A Raid Over Berlin

Chapter 2 Shot Down in Flames

Until you actually get on an operational squadron, you don’t know what you are letting yourself in for. You see that so-and-so didn’t come back and you soon realise what your own chances of coming back are◦– and you are scared.

Figures published many years after the war revealed that of the seven-man aircrew of a Lancaster, the average number to survive after being shot down was less than two.

There was always apprehension, but it was worse for the Wing Commander’s crew who had done twenty-seven operations and were due to be rested at thirty. The stress as they waited to reach thirty missions was dreadful; they were like a group of old men. It was terrible. To make matters worse, the Wing Commander wouldn’t go on every trip◦– the top brass wanted him on the squadron for a long time, so he only flew one in three or four missions◦– and there’s his poor crew, waiting desperately to complete the full quota. To this day I don’t know whether they finished in one piece or not.

However, it doesn’t matter how many missions you fly, you never gain in confidence as you see people who had flown perhaps eighteen or twenty missions, yet the next time they don’t come back. There’s no comfort in saying, I’ve done X amount; there’s no knowing what’s going to happen to you.

When you heard that someone you knew hadn’t come back you just had to bury your thoughts. There was no use asking what had happened because you knew you wouldn’t get an answer. That’s it; you just had to take it. The only good thing was, you didn’t have long to think about it because the next mission always came◦– if you were lucky, that is.

That night our target was Berlin◦– it was always Berlin. We were in the middle of what was termed the Battle of Berlin and everybody was sick to death when the target was revealed as Berlin again. The defences over Berlin were very heavy and often you had a long land flight to get there; you would never go the same route twice. Or come back the same way.

The first you know about a mission is in the morning, when someone says, ‘Operations are on tonight.’ Nobody would know where to, other than the Group Captain and Squadron Commander. The mechanics, though, could tell you whether you were going on a long or short trip, by the amount of fuel they put into the aircraft. Then, at around 14.00 hours, you are called to briefing. That’s when you know where you are going.

On that particular occasion, when they put a target map of Berlin up, everyone went, ‘Oh hell. We’re not going there again?’ The language was something else. But there you are; you did what you were told.

We took off at around 17.00 hours, as it was just about getting dark. It was a long seven-hour trip and for six of them we were over enemy territory. No mission is ever just routine. The other times we went, we hit the flak as soon as we’d crossed the North Sea and got into Holland. We were under flak the whole time, and had to contend with fighters, of course. That night we had a fairly long sea crossing and then went across Denmark and came into Berlin from the north so that we wouldn’t be under flak for too long.

I suppose the wireless operator, to use a modern term, could be described as a bit of a loner while on a mission as, for most of the flying time, you are isolated from the intercom system. You would not hear any crew patter; therefore, you would not know of anything going on inside or outside the aircraft, unless you were directly involved.

As far as I was concerned, as the clock reached 20.00 hours, everything had gone well. According to the time, I knew that we would be just to the north-west of the big city and coming up to the target.

I was occupied at this time on the wireless set doing what, if I remember correctly, was codenamed Tinselling. This was to listen out on the receiver, covering frequencies given at briefing, and trying to pick up enemy ground-to-fighter patter. If successful, you would then tune back the transmitter and swamp the frequency with the noise of one of your aircraft’s engines. It was just possible to carry out Tinselling while standing under the astrodome (the distinctive Perspex dome to the rear of the cockpit canopy) and reaching backwards to twiddle the knobs. It was a bit of a stretch, but it allowed me to look out for enemy fighters in the extreme danger area to the rear of the aircraft, thus assisting our gunners.

I was doing this until just seconds before we were attacked. I looked back at the clock and was alarmed to see the time was 20.10 hours. I moved in great haste back into my seat and retuned the receiver to receive the Group Broadcast, which was most important.

This action, only prompted by the time, certainly saved my life because within seconds of getting seated, and before having time to adjust the set, cannon shells were ripping past my right arm and exploding, showering green burning phosphorous everywhere. If I had remained standing under the astrodome I would have been right in the path of them.

The Aural Monica, a tail warning radar device, was bleeping out a warning that aircraft were approaching from behind and below. It is highly likely that both our gunners were firing. The noise was deafening.

I knew our aircraft was severely damaged and immediately switched onto the intercom to hear the skipper giving the order, ‘Bail out. Bail out.’ The navigator, Jock Mosen, and I moved as one man to grab our parachute packs and clip them on.

