The Dam Busters

^{CHAPTER IX} THE BLACKEST HOUR

WEEKS passed placidly. The squadron got new aircraft and did a lot of training flying, both high and low level, finding it boring, and the crews, who were supposed to be the pick of Bomber Command, became “browned off.” Men of other squadrons who were doing several ops. a week took to ragging them as the “One op. squadron”.

Cochrane told Gibson he had done enough operations and would not let him fly again. Squadron Leader George Holden, D.S.O., D.F.C., arrived to take over, but Gibson stayed on for a few days. Holden was slight and youthful with fair wavy hair but a brusque manner. Before the war he had worn a bowler and carried a rolled umbrella, but was a very tough young man. He had felt very sick once but kept flying on ops. for over a week till he nearly collapsed after landing one night and went to the doctor, who examined him and said, a little startled, “Well, I think you’ve had pleurisy, but you seem to be nearly all right now.”

617 went to war again on July 15, against power stations in Northern Italy. It was a long way, the aircraft would arrive with tanks two-thirds empty and there was no hope of flying back to England. Yells of joy when they were told they would fly on to Blida, an airfield in North Africa, near Algiers. The only glum one was Gibson, categorically forbidden to go. It was a “cissy” trip; no opposition on the way, but they found the targets cloaked in haze and bombed largely by guesswork. Several aircraft were hit and Allsebrook lost an engine, but they all landed safely at Blida. At the de-briefing McCarthy threw his parachute down disgustedly and said, “You know, if we’d only carried flares tonight we could’ve seen what we were doing.” No one took much notice just then, but it was that remark, remembered later, that was partly responsible for the history they made.

On the flight home they called at Leghorn to deliver some bombs over the docks, but again there was haze and they were not pleased with the bombing.

Martin flew back over the Alps at 19,000 feet, to the dismay of Tammy Simpson in the rear turret, who had thought they were returning low over France and had worn only his light tropical kit. Back at Scampton they thawed him out with rum.

Gibson was not there to meet them. He had gone. Harris and Cochrane had put a definite stop to his flying by asking Winston Churchill to take him with him to America for a “show the flag” tour, and Gibson had had no option. He’d been so upset he had not been able to face the farewells.

In August they were back to boredom. No ops., but training all and every day.

It was about this time that disturbing reports were coming out of Germany about a mysterious new weapon. Apparently Hitlers notorious “secret weapon”. Agents could not say what it was but sensed it was something special. A couple of escaped prisoners of war reached England with information that hinted at rockets and indicated an area north-east of Luebeck. In the Pas de Calais area thousands of workmen were swarming about monstrous new concrete works. A recce aircraft brought back a photograph of a strange new factory at Peenemunde, north-east of Luebeck. Lying on the ground were pencil-shaped objects that baffled the interpretive men, but little by little they began to connect the rocket reports with the pencil-shaped objects and the concrete structures, which would obviously be impervious to any R.A.F. bombs. The 12,000-pounder thin-case bomb was nearly ready, but it was purely a blast bomb, to explode on the ground and knock over buildings. It would not dent masses of concrete half embedded in earth.

The spies were right. Seventy miles from London, just behind Calais., Hitler was building his secret-weapon blockhouses, fantastic structures which would bombard London and the invasion ports nonstop in spite of anything we could do. They were all of reinforced concrete, walls 16 feet thick and roofs 20 feet thick! No known bomb would affect them. The Todt Organisation promised Hitler that.

At Watton, Wizernes and Siracourt the blockhouses were to be assembly, storage and launching sites for rockets and flying bombs. Twelve thousand slaves were working on them, and deep under the concrete they were carving tunnels and chambers in the chalk and rock where Germans could live and fire their rockets without interruption.

But the greatest nightmare of all was the grotesque underworld being burrowed under a 20-foot thick slab of ferro-concrete near Mimoyecques. Here Hitler was preparing his F.J. Little has ever been told about V.3, probably because we never found out much about it. V.3 was the most secret and sinister of all— long-range guns with barrels 500 feet long!

