squadron Leader T. E. Ison DFC, who sometimes acted as Master Bomber. He flew sixteen operations in her, the last one being on 7 October 1944. This was called a longstop operation, flown and marked so that other aircraft would not bomb Allied troops in the Nijmegen salient. As some stage ND875 changed her personal letter from N to Q, but records still show her as Nuts. Certainly by September she was Q, as shown in a photograph. One of Ison’s gunners was Squadron Leader D. F. Allen, who, as an NCO, had earned the George Medal in 1941 for rescuing three men from a crashed bomber the previous year. He received the British Empire Medal in 1941, too, for tackling an incendiary bomb that smashed into an aircraft on the ground in April, and then went on to gain the DFC. The hundredth operation was recorded as being flown on 24 March 1945, with Squadron Leader Peter Clayton in command, another longstop sortie for a raid against a Benzol plant near Dortmund. In all 108 missions were credited to Nan, although not all can be verified, but she certainly did more than a hundred. She was sent to No. 1660 HCU on 26 July, then to 1668 HCU on 20 October where she remained until 14 March 1946, when she returned to 1660. Her final service was with 1653 HCU with effect from 9 November, before going to No. 15 MU on 9 May 1947. She was ‘struck off charge’ there on 28 August.
ME758: Nan This Mark I came from the Metro-Vickers Factory in early 1944, being assigned to B Flight, No. 12 Squadron, at RAF Wickenby, Lincolnshire. Squadron codes of PH and individual letter N for Nan became her identity. She began operations with Pilot Officer N. Rolin and crew, on 1/2 May with a raid to Lyons, France, then flew four more missions before the crew moved to No. 156 Squadron, where they flew more missions in another hundred-plus veteran, ND875. Afterwards, Sergeant G. F. Holbrook and crew began to fly her on a more regular basis, beginning with Aachen on 27/28 May. Over and beyond the D-Day operations, George Holbrook accomplished twenty-four further operations, was commissioned and received the DFC. These missions were not without incident, with a couple being called off by the Master Bombers, while on 24/25 July she returned from a raid on Stuttgart on three engines; this had been an eight-hour-and-forty-minute mission. During a turn on a daylight trip to a flying-bomb storage depot at Trossy St Maximin on 3 August, they got caught out, being forced to follow alone as a straggler with the full attention of the flak gunners, but they survived, despite fifty to sixty holes being counted later, plus one engine knocked out. The bomb aimer and flight engineer received minor injuries.
Holbrook’s engineer, Sergeant I. E. ‘Johnny’ Squires, was over forty years of age, a former Army officer. Too old to re-join the Colours, he reduced his age by ten years, managed to get into the RAF and went on to complete two tours with Bomber Command. Holbrook completed his tour and received the DFC. There followed a period with no regular skipper, although Flying Officers E. King, K. T. Wallace RCAF and Colin H. Henry RNZAF DFC flew her on several occasions. Ken Wallace later moved to 156 Squadron and also flew operations in ND875. Although Nan rarely suffered mechanical problems, she did have an engine fire on 2 February 1945 and had to abort. The pilot on that occasion was Flight Lieutenant W. W. Kroeker RCAF. Six of this crew had been forced to spend some months as guests in Sweden, having crashed there on 6 January 1944 on a raid upon Stettin. They were lost on 4 April, having been released and returned to the squadron in September 1944. Nan participated in all the usual operations during the final months of the war, one of her more regular pilots being Flying Officer Arthur J. D. Leach, with sixteen trips. However, it was Flying Officer E. M. Baird RCAF who took her on the hundredth, a mining sortie off Oslo on 22/23 March; Ernest Baird later received the DFC. Eight trips later, and flying on six MANNA missions, plus two EXODUS sorties, brought her total to 116. When she had reached 106, on 18 April, someone must have realised what she and her crews had achieved, which resulted in a ceremony, in which she was presented with both the DSO and DFC. Mock medals were produced and hung from the cockpit window ledge. Beneath these were the 106 painted bomb symbols, ten rows in red and yellow, then another ten next to them, then the final six. Above them was a swastika, representing the 109 fighter destroyed at the end of May 1944, and two painted searchlight beams, to record the occasions on which Nan was coned over Germany but had managed to escape their cold embrace. It was recorded that she had dropped over a million pounds of bombs and incendiaries. Like many bomber bomb symbols, they were often out of kilter with actual events. Nan, for instance, had her first yellow bomb as the nineteenth, although records show this to have been her twenty-second on 22 June 1944. Perhaps whoever added up the ‘score’ failed to notice that the first trip, whilst noted as flown by ME758 with the letter ‘M’ next to it, and two others earlier in May, had shown the letter ‘N’ next to serial number ME759 and MG758, so the count was incorrect. ME759 was a 9 Squadron aircraft and there was no such Lancaster with the latter serial, so both are clerical errors. To add to the confusion, the hundredth bomb is also yellow, although that mining sortie was a night show. A straightforward count might indicate the hundredth was in
fact two raids later, a daylight mission on 27 March to Paderborn, with Walter Kroeker in command. That would at least show the last raid on 25 April to be number 106. Nan lived out to see the war won but did not survive long enough to outlast the first six months of peace. She was struck off charge’ on 19 October 1945 and ingloriously ‘reduced to produce’.
Lancaster ND709, 635 Squadron, The Flying Kiwi, after fifty-four operations, and the nose art. P/O H. P. Laskowski RCAF (Nav) and P/O D. G. Coltman stand in front. W/Cdr D. W. S. Clarke DFC took over Wood’s crew in May.
The flying kiwi nose art on ND709, the kiwi being a reference to its New Zealand pilot, while the maple leaf on the bomb refers to the Canadian navigator.
Flying Officer J. D. F. Cowden DFC and crew. He had been awarded the DFC following a tour with 158 Squadron before moving to 635. He had returned from a raid on three engines despite repeated attacks by German night-fighters. L to r: Duncan Cowden, P/O J. R. C. Donohue DFC (Nav), F/Lt J. F. Craik DFC, S/Ldr R. A. Boddington DFC*, F/Sgt H. Botterell DFM (W/Op), F/Sgt J. T. McQuillan DFM (R/gnr), F/Lt J. S. Davison (M/upr gnr), F/O W. Gabbott (F/engr). Flying Officer R. W. Toothill (DFC) and crew flew ND709 on a couple of operations in October 1944. Front: Sgt J. A. Davies DFC (Nav), Reg Toothill, F/O J. B. Luard DFC (B/aimer), Sgt F. W. Coombes (M/upr gnr); Back: Sgt S. H. Fortune DFM (F/engr), Sgt W. W. Colvin (W/Op), Sgt F. W. Stone (R/gnr). On 28 October they were forced to put down in Belgium but got away two days later following work by the repair unit of 145 RAF Wing at nearby Wevelgem airfield.
Squadron Leader P. R. Mellor and crew also flew missions in early 1945. Standing: F/Lt F. E. Prebble DFC RNZAF (B/aimer), Peter Mellor DFC, F/Sgt L. Freeman DFM (R/gnr), F/Sgt A. Rowbottom DFM (F/engr); Kneeling: F/Sgt E. E. Freake DFM (M/upr gnr); In door: F/Lt G. Shaw DFC (Nav), F/Sgt S. Blair DFM (W/Op). Note that several men are wearing the Pathfinder (eagle) badge on their left
pockets.
The hundredth bomb symbol is painted on following a trip to Chemnitz on 14/15 February 1945 with Peter Mellor in command. It was ND709’s last sortie with 635 Squadron, but she flew another eleven with 405 (RCAF) Squadron in the last weeks of the war.
Sharing in the glory is ND709’s proud ground crew and supporters on the morning of 15 February 1945. It was unusual for the bomb log to be painted from the bottom up, rather than the top down.