Following the emergency drill of evacuation, I made to go back down the fuselage in order to jump out of the rear doors after the mid-upper gunner, but upon opening the bulkhead door, at the rear of the cockpit, I was confronted by fierce flames. The whole of the fuselage, between the main spar and just forward of the mid-upper turret, was ablaze. I instantly decided that my only chance was to slam the door shut again. Although by this stage of the war the original steel armour plate had been replaced by plywood, this did provide some psychological comfort and would have acted as some sort of firebreak.

I then turned to follow the bomb aimer, navigator, pilot and engineer out of the emergency escape hatch in the nose.

In the split second that I had the bulkhead door open, I had seen, through the flames, what appeared to be heavy damage to the mid-upper turret. The whole thing was leaning over to starboard. Amazingly, I saw the mid-upper gunner, Bob Brown, climbing out of it.

I could see nothing of what happed to Dick Walton in the rear turret. Sadly, he must have taken the direct stream of fire from a fighter◦– he would have been firing back until the last.

It soon became obvious that the bail-out from the cockpit was not going according to the drill. In retrospect, I think the bomb aimer, Reg Morris, had been badly wounded or even killed laying in his position down in the nose and over the escape hatch. It would have been very difficult for the other crew members to move him from above, especially as by this time the aircraft was in a steep dive. The pilot, Jimmy Tosh, quite correctly had left his seat to await his turn to jump. I could see him and the engineer, David Alletson, waiting to get down into the nose. The navigator, Jock Mosen, would have been further down and out of sight.

I did not feel any urge to join them◦– perhaps I could sense the hopelessness of the situation and I remember, rather stupidly it would seem, having the strong feeling that I should not rightly be there and that I must stand back while they had their chance of escape.

The flames I had encountered in the fuselage must have frightened me conclusively because I did not think of trying to escape that way again. Instead I struggled forward, sat in the pilot’s seat and pulled on the controls, in an effort to get the aircraft out of the dive. I knew immediately that this was useless as the stick just flopped about; the enemy fire must have disabled the mechanism. I then stood up on the pilot’s seat and, with a big effort, tried to slide back the emergency escape hatch, but the cockpit roof was so badly damaged the hatch would not move.

During the time I was doing this◦– it would only be a few seconds◦– I could see that still no one had been able to get out from the cockpit. It must have been at this moment that I thought I was going to die because I became remarkably calm. I shuffled back to my table and pressed the two buttons that would have detonated the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) set to prevent it from falling into enemy hands◦– I should already have done this before starting to bail out.

I didn’t have time to add another fear to my list◦– that of our own bombs exploding. The standard payload was a bomb called the Cookie, which weighed 4,000 pounds, and six or eight 1,000 pounders, and then a lot of incendiary bombs. We hadn’t dropped our load before we were hit; we were just about to go into the target. When the skipper knew that we had been hit pretty badly he would have ordered the bomb aimer to jettison. I have no idea if he did or not because there was too much going on at that point in time. Normally you would know when the bombs are dropped because the aircraft lifts as the weight is lost◦– I hadn’t felt this but we were in a dive and, as I have said, such thoughts never entered my mind; I had far bigger fears to contend with.

I remember the aircraft diving even more steeply and also that I could no longer move at all. I thought of home, my fiancée and my mother. What would people at home say when they heard what had happened to me? I thought, still quite calmly.

The next thing I remember was seeing a huge red flash◦– I didn’t register any noise of an explosion◦– then I blacked out.

I became semi-conscious momentarily and saw a huge piece of aircraft sail by very close, while having a sensation of spinning over and over.

It could have been the jolt of the parachute opening that brought me back to something like consciousness. I knew nothing of pulling the ripcord, although of course I must have done so, unless somehow the D-ring had got caught on a piece of wreckage as the aircraft disintegrated.

I was then dangling on the end of my chute◦– I could not believe I had escaped. I thought how quiet it was; I could hear a dog barking far below and after a few seconds the German all clear siren blowing in the distance. I soon realised that my parachute harness had been ripped off from my left side and that I must be careful not to lean over or I may fall out.

I remember looking down and thinking I was about to fall into a canal◦– it was, in fact, a main road which was wet and illuminated by the moon. I would have been grateful to drop anywhere.

I shall never forget how lucky I was◦– we would have been flying at about 20,000 feet before being attacked, but I reached the ground very quickly after the chute opened. At a guess I would say this happened at little more than 1,000 feet.