The muzzles would never appear above earth; the entire barrels would be sunk in shafts that dived at 50 degrees 500 feet into the ground. Hitler was putting fifteen of these guns in at Mimoyecques, five guns, side by side, in each of three shafts. They were smooth-bore barrels, and a huge slow-burning charge would fire a 10-inch shell with a long, steady acceleration, so there would be no destructive heat and pressure in the barrel. In that way the barrels would not quickly wear out as Big Bertha did in World War I. These were more monstrous in every way than Big Bertha; they fired a bigger shell, could go on firing for a long time and, more important than that, they had a rapid rate of fire. Thick armour-plate doors in the concrete would slide back when they were ready, and then the nest of nightmare guns would pour out six shells a minute on London, 600 tons of explosives a day.

They would keep that up accurately day after day 3 so that in a fortnight London would receive as much high explosive as Berlin received during the whole war. But that fortnight would be only the start of it.

The War Cabinet did not know this, but they did know enough to be extremely worried. There were anxious (and very secret) conferences (which coincided with the fact that Cochrane was strongly pressing for renewed interest in Wallis’s shock-wave bomb—he wanted to use it on the Rothensee ship-lift). Soon the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfred Freeman, sent for Barnes Wallis, who was now held in esteem and some awe. Freeman said:

“Wallis, do you remember that crazy idea of yours back in 1940 about a bomb?”

“I seem to have had a lot of crazy ideas then,” Wallis said wryly.

“I mean about a big bomb, a ten-tonner and a six-tonner. You wrote a paper about it. To penetrate deep into the earth and cause an earthquake.”

“Ah, yes,” said Wallis, his eyes lighting up.

“How soon can you let me have some?”

It was so sudden that Wallis was staggered. He thought a while.

“About: four or five months,” and he added quickly, “that is, if I get facilities. There’s a lot of work to it, you know.”

“Right. Will you go and see Craven right away, please. I’ll ring him and tell him you’re coming over.”

Sir Charles Craven, head of Vickers, was also a Controller of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Wallis was shown into his office near Whitehall ten minutes later, and before he could say a word Craven was booming at him:

“What d’you want the services of twenty thousand men in Sheffield for?” Apparently Freeman had already been on the phone.

Wallis explained and got a promise of full support. He had little time to relax in the next few weeks. First he held a “Dutch auction” with Roy Chadwick the Avro designer.

“Roy,” he said, “can your Lanes carry seventeen thousand pounds for two hundred and fifty miles?”

“Oh yes,” Chadwick said. “Easily.”

“Could they carry nineteen thousand?”

“Oh… er… I think so.”

“Well now, Roy,” Wallis said persuasively, “how about going to the full ten tons?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“Now come on… if you tried more powerful engines and strengthened the undercarts.”

“Well… Oh, I suppose it could be done.”

“Thanks,” said Wallis and went off to Sheffield to iron out more of the problems that seemed endless. The bomb had to be made from a very special steel; there were only two foundries in the country capable of casting the casings, and both were fully occupied on other vital work.

On August 30, 617 Squadron moved to Coningsby, another bomber airfield in Lincolnshire. Scampton had been a grass field, but Coningsby had long bitumen runways, more suitable for aircraft carrying very heavy loads. Flying was still confined to training, high and low level, aimlessly it seemed, and suddenly they were switched to low level. Cochrane told Holden that they had to be as good as they had been for the dams raid, and there were some new crews to train.

Cochrane and Satterly had long conferences with Holden and Group Captain Sam Patch, the station commander at Coningsby. There was a new verve about the squadron, a feeling of expectancy. At nights the aircraft hurtled low over the flat country and heavy lorries drove in to the bomb dump, their loads hidden under heavy tarpaulins. But it was not to be quite like the dams raid: that was obvious because they were still using the orthodox Lancasters. A flight of Mosquito night fighters arrived at Coningsby, and stayed. Apparently they were going to have fighter escort.