Yorker, ND578’s, ground personnel in mid-April 1944, following fifteen successful operations. During this early period, John Chatterton, the pilot, had a small ace of spades on a yellow background painted just ahead of the bomb markings but, for reasons unexplained, his commanding officer ordered it to be removed. Standing airmen only: Jock Biggar (rigger & bomb painter), Harry Prior (engine fitter), LAC Palmer (fitter), Dick Pinning (engine fitter) and Sgt Alan Rubenstein (NCO i/c).
Pilot Officer John Chatterton DFC and crew flew most of their tour on Yorker. L to r: Sgt John H. Davidson (R/gnr), Sgt W. H. R. ‘Bill’ Champion (M/upr gnr), F/Sgt W. H. ‘Bill’ Barker (B/aimer), Chatterton, F/O David J. Reyland RAAF (Nav), Sgt F. Ken Letts (F/engr) and Sgt John Michie (W/Op). Unusually, all crew members were decorated on completion of their tour. Chatterton and Reyland received DFCs, the others were all awarded DFMs. Reyland later flew with 467 Squadron. Yorker, KM-Y, 44 Squadron 1944/45. Note protective covers over the rear and mid-upper turrets, and undercarriage. Lettering was red with yellow edging.
Yorker with Wing Commander F. W. Thompson DFC standing with his crew and ground personnel. The aircrew are from the left: F/O Pete F. Roberts (W/Op), F/Lt Steve Burrows DFC, F/Sgt Maurice J. Stancer DFM Nav); Thompson is 9th, and F/O W. ‘Bill’ Clegg (B/aimer) is 11th. The Squadron Gunnery Officer, F/Lt G. E. Mortimer DFM, is on the far right.
Jock Biggar paints on bomb number 107, March 1945. Flight Lieutenant Lister W. Hayler is in the
cockpit; he took Yorker on over thirty trips during his tour of operations and received the DFC. Total now is 121 although she may have completed 123. The significance of the marking on the seventy-first bomb symbol is not known, but the raid took place in early October 1944, a daylight trip to either Wilhelmshaven or Bremen.
As may be seen in this and the previous picture, the original bomb log has been painted out and replaced with the more customary red and yellow symbols for night and day operations. Bomb symbols total 107, so this picture seems to indicate a rather belated celebration of Yorker’s hundredth. Lister Hayler and crew are seated in the front row with other aircrew and B Flight’s ground crews.
Flight Lieutenant J. D. ‘Jack’ Playford RCAF (in Mae West), shaking hands with ND458’s ground crew
chief, Sergeant W. Hearne. From l to r: LAC J. Cowlis (fitter airframes), Corporal R. Withey (fitter), Hearne and Playford, LAC J. Robinson, and AC J. Hale (both fitters-engines). Note H²S radar blister under the fuselage. Flight Lieutenant Jack Playford RCAF in the cockpit of ND458 – Able Mabel. Bomb total is now 119, but just why the last nine are less orderly is not known. The two swastika markings record encounters with German night-fighter aircraft. Playford received the DFC.
Lancaster bombers of 75 (NZ) Squadron returning from a daylight operation on 6 September 1944. It often came as a shock to aircrew used to flying in the dark of night to see just how full of aeroplanes the sky was on these sorties. POD, LL843, 467 (RAAF) Squadron, achieved a total of 118 bombing raids between March 1944 and
April 1945. The hundredth trip came almost exactly one year after starting operations. In June 1944 she moved to 61 Squadron.
Pilot Officer J. L. Sayers (far right) took LL843 on twenty trips during his tour with 467 Squadron. With him here are Flight Sergeants E. W. Weaver DFC RAAF and P. G. Barry DFM RAAF (R/gnr), both of whom were later commissioned.
The crew of Bob MacDonnell (in the centre) in front of Lancaster LL845 of No. 9 Squadron, WS-L. The picture shows how bare was the starboard side of a Lancaster’s nose, with bomb symbols and any artwork always depicted on the port side. L to r: Mike Charny (Nav), Wally Plant (W/Op), Dick Phillips (F/engr), MacDonnell, Tony Fricker (B/aimer), Barney Davis (M/upr gnr) and Norman Green (R/gnr).
Robert Stone and crew flew PA995 on their first operation on 14/15 July 1944, to the Révigny marshalling yards. It was the Lancaster’s nineteenth trip and became a shambles. The raiders were attacked by night-fighters, and because the target could not be identified the raid was called off. Seven Lancasters failed to return, including 550 Squadron’s CO. L to r: F/Sgt E. W. Halliday RCAF (B/aimer), Sgt C. W. Sayers RCAF (Nav), Sgt D. E. Norgrove (W/Op), Stone, Sgt L. G. B. Wartnaby (M/upr gnr) (with bear mascot), Sgt C. E. White (F/engr) and Sgt F. Wright (R/gnr). Robert Stone in Bad Penny II, LL811, which had been on thirtytwo trips thus far. Her name, it was hoped, was because a bad penny always turns up. It does, of course, beg the question, ‘What happened to Bad Penny I?’
Another crew to fly PA995 was skippered by an American in the USAAF on an exchange with the RAF. Standing: F/Sgt M. S. Merovitz RCAF (B/aimer), F/Sgt A. E. Stebner RCAF (Nav), Sgt W. A. Drake (R/gnr), F/O (Lt) G. P. Fauman USAAF, Sgt J. A. Ringrow (M/upr gnr); In front: Sgt W. J. Killick (F/engr) and Sgt P. Cooksey (W/op).
PA995 on the morning after completing her hundredth mission, to Chemnitz, on 5 March 1945. The captain on that occasion was Flying Officer George E. Blackler, seated in the cockpit. The artwork is clear to see, but just why the bomb symbols changed after forty-three is not known. Only ninety-nine bombs are on display; the hundredth has yet to be painted on. Note there is no individual letter Y below the front turret. Flying Officer G. E. Blackler’s crew. L to r: Blackler, Sgt J. Nicholson (M/upr gnr), Sgt W. R. Ross (F/engr), F/Sgt H. P. Nicholls (Nav), Sgt E. Mozley (W/Op), Sgt M. McCutcheon (R/gnr); in front, F/Sgt J. W. Bold RAAF (B/aimer). Note all have a whistle dangling from their left collars, for use to attract attention should they come down in the sea and need to attract a rescue boat’s crew to their location. F/Sgt Bold has his service number written on the fold of his wellington boot, just in case of a dispute over ownership!
Everyone has turned out to celebrate PA995’s hundredth operation on the morning of 3 March 1945. The darker uniforms in the front row denote Australians. There are also a couple of WAAFs perched on the right-hand side engine frame, possibly parachute packers or tractor drivers. PA995 failed to return from its 101st operation, a raid on Dessau on 7 March, but with another crew.
Lancaster LL885 of 622 Squadron, coded GI-J, standing on the airfield at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk. Chocks are in place. Note the radar dome beneath the fuselage that housed the H²S apparatus.
The crew of Flight Lieutenant R. G. Allen DFC who first flew Jig against the Beauvoir V1 site on the afternoon of 2 July 1944. L to r: F/Lt D. B. Mason (M/upr gnr), Sgt J. Paton (W/Op), Richard Allen, P/O J. T. W. Gray DFC (R/gnr), F/Sgt W. A. Bishop (Nav), Sgt J. Barker (F/engr), F/O C. D. J. Pennington (B/ aimer). John Gray’s first intimation of an attack on the Lancaster on 28/29 July 1944, was when shells and bullets began to lacerate the rear part of the fuselage, tail and elevators. Rear fuselage, gun turret and elevator of LL885 following attack by a night-fighter on the way to
Stuttgart on 28/29 July 1944. Jig was out of action for nearly a month for repairs.
J-Jig being waved away on another sortie, a familiar sight on Bomber Command airfields, with ground personnel, both men and women, waving the crews off, wishing them well, and hoping for a safe return from the myriad of dangers that faced them over hostile territory. Crew and ground personnel celebrate the hundredth operation by ME746, of 166 Squadron, known as Roger Squared because the personal code letter on the fuselage showed a small ² next to the R for Roger. They are presenting the aircraft with a mock Distinguished Service Order, held aloft by the pilot who flew the hundredth (11 March 1945), Harold Musselman DFC, and Corporal Dennis Terry. Far
right stands the Squadron Commander, Wing Commander J. Vivian DFC, who had flown with 106 Squadron in 1942.