I tried to remember the parachute landing drill upon hitting the ground. I was very dazed and was being dragged along by my billowing canopy. I was very slow to react. Eventually I came to a halt and after collapsing my chute and unclipping the harness, I stood up. I had no idea of time but found, to my great relief, that I was still in one piece, even if a bit knocked about. Both my knees were very swollen, my legs and head were gashed, and I had suffered a very painful shoulder. I could walk with difficulty and after a few steps realised I had lost one of my boots.

Slowly I was able to think about what I should do next. I had landed in a field in a semi-rural area quite close to the road. There was a stack of hay or straw nearby which seemed to be the obvious place to hide my chute and harness◦– in retrospect this location would have been obvious to the Germans as well.

I urged myself to get away from the area as quickly as possible, to stand any chance of evading capture, so I turned away from the fires of Berlin. Mistakenly, I went onto the road and was immediately challenged by two soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets. I was in no position to argue.

I was taken to a hut, not far away on the opposite side of the road, and once inside I could see the soldiers were in fact Luftwaffe personnel, more than likely members of a searchlight unit. They were quite kind to me and immediately sent for a medical sergeant who gave me a good deal of time and attention before finally dressing my gashes in paper bandages. I was given coffee and led to understand that I would be collected by higher authority shortly. I thanked them and took the opportunity of giving away some loose change from my pockets that I should not have been carrying in the first place, thinking that it could not then be used for any other purpose than as souvenirs for the several onlookers, who by this time had gathered to see the Englander.

I was taken by car to what I presumed to have been the area Headquarters of the surrounding searchlight units. I was led upstairs and ushered into a large room where I was confronted by a sergeant who, to my surprise, was holding my parachute. This was given back to me and I was told to lie down on it on the floor while the sergeant sat at a desk and listened to German military music whilst keeping a very careful eye on me for the rest of the night.

Early the next morning I was moved into a wooden hut, which was part of the living quarters of the unit’s personnel. They showed great interest in me as they went about their off-duty tasks. It would be stand down time now, I thought, as the hut was occupied by some eight or ten men. They were generally kind to me and I was surprised by how many of them could attempt some English conversation. I was told by more than one of them, ‘For you the war is over.’ They all sounded quite envious, I thought.

In the early afternoon I was told that I was to be collected and taken into Berlin, and, in a short while, I was escorted into the street. It was only at this stage that I became aware that the unit was based inside a pub, which accounted for the smell about which I had been wondering.

Despite a great feeling of trepidation, I was delighted to see at the kerbside the longest Mercedes car I had ever seen, with two very smart looking Luftwaffe officers in the front, and, seated in the back, David Alletson, showing all the arrogance of Field Marshal Goring himself. Despite his bandaged head he grinned broadly upon seeing me being escorted out. (We later discovered that although Bob Brown had also managed to get out, he was wounded quite badly in the legs and so would have been taken to a hospital.)

Seeing our exchange one of the officers immediately took out his pistol and challenged in good English, ‘So you two know each other?’ We hoped we had convinced him otherwise. The officer in the passenger seat nursed his pistol for the whole of the journey and we were forbidden to speak to each other.

As we were driven to Tempelhof Airfield we were pleased to notice quite a lot of bomb damage along the way and also, on arrival, to find the airfield buildings were also showings signs of damage. I think we spent two nights at Tempelhof, in a cellar, and were later joined by several other RAF aircrew, mostly looking as knocked about as we were.

The whole party was then moved off by train to Frankfurt am Main and taken to Dulag Luft for interrogation. I must recount an incident during the journey that could have been very nasty for all of us. We had been travelling in ordinary passenger trains and had been warned, by those of our escort who could speak English, to conceal our identities as much as possible because the civilian population were extremely hostile towards Allied airmen.

This we managed to do until nearly at the end of the journey. We were awaiting road transport at Frankfurt station to take us to Dulag Luft, when a railway plate-layer leapt up from the track and aimed a blow with his hammer at one of our party. This incident drew the attention of many of the other civilians on the crowded platform and they surged en masse towards us with obvious intentions. Fortunately, the sergeant in charge of the escort, or feldwebel as I was beginning to learn, was quick to sum up the situation, and pushed us all against a wall while arranging his men in the front of us, forming a protective semicircle.

The escort raised their automatic weapons to keep the irate civilians at bay. After what seemed an age, and by making it quite clear, even to our non-German ears, that he would not hesitate to open fire, the feldwebel was able to disperse the crowd. I will always be grateful to that man, although I can now well appreciate the feelings of those civilians. Looking back, presumably he was just anxious to deliver us in one piece to the infamous Dulag Luft, the place we had heard so much about from intelligence during aircrew training.