On September 14, Holden drew up a battle order for that night; a short one, eight crews, the pilots being Holden, Maltby, Knight, Shannon, Wilson, Allsebrook, Rice and Divall. Target was the Dortmund Ems Canal, the freight link between the Ruhr and central and eastern Germany, including the North Sea.

It was to be another very low-level raid, partly for bombing accuracy and partly because they thought the flak low down was less of a risk than fighters high up, concentrating on eight lonely aircraft. Cochrane saw that it was one of the most carefully planned raids of the war. As in the dams raid, the route curled delicately between the known flak. A specially designed beacon would be dropped near the canal as a pin-point and night fighters would engage the flak which guarded the most vulnerable points on the canal, although not the point chosen for the attack, which was some two miles from the nearest guns. A weather recce plane would check the visibility in the canal area before the Lancasters arrived. Most important of all they were going to drop the new 12,000-lb. light-case bombs for the first time. (Not to be confused with Wallis’s developing earthquake bomb.)

They took off at dusk with no illusions; memories of the dams losses were too fresh and they had a human yearning for the placid if less stimulating days of the Italian trips.

They were an hour out, low over the North Sea, when the weather Mosquito found the target hidden under fog and radioed back. Group recalled the Lancasters and as the big aircraft turned for home weighed down by nearly 6 tons of bomb David Maltby seemed to hit someone’s slipstream; a wing flicked down, the nose dipped and before Maltby could correct it the wing-tip had caught the water and the Lancaster cartwheeled, dug her nose in and vanished in spray. Shannon swung out of formation and circled the spot, sending out radio fixes and staying till an air sea rescue flying boat touched down beneath. They waited up at Coningsby till the flying boat radioed that it had found nothing but oil slicks.

Maltby’s wife lived near the airfield, and in the morning Holden went over to break the news, dreading it because it had been an ideally happy marriage. Maltby was only twenty-one. The girl met him at the door and guessed his news from his face.

“It was quick,” said Holden, who did not know it was his own last day on earth. “He wouldn’t have known a thing.”

Too stunned to cry, the girl said, “I think we both expected it. He’s been waking up in the night lately shouting something about the bomb not coming off.”

Holden came back looking tired and got out another battle order. If the weather was right the raid was on again. Martin came back from leave that morning and demanded to take Maltby’s place. Tammy Simpson, who had been flying with Martin for two years now, noted philosophically and a little querulously in his diary: “Mick’s a fool volunteering. This is going to be dangerous.” Shannon was hoping the weather would be right this time. Moustacheless, he was to marry Anne in a week and was supposed to have left for London that morning to arrange the wedding. Anne had already wangled a posting for herself to Dunholme Lodge, an airfield near Coningsby.

At dusk in the control tower McCarthy watched the heavy aircraft lift off the runway and head east. Over the North Sea the Lancasters kept loose formation in two boxes of four. It felt like the dams raid all over again; they were down to 50 feet to fox the radar and on strict radio silence. The faster Mosquitoes would be taking off now to pass them somewhere on the way in and set about the flak as the bombers arrived. Over the canal itself the weather Mosquito radioed back that it was perfectly clear.

The bombers crossed the Dutch coast and there was no sign of flak. Holden seemed to be flying a perfect course, which was just as well because the moon was up and it was full, throwing soft light over the fields as they moved towards Germany and Ladbergen.

Ahead of them a small town loomed up and high chimneys and a church steeple seemed to be rushing at them. Martin waited for Holden to swing to one side, but Holden elected to bore straight across and climbed to clear the steeple till he was about 300 feet. The more low-flying-wise Martin dropped right down to roof-top height and, on the other side of Holden, Knight and Wilson did the same, till even from the ground they were nearly invisible against the horizon. Holden was limned against the moonlight.

There was one light gun in Nordhoorn and its crew had been alerted. Holden was half-way across when a procession of glowing red balls streamed up, and in a shaven fraction of a second Toby Foxlee was firing back, so that only about five shells pumped up before Foxlee’s tracer was squirting down and the gun promptly stopped.