Johnny Musselman and his crew of 166 Squadron. Rear l to r: F/Sgt R. Williamson, (W/Op), Musselman, F/Sgt K. Forrest RCAF (R/gnr), Sgt J. R. Cogbill (F/engr); Front: P/O J. M. Donnelly RCAF (M/upr gnr), W/O H. H. Park RCAF (Nav), Sgt G. Reid (B/aimer). Sergeant James Cogbill was also decorated with the DFM No fancy artwork, no personal name, just ten rows of bombs to show a hundred operations completed between April 1944 and March 1945.
With a bomb log now totalling 125, ME746 and its last main crew, led by Pilot Officer S. Todd RCAF, centre rear row. It is assumed that the two crewmen with ammunition belts over their shoulders are the two gunners. The two ground crewmen on the left are Corporals Dennis Terry and Sid Woodcock. Note that the aircraft has now been awarded the DFC, so the DSO and DFC ribbons have been painted on above the bomb tally. Note, too, the wheel chock, denoting it belongs to R²-Roger Squared.
Lancaster ME801, UL-N², of 576 Squadron, engines running, is photographed following her hundredth operation, flown on the night of 15/16 March 1945, a raid on Misburg. Strange that the first five rows of bomb symbols are closer together than the second five. There also appears to be a decoration ribbon painted above them.
An almost identical photograph of Nan, but in between the two shots, what appears to be a leek had been painted ahead of the bomb symbols, and another medal ribbon has also appeared above the bomb tally.
No.516 Squadron’s N for Nuts, ND875, showing a bomb tally of fifty-eight trips. The crew in front, captained by Flying Officer W. J. Cleland DFC (subsequently awarded the DSO) flew this veteran on 12/13 September 1944, which must have been about the time this total was achieved. L to r: W/O A. J.
C. ‘Bert’ Wilson (W/Op), F/O Frank Oliver (Nav2), F/O G. J. ‘Gilly’ Hudson (Nav1), F/Lt W. J. Cleland, W/O J. R. ‘Watty’ Watson (F/engr), WO W. ‘Appy’ Appleby (M/upr gnr), P/O J. ‘Mac’ McGregor (R/gnr). The whole crew were decorated with DFC or DFM awards, Appleby with the Belgian Croix de Guerre avec Palme. Bill Cleland’s crew again, this time with ND875’s ground personnel, and standing to the rear of Nan. Code letters GT-Q can be seen on the fuselage and, on the original print, the oblique stroke of her previous letter N can be seen, as well as the serial number. Appy Appleby is second from the left, standing, 4th is Gilly Hudson, then Watty Watson, Bill Cleland, Mac McGregor, Bert Wilson and Olly Oliver.
ND875 after her hundredth operation on 24 March 1945, with air crew and ground personnel. The pilot was Squadron Leader P. F. Clayton DFC, squatting bottom right. The target had been a daylight trip to the Harpenerweg plant near Dortmund. It was Peter Clayton’s first and only trip in ND875. He had been awarded the DFC in 1943 flying with 97 Squadron. Sergeant G. F. Holbrook and crew took ME758 out for the first time on 27/28 May 1944, to Stuttgart. It was her tenth operation. They flew Nan on a further twenty-five occasions between then and 31 August, by which time Holbrook had been commissioned and was soon to receive the DFC. Standing at the side of Nan, PH-N, in front: Sgt Tom P. Crook (B/aimer), Fred Holbrook, Sgt I. E. ‘Johnny’ Squires (F/engr); standing: Sgt Jock P. S. Payner (W/Op), Sgt Tom S. Gibb (R/gnr), F/O A. Ron Witty (Nav) and Sgt Stan Swaine (R/gnr). Witty also received the DFC.
Nan being ‘awarded’ the DSO and DFC at RAF Wickenby in April 1945 following 106 operations, the hundredth, a mining sortie off Oslo, Norway, having been flown on 22/23 March. On the ladder during the ceremony is No. 12 Squadron’s Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Maurice Stockdale DFC, the ‘Boss’ since August 1944.
B Flight aircrew pose in front of Nan, ME758, following the presentation of mock DSO and DFC awards to her in April 1945. Squadron CO, W/Cdr Stockdale DFC stands in the centre, while on his left is the flight commander, S/Ldr P. S. Huggins. Note the two ‘medals’ dangling from the cockpit while, in addition to the 106 bomb symbols, there is a swastika for a German night-fighter shot down, and two searchlights, denoting that her gunners had put out their beams. The picture originally was called, ‘The Naafi Gang’. Peter Huggins received the DFC, gazetted in September 1945.
Squadron Leader Pete Huggins and crew take the opportunity of posing in front of 12 Squadron’s veteran ME758, Nan, at the end of the war. Nan sports 108 bomb symbols and several MANNA and EXODUS trips. Huggins flew her on an EXODUS trip to Brussels on 11 May 1945. Standing l to r:
W/O E. Bratby (W/Op), Huggins, W/O Len W. Laing (M/upr gnr), F/Sgt Geoff W. Robinson (F/engr); in front: W/O Len A. Jackson (R/gnr), W/O Sam Pechet (B/aimer) and F/O W. N. ‘Tommy’ Thompson (Nav).
Chapter Five
April to May 1945 At the start of April 1945 there were twenty-eight Avro Lancasters that had achieved their hundredth operational sortie. Obviously several more were nearing this magic total and, if the war continued, this number would increase. In the event, a further seven managed to reach or exceed the hundred mark, although, like some of the previous ones, their total included both MANNA and EXODUS missions.
ME803: L for Love A Mark I Lancaster, built by Metro-Vickers’ Manchester factory, she came off the production line in spring 1944. Once final checks were made she was sent to No. 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford, Cambridgeshire, on 20 May, and to their C Flight. Her first code letters were A4-D and, on the night of 31 May/1 June, Flying Officer J. G. Sutherland RAAF and crew made the first operational trip, to attack the railway yards at Trappes West, in central France, part of a force of 125 Lancasters, eighty-six Halifaxes and eight Mosquitoes. Four Lancasters failed to return. John Sutherland continued to operate ME803, although others made trips in her, and by August he had flown nineteen missions of his tour in her, including D-Day sorties, and received the DFC. Her next regular skipper was Flying Officer F. A. Strechman, who completed eighteen of his tour operations beginning in July through to October. Another pilot to fly her, if only on two sorties, was Flight Lieutenant E. W. Talbot, who had earlier been a glider pilot instructor. When Bill Talbot completed his tour he was awarded the DFC and, unusually, received a Bar to this decoration in 1958, flying with 84 Squadron in Aden, against Yemeni forces, but with transport aircraft, not bombers, and making deliveries despite heavy ground fire. By October 1944 ME803 had changed codes to KO-D and, the following month, to KO-L, L-Love. One of the ground crew got the OK to paint on a piece of nose art, which was said to be an angel flying through a cloud. After some discussion, the air and ground crew referred to this as ‘his angel’. Unhappily, it has not been possible to depict exactly
what the painting shows. Someone else recalled it being a naked lady. In spring 1945 the codes were changed yet again, ME803 becoming IL-B. Remarkably, Love suffered very few mechanical problems until one occurred on 23 November 1944 during a daylight to Nordstern, the port-outer engine going unserviceable forcing an abort. By this time she had logged some sixty operations and, on a trip to Cologne on 28 December, suffered a flak hit, causing slight damage to the mid-upper turret, but Flying Officer J. P. R. Mason RCAF carried on to the target. By this stage her regular pilot was Flying Officer G. P. Pickering, who took over in mid-November. He flew twenty-one operations in her, and had a few close encounters with flak, notably on 5 January 1945. On one of his final missions, to Dortmund on 3 February, he had problems with searchlights to such a degree that he finally bombed Bortrop instead. Soon after Geoff Pickering’s tour finished he was awarded the DFC, but Love was flown to Oakington for a major service, it having been discovered that she was suffering from a cracked main spar in the port wing. She did not return until April, managing to get in four more raids, four MANNA trips and three EXODUS missions. There was some slight controversy about which mission was the hundredth; Flight Lieutenant Roy E. Roberts said he flew this on 26 February, to Dortmund, while Warrant Officer M. J. Carberry’s crew thought they did it on 19 February, to Wesel. Bill Talbot’s operation on 14 April, to Potsdam, took nine hours after which he and his crew were photographed in front of Love, which clearly shows a hundred bomb symbols. In any event total sorties appear to be around the 105 mark, or possibly as high as 110. On 21 May 1945, following her MANNA and EXODUS flights, ME803 went to No. 1659 HCU, then on to No. 39 MU on 18 September. Here she was finally ‘struck off charge’ on 20 November 1946.
ME812: Fair Fighter’s Revenge A Mark I Lancaster that came off the Metro-Vickers’ production line in spring 1944, and was sent to No. 166 Squadron, at RAF Kirmington, Lincolnshire, the code letters AS-F were painted on the fuselage and, once fully prepared, she was sent out on the night of 3/4 June, with Flight Sergeant S. G. Coole DFM in the captain’s seat, for an attack on Boulogne. Sid Coole had just been awarded an Immediate DFM for a raid on 27/28 May to Aachen. On the return trip they were attacked by an Me110, both it and Coole’s rear gunner opening up simultaneously. The German’s fire shot away the Lancaster’s rudder controls and hydraulics for both turrets; the gunner was wounded and a fire broke out aft
of the mid-upper turret. The rear gunner was able to direct the mid-upper to the 110 and his quick burst set the enemy fighter on fire. With his crew fighting the fires in the aircraft, Coole managed to get back to England, but was forced to make a crash-landing near Woodbridge. It was only his tenth operation. His two gunners, Albert Manuel and Ray Scargill, also received DFMs. Coole later ran a public house and spent his last years in a wheelchair (he died in 1993) following an attack in his pub. The rest of the crew received non-Immediate awards. Coole flew another fifteen or so operations in ME812, while Flying Officer W. C. Hutchinson and crew operated in her during the D-Day missions. By this time, Coole and his crew had decided to name their aircraft, ‘Fair Fighter’s Revenge’. They had started their tour with LM521, which they lost on 27/28 May, which they had named as ‘Fair Fighter’. With their new bomber they added the word Revenge. A painting of a blonde holding a rapier adorned both aircraft. She had a red-striped jumper, very short shorts, and red ankle boots. Meantime, other skippers flew ME812, including some who had flown other veterans with 166, such as W. C. Hutchinson, Henry Schwass and Douglas Dickie, both of the latter being New Zealanders. Schwass’s gunners had shot down a FW190 night-fighter during a sortie on 4 July in another aircraft. During summer 1944 ME812 steadily increased the bomb tally painted on the nose, covering all the usual targets assigned to Bomber Command, including several to le Havre and a seven-and-a-half-hour mining sortie to Stettin Bay on 16 August, with Flying Officer Dickie in command. On another long-range trip to Stettin at the end of August, Flight Lieutenant R. L. Graham took Squadron Leader T. W. Rippingale DSO, the B Flight commander, along as second pilot on this gruelling seven-hour-and-forty-minute sortie. Flying Officer A. J. E. Laflamme RCAF and crew became regulars in ME812 during the late summer, after Dickie, flying ten operations but then ME812 was re-assigned to No. 153 Squadron, which was formed from 166 in October. With 153 it was marked P4F and it was Flight Lieutenant L. K. Firth RCAF who became her regular captain just after Christmas; he flew twenty-four missions, ending in April 1945. Louis Firth received the DFC, as Arthur Laflamme had before him. Her last five trips were four MANNA and one EXODUS missions, bringing her total to 105. The hundredth was flown in April, possibly the 9th/10th to Kiel with Firth. The squadron was disbanded in September 1945 and ME812 was taken down to No. 20 MU at Aston Down, where she was finally ‘struck off charge’ in October 1946.
PA990: Bennet’s Beavers A Mark III, PA990 was built at Avro’s Woodford factory and, after testing, was sent to No. 300 Polish Squadron on 28 May 1944, according to the aircraft movement card, but was assigned immediately to No. 626 Squadron at RAF Wickenby, Lincolnshire. Coded UM, her individual letter became R, or more correctly, R² (all 626’s aircraft were marked ² so that they would not be confused with those of 12 Squadron with whom they shared the aerodrome). Her first skipper was a Canadian, Flying Officer R. C. Bennet RCAF from Vancouver, who took her on operation number one on the night of 2/3 June, a raid on the radar site at Berneval. He went out on the next two raids also, during the D-Day operations, but had to abort the fourth as the Master Bomber called off the attack. However, Bennet and crew continued to fly PA995 almost continually throughout June and July, although occasionally other pilots flew in her. Bennett and his crew named the Lancaster ‘Bennet’s Beavers’, and nose art of a rednosed backwoodsman was painted beneath the cockpit, by Bob Bennet himself, assisted by his navigator, Harry Hayton (at least according to him), who held the paintbrushes. The figure wore a yellow shirt, had brown trousers, black shoes, and wore a black and brown beaver hat. Over his shoulder he carried a large axe, on the top of which sat a small white bird. Finally a black belt with a large silver buckle traversed his ample stomach. The figure had a large green circle as background, and had crossed eyes, contemplating the red nose. A raid on Gelsenkirchen on 12 June turned out lucky for the bomb aimer, Robbie Robson, due to his small stature – 5 feet 5½ inches. Hit by anti-aircraft fire as he was sitting in the front turret, a large piece of metal (about the size of an ostrich egg, he estimated) lodged just three inches above his head. Had he been any taller he would have been killed. A week later, over Scholven, another flak hit caused damage and the bomb doors were holed, but operations did not slacken until Bennet’s twenty-sixth and final operation in PA990 came on 18 August. During their tour, both Bob and Hayton got married. Bennet also received the DFC. Flying Officer B. A. Collins flew her on seven trips, then several pilots flew her until Sergeant R. C. Yule took her to Saarbrücken on 5/6 October and later became her regular skipper. Flying Officer A. H. ‘Chippy’ Wood flew her on just one mission, which he and his crew calculated was their thirtieth and, hopefully, their last, a raid on Bochum on 4 November. However, it was then realised that their bomb aimer, Flight Sergeant Don Wells, had missed one and so had another to do. Wood and his crew flew
an additional trip in another Lancaster for Don to get his thirty in, and fortunately did not press lady luck too far. On 29 December, with Flying Officer K. G. Hale in command, PA990 was hit once more by AA fire, this time in the starboard wing, but it caused problems by severing hydraulic and pneumatic lines, forcing Hale to make an emergency landing at RAF Woodbridge. For the first operation of 1945, on 6 January to Neuss, Royan Yule was back in command, having been commissioned. On the return journey a loose 500lb bomb was discovered lying on the bomb doors, which were quickly opened, allowing the bomb to head earthwards. Bombs that had dropped from their retaining arms became live, and this one was heard rolling about, so it had to go – quickly. Yule flew a total of eighteen trips in PA990, and had been fortunate in having a second-tour navigator in his crew after losing his first one after just three missions. The replacement was Flying Officer G. E. H. ‘Gus’ Marbaix, according to Yule the best navigator he ever had. Both men received the DFC. Yule’s last trip in PA990 was a mining sortie on 14/15 February over Rostock Bay, at which time her total operations were in the mid-sixties. Yule and crew also had a lucky escape on 7 February, the rear gunner reporting a 4,000lb cookie and a string of bombs had wobbled by just a few feet from the starboard tail-plane. In March Pilot Officer W. F. C. Fanner took over PA990, taking her on nineteen trips by the war’s end. The name Bennet’s Beavers had remained on the nose but near the end this was deleted and ‘Fanner’s Follies’ substituted. The hundredth sortie, by a reasonable count through the records, was a raid on Berchtesgaden on 25 April, flown by Flying Officer A. R. H. Warner RNZAF, and noted as the squadron’s last bombing mission. PA990’s 101st was a MANNA flight. Fanner made another on 1 May, with others quickly following, bringing her total operations to about 106, including one EXODUS trip, flying home twenty-five former prisoners of war from Brussels. Those MANNA trips usually meant a payload of 284 sacks of foodstuffs. On 6 October, she made a fly-past with Flight Lieutenant R. E. Barnes in the pilot’s seat over Leeds and York. This was probably one of her last flights, for she was ferried to No. 5 MU at Wroughton where she was ‘struck off charge’ on 18 August 1947.