One of the five shells punched into Holden’s inner starboard wing tank. There was a long streamer of flame trailing back beyond the tailplane; the aircraft showed clearly in the glow and they could see it was going down. The port wing was dropping and then the nose; she was falling faster, slewing to the left, right under Wilson and Knight with a 12,000-pounder on board! Martin yelled sharply over the R/T: “Break outwards! “

Wilson was just turning away when Holden’s aircraft hit on the edge of the town almost under him; the I2,ooo-pounder went off and the town and the sky were like day.

Martin called the other two anxiously. Knight came right back and said he was all right, but it was twenty seconds before Wilson answered, a little shakily, saying they were jarred by the explosion but he thought nothing serious was broken. A little later they were back in formation, Martin leading. They swept into Germany, grimmer now. Gibson’s crew had been in Holden’s aircraft. Spafford, Taerum, Pulford, Hutchinson; they were all gone.

One by one they picked up pin-points and the canal was only five minutes away when a blanket seemed to come down in front and they found themselves in mist. It was unbelievable. The area had been clear and moonlit half an hour before, no trace of trouble, and now the ground was a smudge, and they edged up to over a hundred feet to be clear of obstacles. The fog had moved in from the east without warning, almost without precedent.

There were locks along the canal and every one was armed with flak. The trouble was that the Lancasters could not see the canal until they were right on it, and then it was too late to bomb. They would have to bomb from 150 feet—because they could not see the canal if they went any higher—and hope the flak would miss, which at that height was unlikely.

All of them tried flying across the canal to pick it up, hoping they could swing sharply on to it, but found it was nearly impossible. Split up now, they searched the area but kept blundering into the flak, and then they turned away and tried again, refusing to bomb till they were certain they were in position. The Mosquitoes had arrived and, with their greater speed and smaller size, were charging back and forth trying to silence the gunners, but could not pick them up in the fog.

Allsebrook is believed to have bombed eventually but where his bomb went is not known. They never found the wreckage of his aircraft either. Wilson was heard briefly over the R/T saying something about going in to attack. The bomb was still aboard when the aircraft hit the ground about 200 yards beyond the canal and made a crater 200 feet across. Divall was heard briefly over the R/T, but that was the last anyone ever heard from him.

The gentle little Les Knight shouted over the intercom, that he could see the water, and then flak was coming at them and they were weaving. Johnson, the bomb aimer, yelled that he could see trees looming ahead and above them, and as Knight pulled up hard the bomber shuddered as she hit the tree-tops, and then they were clear with branches stuffed in the radiators, both pont engines stopped and the tailplane damaged.

With the two starboard engines roaring at full power the Lancaster, with the bomb still aboard, was able to hold her height. No chance of bombing in that condition, and Knight called up Martin: “Two port engines gone. May I have permission to jettison bomb, sir?” It was the “sir” that got Martin. Quiet little Knight was following the copybook procedure, asking respectful permission to do the only thing that might get him home.

Martin said, “For God’s sake. Les, yes,” and as the bomb was not fused Knight told Johnson to let it go. Relieved of the weight they started to climb very slowly.

After the gunners had thrown out all the guns and fittings they could, Knight got her up to about 1,400 feet and headed towards England, the aircraft waffling soggily at no m.p.h. The controls were getting worse all the time until, though he had full opposite rudder and aileron on, Knight could not stop her turning to port and it was obvious he could never fly her home. He ordered his crew to bale out and held the plane steady while they did. When the last man had gone he must have tried to do the same himself, and must have known all the time what would happen when he slipped out of his seat. There was perhaps a slight chance of getting clear in time, but as soon as he took pressure off stick and rudder the aircraft flicked on her back and plunged to the ground. Knight did not get to the hatch in time.

Geoff Rice tried for an hour to find the canal, was badly holed by flak and finally had to swing his winged aircraft out of the area, jettison the bomb and head for home. Shannon was seventy minutes before he got a quick sight of the high banks of the canal, wheeled the Lancaster along the water and Sumpter called, “Bomb gone!” There was an eleven-second delay on the fuse, so they only dimly saw the explosion. The bomb hit the tow-path. If it had been a few feet to one side, in the water, it would have breached the canal wall.