LM550: Beer/Let’s Have Another This Mark III came off the Avro factory production line at Yeadon in early 1944 and was sent to 166 Squadron at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, therefore becoming AS with an individual letter B for Beer. It was not long before Beer, associated of course with pint pots of the stuff, had the name ‘Let’s Have Another’ adorning the area just below the
cockpit on a yellow scroll with the words in red. There was also a large brown beer barrel, with black hoops, on a stand, with beer pouring from its tap into a pint mug. Rather than bombs to denote raids, it was appropriate to paint on beer mugs, in rows of ten. Beer’s first pilot was Pilot Officer J. F. Dunlop RCAF, designer of the nose art, who flew her on her first seven operations, the first to Duisburg on 21/22 May. Others were for D-Day missions, but on her eighth trip, with another crew, two Ju88 night-fighters were engaged; neither side claimed any hits. When the first daylight sortie was flown, the colour of the mug became white (or at least pale) rather than brown. James Dunlop completed twenty-one operations in Beer, finishing his tour on 20 July, and received the DFC. He would retire from the RCAF, by then the Canadian Armed Forces, as a colonel in 1974 and went on to manage Gimli Airport in Manitoba. Beer’s next regular skipper was Pilot Officer H. S. Schwass from New Zealand. On his second trip his gunners shot down an FW190 night-fighter during a trip to the Orléans marshalling yards on 4/5 July. The beer mug that was painted on afterwards had a swastika marked on it. Henry Schwass, who also flew operations in veteran ME812, collected a DFC at the end of his tour. His rear gunner, Gordon A. Reynolds, was awarded the DFM and New Zealander Flying Officer Norman J. Grant, received the DFC; they flew fifteen trips in Beer. Another pilot to fly occasionally (four trips) was Flying Officer A. J. E. Laflamme RCAF and his crew, who also flew trips in ME812. At the beginning of October 1944, No. 153 Squadron was formed at Kirmington, taking aircraft and crews from 166. LM550 was one, and its codes were repainted as P4-C, a time when there were fifty-seven sorties recorded without a single abort due to mechanical failure. That same month the new squadron moved to RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, and into 5 Group. In her new guise she became C for Charlie. Operations continued, and the beer mugs too. She was sent back to Avro for a refit on 14 October but was back two weeks later. Flying Officer W. C. ‘Bill’ Capper RNZAF had started to fly her in 166 Squadron and for a while he and his crew became the regular bunch, flying eleven sorties in all, and in doing so completed their tour. Her next crew was skippered by Flying Officer H. Langford, who made fifteen raids, possibly including the hundredth, plus one EXODUS trip. He received the DFC. One of his trips was to Dortmund on 12 March, so the date could be written as 1.2.3.4.5. The actual hundredth is rather elusive. Bill Langford thought it was a raid on Kassel on 8/9 March, with the 101st on the 11th. Four MANNA and one EXODUS flights brought the total to 107, although she is reputed to have flown 118, but this cannot be substantiated from the squadron Form 541. Both 166 and 153 Squadrons record her as flying on the
night of 7 October – so much for record keeping. Perhaps someone added the supposed fifty-seven trips with 166 to a supposed fifty-one with 153 and made it 118 instead of 108? Whatever, she still topped the hundred mark.
LM227: Item Armstrong-Whitworth’s Coventry plant produced this Mark I Lancaster in spring 1944 and she was assigned to No. 576 Squadron based at RAF Elsham Wolds, Lincolnshire, on 30 June. Coded UL, and an individual letter I² she became known as I for Item, although some time later this was changed to F. She carried H²S ground-scanning radar and ‘Fishpond’ which gave a picture of other aircraft in the vicinity, in particular, enemy night-fighters. Her first operational sortie took place on 4/5 July, to bomb the Orléans marshalling yards, and amazingly she was photographed as she was about to take off with the usual crowd of well-wishers seeing her off. The pilot on this evening was Pilot Officer J. R. ‘Mike’ Stedman, who had himself arrived on 576 on 20 April, and so flew any spare aircraft; when LM227 arrived it was given to Stedman and his crew. He had an idea for some nose art and got together with his engine fitter, Norman Bryan, and came up with the design of a planet and stars, including a shooting star. Stedman thought it appropriate as he believed most of his operations would be flown at night but, in fact, with the changing circumstances of the air war, of his thirty-two sorties only nineteen were flown at night. Dijon was her second raid, but with another crew, who in fact did not survive the month. Item returned with two engines burnt out and, once these were replaced, she was tested and taken over by Flight Lieutenant H. B. Guilfoyle who then went on to complete his tour with her. When he left Item had twenty-four symbols on her nose, twenty-three for bombing, and one for minelaying (off la Rochelle on 9/10 August), denoted by a parachute, used for dropping mines into the sea. In mid-August, Mike Stedman began flying her once more, for another ten operations, having been away on a Special Duties Flight at Binbrook in between time. Stedman received the DFC, as did his bomb aimer, Flying Officer H. A. W. Rumbelow. Item’s next regular crew was captained by Flying Officer D. E. Till, from 27 September, a daylight against Calais, and went on to fly twenty-eight operations in her, until 22 March 1945. The reason for this high number was that by this time a tour could be as many as thirty-five trips, due to the many shorter trips over France, rather than deep night penetrations over Germany. Derek Till received the DFC, and flew thirty-seven operations in all, because his
bomb aimer had missed two operations and the crew decided to get him to thirty-five rather than him risking things with another crew. Till also flew another veteran, ME801, on one mission. During Guilfoyle’s tour, a night-fighter had been encountered on 28 July, a 109, which was claimed as a probable kill. On 23 February 1945, with Flying Officer B. H. O’Neill in command, they had been attacked by a Ju88 during a late evening raid on Pforzheim. The German pilot scored some damaging hits on LM227 but his own aircraft was hit by the Lancaster’s gunners. At the end of April 1945 LM227 had notched up ninety-three operations, then completed six MANNA flights and one EXODUS sortie to make the hundred. The hundredth occurred on 8 May, Flying Officer B. Simpson and crew flying a MANNA trip to Rotterdam. A similar trip on 26 May might be counted as 101. Item did not survive the war for long, being wrecked and declared Cat-AC on 16 October and ‘struck off charge’.
LM594: Able It was fortunate that I did not miss this hundred-operations Lancaster. By chance I sat next to the son of John Chatterton (ND578 Yorker) who at the time was piloting the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster. We talked about the Lancaster and, through this, I realised that originally I had not known that LM594 ‘did the ton’. She was built at Avro’s Woodford factory as a Mark III and in May 1944 was assigned to 576 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds, coded UL-G, but soon afterwards became UL-A², the previous two A-Ables having been lost on 4 July (LM532) and 28 July (PB253). The first operation LM594 took part in was on the night of D-Day, to Vire, with Flying Officer V. Moss in command, who also took her on the second show on 10 June. On the night of 12/13 June a new skipper was in command, the flight commander, Squadron Leader B. A. Templeman-Rooke DFC, known as ‘TR’ or ‘Rookie’. However, he was no rookie, having already completed a tour with 100 Squadron in 1943, and was now on his second with 576 for which he would receive a Bar to his DFC. Later he added a DSO, while commanding 170 Squadron (and the AFC in 1951), completing a total of sixty-four operations, as a wing commander. TR flew Able eight times while his crew added another, being taken to Révigny on 12/13 July with the squadron CO, Wing Commander B. D. Sellick DFC, in command. Flight Sergeant Archie D’L. Grieg then became lead pilot in Able, with fourteen missions, including his thirtieth, and last, on 23 September. (He was commissioned and
awarded the DFC.) Pilot Officer K. L. Trent also flew her on one operation having flown trips in another veteran, LM227. One crew, captained by Pilot Officer A. J. Aldridge, flew her on one trip in June, but he was lost in September in another Lancaster. The next regular skipper became Pilot Officer C. F. Phripp RCAF, with twenty-six operations, including two evening encounters with night-fighters on 2 November over Düsseldorf and 11 November over Dortmund (an FW190). If this was not enough, on 16/17 January 1945, going to Zeitz-Troglitz, a synthetic oil plant near Leipzig, on the final trip of their tour, the crew encountered two jet fighters over the target, claiming both shot down. Frank Phripp received the DFC. Able’s last regular captain was Flying Officer I. R. Carter RAAF, taking her on fifteen operations, but the hundredth sortie was a MANNA flight in May with another pilot at the controls. Ian Carter received the DFC. In all Able flew 104 sorties, including five MANNA and two EXODUS flights. After the war she went to No. 1651 HCU, then to No. 16 Ferry Unit, finally being ‘struck off charge’ on 13 February 1947. Able carried a walking figure as nose art, wearing a flying helmet, a striped jumper with the letter A on it, and carrying a bomb whilst saluting.
PB150: Victor A Mark III built by Avro in spring 1944, she was assigned to No. 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern, Lincolnshire, coded CF and possibly letter G until becoming V for Victor. Her first operation was flown on 16/17 June, an attack on a V1 site at Domléger, with Pilot Officer F. Collett in command. He and his crew were shot down in July in another aircraft and became prisoners. Pilot Officer T. G. Wilson RNZAF became her main pilot with effect from 22/23 June, completing twenty-two trips by early September. Trevor Wilson completed his tour and was awarded the DFC; Sergeant C. E. Callus RCAF, his mid-upper, received the DFM. Wilson was followed by Pilot Officer E. P. Twynam who flew eleven operations in her, but he and his crew were lost on 4 November on a raid to Bochum in another aircraft. A number of different crews flew her in late 1944, but Flight Lieutenant A. B. Fry went out on five trips over the year end, and then Flight Lieutenant P. Lennox skippered eight in March and April. Pilot Officer K. E. Fife flew her on a raid upon Berchtesgaden on 25 April, and then on a MANNA flight on the 29th, to The Hague, and another to Rotterdam on 2 May. Three more MANNA trips in May brought her operations to an end.
Her bomb tally indicates ninety-three operations plus a further seven MANNA trips to bring the total to a hundred. With the war over, some additional liberties were taken as the celebration of this achievement was recorded with several chalk words and images appearing on the aeroplane. Then, on 10 August, Victor went to No.38 MU, and on to No. 32 MU the following month. Returning to 38 MU in March 1946 she was finally ‘struck off charge’ on 22 May 1947.
The ground crew personnel who helped sustain 115 Squadron’s veteran Lancaster ME803, L for Love. Despite several attempts, it has not been possible to explain definitely the nose-art depiction, other than it was supposed to be an angel flying through a cloud. At first glance it seems more like a fluffy sheep standing on a log. Flying Officer J. L. Snyder RCAF and crew flew ME803 on three occasions in late 1944. They are standing in front of another Lancaster, NG236 KO-J. L to r: Sgt M. J. Kehoe RCAF (B/aimer), Snyder, Sgt A. Hammond (F/engr), F/O K. G. Logue RCAF (Nav), Sgt E. Keate RCAF (M/upr gnr), W/O S. J. Guyan (R/gnr) and W/O L. Walker (R/gnr). Sgt V. Miller is also listed as a rear gunner.
Flight Lieutenant E. W. Talbot (3rd from left) flew two operations in ME803, including the hundredth, a raid on Potsdam on the night of 14/15 April 1945, although there are other likely candidates. Bill Talbot received the DFC in 1944 and a Bar in 1958 for operations over Aden. Lancaster ME812, Fair Fighter’s Revenge. Just eight bomb symbols are depicted, indicating the
picture was taken in mid-June 1944. The young blonde has a striped jumper, short skirt, and ankle boots, and is holding a rapier in her hands.
Sergeant (later Pilot Officer) S. G. Coole’s crew, who flew at least sixteen raids in ME812, beginning in June 1944. L to r, front row: F/Sgt C. L. Birtwhistle (Nav), Sid Coole, Sgt R. S. Rennie (B/aimer); Rear: Sgt R. Scargill (M/upr gnr), Sgt Ashworth (R/gnr), Sgt A. G. Holyoak (W/Op), Sgt A. W. Downs (F/engr). The usual rear gunner, Sgt A. G. Manuel left the crew in July.
By August 1944, ME812’s bomb log had increased to thirty-three, which was achieved during the time Flying Officer D. J. Dickie and crew were operating in her.
Picture of ME812 showing 104 bomb symbols, now with 153 Squadron but the markings remained the same. The tip of the rapier can just be seen on the left. The hundredth trip was calculated to have been flown sometime in April 1945. Unfortunately, the pilot and crew depicted have not been identified, but are obviously a crew that flew one of the MANNA trips in May. Bennet’s Beavers, the crew of PA990, 626 Squadron. Rear: Sgt T. Harry Hayton (Nav), Sgt H. ‘Johnnie’ Johnson (F/engr), F/O R. C. Bennet RCAF, Sgt G. J. Smallshaw RCAF (R/gnr); Front: Sgt A. W. J.
‘Tommy’ Scales (W/Op), Sgt A. E ‘Robbie’ Robson (B/aimer), and Sgt Jim D. Thatcher (RCAF) (M/upr gnr).
Drawing of the nose art on PA990, a Canadian lumberjack or woodsman, on a green circular background with yellow shirt, brown trousers, brown and black hat, black shoes and belt, brown axe handle, red nose and a red and white bird on the top of the axe. Lettering in white.
Oddly enough there was another pilot named Bennett, but with two ‘t’s who flew PA990 on 18 July, but only once. His crew: top, Sgt Billinge (M/upr gnr), below, F/Sgt R. S. Bennett RCAF; in the middle, F/O K. Lofts (Nav) and Sgt E. S. Cooper (W/ Op); at left is Sgt L. E. Paradise (B/aimer), Sgt J. P. Slattery (F/engr) and Sgt J. M. Reid (R/gnr). This Bennett was shot down by a night-fighter while raiding Braunschweig in LM599 on 12 August. Bennett, Slattery, Clifford and Paradise became prisoners, Reid was killed; Lofts, Billinge and Cooper were not on this operation.
Sgt (later PO) R. C. Yule’s crew: Royon Yule, F/O G. E. H. ‘Gus’ Marbaix (Nav), F/Sgt Greg D. Mayes RAAF (W/op), Sgt A. ‘Tubby’ Clayton (R/gnr), Sgt O. F. ‘Frank’ Fathers (M/upr gnr), WO E. Stan Moore RAAF (B/aimer), F/Sgt McPherson (i/c PA990’s ground crew, and Sgt G. ‘Don’ Leader (F/engr). Roy Yule in the cockpit of PA990 showing the figure and the start of a second batch of bomb symbols to the right of the first seventy to bring it to eighty-six in total. The shading at the rear of the axe blade is supposed to have been red.