Martin spent an hour and a half plunging at 150 feet in the fog around the canal trying to give Bob Hay a good enough sight on the few spots where the high earth bank was vulnerable. Now and then he caught a brief glimpse of the water, but it was either at a spot where the banks were low and solid or the flak was too murderous to give them a chance. It squirted at them when they were right on top of it and they had to wheel away into the fog. The aircraft jolted twice as shells punched into it, and once a sudden burst of tracer ripped through under the cockpit so that Martin jumped with shock, one foot slipped off the rudder bar and the big Lancaster swung so crazily he thought it was all over.

The gunners had been firing whenever they got a chance and Tammy Simpson reported his ammunition was getting low. Martin told him to forget the flak and save what he had left in case they got a chance to fight their way home.

Once or twice he was able to come up to the canal diagonally so that it was easier to turn along it, but each time the glimpse of water came too late or the flak was coming point blank at them and they had to pull away.

On the thirteenth run Hay got a glimpse of water in the swirling fog and called, “There it is! “Martin turned away in a slow and regular 360 degrees circle, opening his bomb doors and calculating the exact moment he should come over the water again so the straighten-up would be gentle. It was a beautifully timed turn; they were low over the sliver of water with no flak, just long enough for Hay to call, “Left, left, a shade right… bomb gone!” and then Whittaker slammed the throttles hard on and Martin pulled her steeply round as the flak opened up.

A little later they hurtled back across the canal and saw the water boiling where the bomb had exploded, a few feet from the bank, just a few feet too far, because the bank was still there.

They were still over Germany and dawn was breaking as they came out of the fog. On full throttle, “P Popsie” was shaking at 267 m.p.h., the fastest she had ever travelled at low level. As they slid round the end of Sylt two last guns sent shells after them and then they were over the sea.

They landed two hours overdue and found Cochrane still waiting. He had heard of the losses from Shannon, who was first back, and his face was leaner and grimmer than ever. Martin was the third back, out of eight. Cochrane knew there would not be any more. He said:

“How was it?”

“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Martin said. “It didn’t breach. The mist beat us, and the flak.” He told what had happened. Cochrane listened keenly and at the end he was staggered when Alartin said, “I’m very disappointed, sir, but if the weather’s clear tomorrow—I mean, that is, tonight now—I think we can get it, if you’ll let us have another crack.”

“How many crews have you got left?”

Martin thought for a while and said, “Well, there are three of us in my flight, and three more in Shannon’s flight. That ought to be enough, sir.”

“Six! “Cochrane said. “Out of your original twenty-one! “

“It ought to be enough, sir. I’m just sorry about last night.”

Cochrane said gently, “I don’t think you have to apologise for anything, Martin. I’ll let you know later about tonight. Meantime you’d better go and get some sleep.” He took Sam Patch by the arm and led him over to the corner and Patch for the first time sensed that Cochrane had let slip the mask of his reserve. There was no mistaking it, and almost no defining it, an intensity about his eyes, his whole face and his voice as he said:

“Patch, I’d like to make Martin a wing commander on the spot and put him in command of the squadron. You know the boy better than I do. Would you recommend him?”

Patch thought for a moment before he made the answer for which he has been kicking himself ever since: “It’s two jumps up the ladder, sir; I’m not sure he’s ready for it. He’s had no experience in administration.”

“Well, I’ll at least get him made a squadron leader and give him temporary command.” Cochrane caught Martin as he finished stowing his kit away and said in his sudden-death way, “You’re a squadron leader now, Martin, and for the time being you’re in command of the squadron.”

Martin looked after the retreating back. A moment before he hadn’t even been a flight commander. Patch said, “Well, you’ve got responsibilities now, Mick. Come and have a walk and talk till you relax.” Martin was too exhilarated to sleep. They paced slowly across the airfield, right to the blast walls of the bomb dump, lonely in its isolation on the far side of the field.