PA990 renamed as Fanner’s Follies. Pilot Officer W. F. C. Fanner had taken her over in March 1945 and flew a dozen operations before the end of the war. Pilot Officer J. F. Dunlop and four of his 166 Squadron crew who first operated in LM550. Rear: Sgt Gordon R. Johnson RCAF (B/aimer), James Dunlop RCAF, Sgt Robert R. ‘Casey’ Kerns (Nav); Front: Sgt Cy Straw (R/gnr), Sgt Neville P. Powell (W/Op).
The nose art on LM550, with a beer barrel above a scroll with ‘Let’s Have Another’ written thereon. Below is the start of several lines of brown and yellow foaming beer tankards. The airman in the cockpit is one of her ground crew. The number of tankards suggest this picture was taken in late July 1944.
A replica painting of the beer mugs that appeared on LM550 which first flew with 166 Squadron but in October 1944 moved to 153 Squadron.
In October 1944 LM550 was taken over by Flying Officer W. C. Capper RNZAF, seen here with four of his crew: Bill Capper, F/Sgt Graham B. Beale RNZAF (B/aimer), Sgt Len W. Sparvell (F/engr), and at the bottom, Sgt George Luckcroft (W/Op) and F/Sgt Ron C. Morris (Nav).
Flight Lieutenant H. W. Langford’s crew in front of LM550 which had now become C for Charlie. The date chalked on the nose, 12/3/45, shows the date for the hundredth operation, and a sporting ‘not out’ is written next to the large ‘100’ mark. Note that the beer mugs have been painted out, but the beer barrel remains. The crew (plus one) standing are: F/Lt J. Trussler (a passenger for operational experience from Watford Training School), F/O B. F. Rea-Taylor (B/aimer), Sgt W. D. Thompson (F/engr), F/Lt Langford, F/O D. S. McDonald (Nav), Sgt D. W. Hallam (M/upr gnr), Sgt K. A. Hawkins (R/gnr) and Sgt T. W. E. Jones (W/Op). In front are the aircraft’s ground personnel.
By odd coincidence this picture shows LM227 starting her take-off run for her very first operational sortie on 4/5 July 1944, waved off by men and women from the RAF station. Note the nose artwork has yet to be painted on. The nose painting is now in situ, a Saturn-like planet with stars and a small moon, and a shooting star leaving a trail of smaller stars. The twenty-three bombs are in red or yellow, denoting daylight or night operations, and there is a swastika for a fighter probably destroyed on 28/29 July. The twenty-first operation is marked as a parachute dropping a sea-mine, a sortie which occurred on 9/10 August, off la Rochelle, France. Note the letter I2
LM227’s ground personnel. Fourth from the left is Norman Bryan, the engine fitter and nose artist. Rear: Bill Honeywell (rigger), Johnny Cook (engine fitter), Norman Hall (engines) and Bryan. In front: Ronnie Brett (engine fitter) and Paddy Bennett (rigger). Flight Lieutenant H. B. Guilfoyle RCAF and crew, who flew some seventeen operations in Item, including the minelaying sortie. L to r: F/O P. J. Dodwell RCAF (B/aimer), F/Sgt J. D. Powell (W/Op), F/O G. E. Tabner RCAF (Nav), Harold Guilfoyle, Sgt S. C. Wilkin (F/engr), Sgt N. S. Cassidy (M/upr gnr) and Sgt N. J. Hawrelechko RCAF (R/gnr). Guilfoyle and Nick Hawrelechko were decorated with the DFC and DFM respectively.
With ninety-two bombs showing, LM227 taxies out for take-off. Close-up of the nose now with a hundred bombs. The aircraft has been awarded a ‘DFC’ and the aircraft letter is now just I. The last few bomb marks appear different in shape, probably reflecting the MANNA trips.
Flying Officer D. E. Till and his crew flew twenty-seven operations in LM227 over the winter of 194445. L to r: Sgt Kevin Oliver (M/upr gnr), F/O John Shorthouse (B/aimer), Derek Till, F/O Geoff W. Griggs RAAF ((W/Op), F/O Charles R. Bray (Nav), Sgt Bob Hamilton (R/gnr), Sgt Derek E. Holland (F/engr). Flying Officer B, Simpson stands with his crew and all the flight’s ground personnel to celebrate LM227’s achievement of a hundred operations. Simpson stands in the centre of the rear rank. On his left are F/O T. E. Melocke (Nav) and Sgt J. Ellis (F/engr). Some of the ground crew in the earlier picture can be seen: sitting cross-legged in the front is Norman Hall, Norman Bryan is on the extreme left, Paddy Bennett second from the right.
The squadron’s ground crews also take the opportunity to dress up, sitting with the engineering officer (centre front row) following the hundredth operation. There is one WAAF, seventh from the left back row, one warrant officer, two flight sergeants with two sergeants left and right of the officer. Squadron Leader B. E. Templeman-Rooke DSO DFC & Bar AFC captained LM594 on eight occasions during June and July 1944. He completed two tours of bombing operations in the Second World War before commanding 170 Squadron in February 1945. His total operations reached sixty-four by the war’s end.
Pilot Officer A. J. Aldridge and crew flew LM594 on 17/18 June 1944. Arthur Aldridge had completed twenty-four operations of his tour but failed to return from a raid on Frankfurt on 12/13 September in ME854.
Pilot Officer C. F. Phripp and crew in front of LM594 began flying her on 24 September 1944 in a total of twenty-six operations. L to r: Sgt W. ‘Bill’ Wilson (W/Op), Sgt R. E. ‘Curly’ Streatfield (M/upr gnr), F/O L. A. ‘Dusty’ Poxon RCAF (B/aimer), Frank Phripp RCAF, Sgt R. ‘Bonny’ Norman (R/gnr), Sgt Keith M. Kerns RCAF (Nav) and Sgt Dennis K. Cleaver (F/engr). Another picture of Frank Phripp and crew with his ground personnel. His crew are, l to r: Bill Wilson, Curly Streatfield, Phripp, (g/crew), Dusty Poxon, (g/crew), Keith Kerns, (g/crew), (g/crew): Front: Bonny Norman and Dennis Cleaver. Able is showing sixty-eight bomb symbols.
A for Able following her hundredth operation. Lancaster PB150, V for Victor, after reaching a hundred operations. The nose art is of a kiwi, with a halo, standing on a bomb, in honour of Pilot Officer T. G. Wilson RNZAF, who flew her on a number of missions from June 1944. In the picture are a number of air and ground crew all associated with her.
A better view of Victor’s nose art, showing a total of ninety-four red and yellow bomb markings. Below the kiwi and bomb are painted seven tins of Spam, referring to the MANNA trips flown in April and
May 1945. Chalked on also is a reference to being ‘100 NOT OUT!’ and her call-sign, V for Victor. Beneath that are two medal ribbons, for a DFC and a DFM.
Chalked over her tail number PB150 is what appears to be a cat’s rear end, although the significance has not (perhaps fortunately) been discovered. Again the chalked reference to her operational prowess – ‘100 Not Out’.
Chapter Six
Other Veterans In the first five parts of this book I have covered the thirty-five Lancasters that are known for sure to have flown a hundred or more operational sorties during the Second World War. To round off the story I include in this part pictures of a number of Lancaster bombers that also flew an exceptional number of bomber trips but, either through becoming casualties, or war weary, or lacking time, did not complete a hundred. These are just examples rather than a definitive list. Lancaster EE134 PG-Y for Yoke flew ninety-nine sorties. The first unit she was assigned to was 49 Squadron in May 1943 and then 619 Squadron from September. She carried an interesting piece of artwork above the bomb log, a quartered shield with an inscription on a scroll, ‘Semper en Excretia’, which broadly means ‘We are always in the shit’ to which some people added, ‘only the depth varies’; the complete Latin phrase includes this in the words ‘sumus solim profundum variat’. The shield was edged in red, and the lighter sections are yellow with a red figure and crab. The other sections are black with white markings and a skull. The bombs were all yellow. After 619 she was sent to No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School and coded CE-O and was ‘struck off charge’ on 31 March 1945.