“I didn’t think anything could have gone wrong,” Patch was saying. “I thought we had the perfect plan this time.”

“Oh, we should’ve pranged the thing,” Martin said disgustedly. “That mist. You couldn’t see a thing.”

There was a long silence; the air was fresh, the grass soft and springy under their feet, and Martin, after eight hours in the air, was far from sleep with the light-headed exhilaration you get after you’re so tired you can hardly stand and then get your second wind. He had been awake over twenty-four hours. He said suddenly: “Well, there it is, sir. Two real ops, and six crews left. Maybe this is the end. They’ll make us an ordinary line squadron… or disband us altogether.”

“Probably will be the end if you try that canal again tonight,” Patch said dryly. “You were silly to volunteer again. You’re not immortal.”

“No, sir.”

“D’you think you’d get away with it again tonight?”

“Couldn’t be any worse.”

“I suppose it occurs to you the flak will be expecting you.”

Martin said soberly, “I suppose so.”

“Forget it a while, Mick,” Patch said. “I don’t think the A.O.C.’ll let you try again for a while anyway. He doesn’t like losing crews, and you lost five out of eight last night… six including Maltby the night before. You’ll lose the rest if you go again tonight. We’ve got to think out a cleverer way of doing it.”

There was another silence and Patch broke it by saying tentatively:

“What: d’you think about 617 taking a rest for a while? You’ve taken an awful beating and you’ve got to fill up with new crews and train them. What d’you think?”

Martin said, “No. Let’s do another one right away and get the taste out of our mouths. Otherwise we’re going to get scared of going back.”

“The A.O.C.’ll decide that anyway,” Patch said. “Maybe you’ve had your day on special duty.”

They called at the office on the way back to see about the casualty reports, but Chiefy Powell was already attending to them. Patch took Martin over to the mess for breakfast and sat and talked to him. Patch had not been to sleep for nearly thirty hours himself but he never changed his routine when a raid was on. He never failed to visit every aircraft before it took off; always waited up till the last crew had landed and then went over to the mess with them for bacon and eggs and yarned as long as they wanted him to. He never went to bed himself till he’d seen the last of the boys off to bed. He was a round-faced, heavy-set, youngish man, direct and honest. If you did a good job, Patch would go to tremendous trouble to let you know. If you did a bad job he would tell you how and why, so you would do better next time. If you failed to mend your ways he would crack down hard, and then in the mess that night he would be normal and friendly to the punished one.

As Martin was finishing breakfast McCarthy and the laconic Munro came in, clicked their heels and peeled off sizzling salutes. “Good morning, sir” they chorused, and Martin had the grace to blush. They congratulated him and, in grimmer mood, paid their respects to the dead. Martin gave his first orders. “Will you get cracking on making what aircraft we’ve got left ready for tonight. I’m thinking we’ll be on again. Let me know when the target comes through.” He added, almost as an after-thought, “May be the same target tonight.”

“All right,” said McCarthy. “Push off to bed and grab some shuteye.”

Shannon had only got to bed himself about half an hour before. He had written a little note to Anne, apologising for not being able to go up to London. Anne got it over at Dun-holme Lodge that afternoon. Quite a short note: “Sorry, darling. Couldn’t make it. Been up two nights. Lost six out of nine. Please forgive. I’m rather tired.” For the first time she saw the writing was shaky.

She had been up all night herself in the ops. room at Dun-holme Lodge. About dawn they got a report that five out of the eight were shot down and she was crying when someone ran over and said, “David’s all right. He’s back.” But the tears only fell faster.

Martin got nearly five hours sleep. McCarthy regretfully woke him at two o’clock, shaking his shoulder and saying, “Target’s through, Mick,” until the tired boy shook the sleep out of his head and said, “Where?”

“Somewhere in the south of France. Bridge or something.”

Martin pulled some clothes on and saw Patch over in the planning room. Patch said, “You’re not going back to the canal yet. You’re going with 619 Squadron to have a go at the Antheor Viaduct. It’s on the Riviera, near the Eytie border, and carries the only good railway into Italy from France. If you prang it you’ll stop half the Hun reinforcements to Sicily.”