Lancaster LL845, WS-L, of No. 9 Squadron in 1945. The nose art shows a scantily-dressed young blonde half-kneeling on a bedroom stool; she was known as ‘Lonesome Lola?’ The bomb log shows sixty-seven bombs. The lady appears to have on a pink slip, blue shoes and a black suspender belt. ‘Lonesome Lola?’ had, by the end of the war, completed ninety-seven missions, a second block of bombs having been started after the first seventy. Surviving the war she was finally ‘struck off charge’ in January 1947.
Nick the Nazi Neutralizer was the name applied to Lancaster LM130 of A Flight, 463 Squadron RAAF, which carried the codes JO-N. Her record of operations was different from the usual bomb symbol, the tally being counted in devil’s tridents. Sixty-one are shown in this picture but she is believed to have completed ninety-six before being lost following a mid-air collision with a Hurricane IIc fighter on 11 March 1945. They had been engaged in a fighter affiliation sortie over Lincolnshire. The devil figure appears to be blotchy red, certainly with red lips and ears and, perhaps, yellow horns. Lettering was in white, N in red.
No. 550 Squadron had a veteran of ninety-four operations, W5005, which had previously flown with 460 Squadron RAAF. She had gone to 550 in May 1943 and was coded BQ-N. Moving to 460 in May 1944, she was re-coded AR-E². It was while she was returning from the ninety-fourth mission, a raid on Kiel on 26/27 August 1944, that she failed to make base and Flight Sergeant R. Hofman RAAF had to ditch in the Humber estuary. There were no injuries to the crew. The picture shows her as E of 460 Squadron with a booted kangaroo playing bagpipes. The word ‘Leader’ is painted on the nose. The bomb log shows fifty-two symbols in rows of fifteen but appear to be painted on starting from the bottom. Lancaster W4783 also of 460 Squadron, coded AR-G for George, completed ninety operations and, surviving the war, is now housed in the Australian War Memorial museum in Canberra. She had been delivered to the squadron on 11 October 1942 and was retired in April 1944. F/O J. A. Critchley and crew flew her last mission 20/21 April. Later in the year she was flown to Australia from Prestwick. In addition to her bomb log there are three medal ribbons painted to the right of the bombs.
Another Australian veteran, this time No. 463 Squadron’s LL847, JO-D (D for Digger) at RAF Waddington in December 1943. The nose art depicts two Aussie diggers flipping a coin. They are named ‘Bluey’ and ‘Curly’ after the Australian newspaper comic strip. They appear to be flipping the coin to see who picks up the gold nugget. Rather than bombs, the tally is shown by digger hats, the daylight raids having a white background. Two swastikas represent claims against night-fighters. LL847 failed to return from a raid on München on 17/18 December 1944. None of the crew survived.
‘Edith’ was the name given to LM577 of No. 622 Squadron and coded GI-E. After five months she was moved to No. 218 Squadron, and became KH-Q. By April 1945 she had completed eighty-four operations and is believed to have flown some fourteen MANNA and EXODUS trips for a possible ninety-eight trips in all. Post-war she was sent to No. 22 MU and finally ‘struck off charge’ on 15 May 1947. VR-X are the codes on Lancaster KB732 and her nose art depicted the word X-terminator in white along with two swastikas; the bomb-tally was painted on obliquely. Just to the rear of the bomb-aimer’s window is the name ‘Junior’. In the picture this 419 Squadron Lancaster, which was Canadian-built, shows G/Capt J. F. MacDonald, Station Commander of RAF Middleton St George, A/Cdre C. R. Dunlap, OC 64 Base, F/Sgt Don McTaggart (R/gnr), AVM C. M. ‘Black Mike’ McEwen MC DFC (AOC 6 Group) and F/Lt Barney Wickham, pilot. This aircraft was assigned to 419 in May 1944. The bomb tally shows eighty-three operations. She was ‘struck off charge’ on 15 May 1948.
This Lancaster has eighty-one operations, according to the bomb tally. The artwork depicts four flags representing the nationalities of the crew at some stage with the caption ‘United We Fly’. The flags are of Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Lancaster ME844 of XV Squadron in flight. Coded LS-W, she carries seventy-eight bombs below the cockpit. She also flew with 44 Squadron and was ‘struck off charge’ on 3 June 1947. There were two other XV Squadron Lancasters that had high scores in bombing operations, LL854 with ninety-seven and ME849 with eighty-five.
Another veteran with No. 467 Squadron RAAF was DV277. Here we see the bomb tally has reached seventy-three and has what appears to be one swastika. Coded PO-W, the W on the nose was used to name the aircraft ‘Weary Willie’, the artwork being of an old man carrying a heavy load and using a staff. She was also coded PO-L at one stage. This aircraft survived a nasty incident on 11 December
1944, having been badly damaged by an enemy fighter. The pilot, F/Sgt J. W. Waugh RAAF, ordered his crew to bale out over Lincolnshire while he and his engineer managed to crash land at Waddington. After the war DV277 went to 46 MU where it was scrapped in November 1946. Another Lancaster that flew with No. 467 Squadron was PO-A. It had an interesting piece of artwork and seventy-one bombs painted below the cockpit. The words are ‘Australian Power’.
Lancaster JO-R of No. 463 Squadron, believed to be LL844, flew at least seventy operations, and again has an interesting artwork figure, known as ‘Ginger Meggs’. If correct, this aircraft had several adventures including the loss of the rear turret and gunner after a bomb hit the rear of the aircraft during a bomb run. This crash landing was not the result. Finally ‘struck off charge’ on 15 January
1947. Lancaster KB772 of No. 419 Squadron RCAF, in June 1945, showing sixty-six painted bombs and the name ‘Ropey’ on the nose. Coded VR-R. it is not clear if the shark-mouth markings were applied during or after the war. In the background is another veteran, VR-X for Exterminator (see above). KB772 was shipped to Canada on 5 June 1945.
LAC E. Turner paints the sixty-fifth bomb symbol on ED731 of No. 166 Squadron after returning from Berlin on 15/16 February 1944. Named ‘Dante’s Daughter’, complete with a nude rising from the flames, she also has the DFC ribbon and has done at least three trips to Italy, according to the icecream cones. Previously with No.103 Squadron from March to September 1943, she was lost with 166, coded AS-T², on another Berlin raid on 24/25 March 1944. Only one crewman survived as a prisoner. ME649 operated with No. 460 Squadron and was coded AR-J². There are sixty-three bomb symbols beneath the cockpit. Going to 103 Squadron in September 1944, she was lost over Essen on 12/13 December due to flak. All the crew died, including the very experienced pilot, S/Ldr J. Clark DFC AFC RAAF, who had flown some fifty operations.
Lancaster HK575 flew with 75 NZ Squadron coded AA-O. The tally records sixty-three raids with the New Zealanders. She failed to return from Stuttgart on 24/25 July 1944; there were no survivors. The three ground crewmen are LAC Gardner, LAC Hillman and Cpl Hoddle. No. 467 Squadron’s LM233, PO-M, named ‘Jock’s Revenge’. The nose art depicts a kangaroo with its baby protruding from the pouch firing off a catapult. Two medal ribbons and a swastika are also included. Bomb symbols indicate sixty operations. She later served with 635, 35 and XV Squadrons until ‘struck off charge’ 2 May 1947.
Lancaster ED532, PO-H, of No. 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. She carried a heraldic shield with a kangaroo and an emu on either side, an eight-pointed star above, and the name ‘Australia’ on a scroll below. The bomb tally appears to be rows of ducks, numbering seventy-four. She was lost on 22 June 1944, shot down by AA fire. There were no survivors.
Table of Contents Half-Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: May to August 1944 Chapter 2: September to December 1944 Chapter 3: January 1945 Chapter 4: February to March 1945 Chapter 5: April to May 1945 Chapter 6: Other Veterans
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