Martin said, “I’m sorry it isn’t the canal,” and he so obviously meant it that Patch just looked at him.

They found the viaduct without trouble fifteen miles west of Cannes, seeing in the moonlight the 9o-foot stone arches curving across the beach at the foot of a ravine. The idea was to dive to 300 feet and stab 1,000-lb. bombs into the stone with delayed fuses. It was like a coco-nut shy; bang on and the coco-nut is yours, miss by an inch and lose your money. They missed by inches. The bombs went through the arches and exploded on the ground all around; the viaduct was pitted by splinters but that was all. The only real result was that it woke the Germans up to the vulnerability of the railway, and soon after that the flak batteries moved in.

Shannon scrounged a few days’ leave, went up to London and married Anne. They spent part of their honeymoon in a hotel, and when they walked into the bar one night Anne heard someone say, “That boy looks too young to be in the Air Force.” Shannon turned round and the man saw he was wearing a D.S.O. and D.F.C. and his eyes stuck out like organ stops.

Cochrane sent for Martin. “I think we might be able to use this dams bomb of Wallis’s against the Tirpitz” the A.O.C. said. The Tirpitz was still sheltering in Alten Fiord. “You can’t fly up the fiord to get her; that’d be death, but she’s moored only about half a mile from the shore where the land rises steeply. You might do it by surprise, hurdle the hill, dive and bomb before they wake up.” There was a hill near Bangor, he said, about the same height and gradient. Martin was to go and practise over it to see if he could level out soon enough on the water at the right height and speed.

Martin flew “P Popsie” over to North Wales and spent an afternoon diving over the coast, climbing and trying again. It called for most delicate judgment, but towards the end he found he could do it with 40 degrees of flap down. It meant diving 60 m.p.h. faster than permitted with 40 degrees of flap and that meant the flap was likely to collapse on one side. If that happened at low level the aircraft would spin straight in. He repoited to Cochrane that he was willing to chance that. He knew what the Tirpitz defences would be like at low level but thought the raid would be possible.

“We wouldn’t need too many aircraft, sir. Myself, McCarthy and Shannon would go. I don’t imagine there will be much chance of a second run, but we know the form of attack well and we could practise over the Bangor hills so we get it right the first time.” He suggested they do the raid by moonlight or at dusk or dawn, so there would be some gloom for cover but enough light to see the ship. Matter-of-factly he added: “I think you should be prepared to lose the three aircraft, sir, but we’ll have a go and probably get her.”

Cochrane, who had not met anyone quite like Martin before, looked at him for some time and finally said, “Well, I’ll let you know about it. Meantime start building up the squadron again with new crews. I’ll have some picked ones sent to you.”

(Actually it was not the Tirpitz that Cochrane was after at this time. “Tirpitz” was the “cover plan” to camouflage the real plan. He was, in fact, scheming to smash the big dam at Modane, in Italy, and the hills around Bangor resembled the hill around Modane Dam. Martin discovered that seven years later.)

Martin was interviewing new pilots and crews for the next week, and it was not easy. 617’s fame—or notoriety—had spread and it was known as a suicide squadron. Some quite brave men were posted to it but told Martin openly they did not want to stay. Martin did not argue. They were quite willing to fly with their own squadrons, where perhaps one crew in ten finished a tour; in 617 it seemed that no crew had a chance. He did not press anyone who was not willing—they would be no good to him—but sent them back to their old squadrons, and after a week had found only four crews willing to join him: O’Shaughnessy, Willsher, Weedon and Bull. He was doubtful about accepting Willsher because Willsher looked younger even than Shannon, only nineteen, a thin, fair boy a year out of school.

Willsher had trouble finding a crew until a red-faced broken-nosed, tough-looking Londoner called Gerry Witherick insisted on being his rear gunner. Witherick was unkillable. He had flown nearly a hundred missions and was a hard case with a soft heart and a riotous wit.