Don Nicholson audio recording. Two

Don Nicholson audio recording. Two

The recording starts with the sound of Merlin engines. Don Nicholson lost his first crew when he was grounded on medical grounds and they were killed in action. He became the spare flight engineer on the squadron. He flew with different pilots until a pilot needed a new flight engineer and Don became his permanent engineer. Don saw his first jet aircraft when he saw an ME 262. He was annoyed when the pilot of that aircraft waved to him. The later part of the recording is audio from the film The Dam Busters.

00:58:07 audio recording

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ANicholsonD151002-02

Have you ever heard the sound of four Merlin engines revving up ready to go on a raid over Germany? This is the sound which we endured for hours on end, week in week out until the final raid was carried out and our tour was ended. Sit back and enjoy a piece of history.
[recording of Merlin engines]
Those words were continually ringing in my ears time after time after time. We crossed the enemy coast and faced all sorts of danger. This is my story. My name is Donald Nicholson. I was a flight engineer of an Australian pilot by the name of the Flight Sergeant Duncan. We were posted to Dunholme Lodge in Lincolnshire on the 13th of July 1944. The squadron which we were joining was 44 Rhodesia Squadron. On the 21st of July I went to my first briefing. It was a place called Givors in France. The medical officer who normally was on site signalled to me he wanted a word. He asked me how I felt. I said I was on top of the world. It was my first trip and I was keen to get away. He said, ‘Open your mouth,’ and put a thermometer in my mouth, took my wrist and took my pulse. He took the thermometer out, shook it and looked me in the eye and said, ‘Sorry lad, you are not flying tonight. You’ve got a temperature. Report sick with your small kit.’ Well, I told the skipper and he said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll keep in touch.’ After the raid the navigator came in. I asked how he had got on and he said, ‘Things were rather hot but we managed to get back safely.’ Well, five trips more and one by one I saw members of the crew come in and wish me well. The next trip was on the 27th of July and it was going to Stuttgart again. Unfortunately, they were shot down and I was left on my own without a crew. Sadly, I was sent on leave for a few days to get over the shock. My parents tried to persuade me to give it up but I insisted I’m in for the duration. I reported back to my unit at Dunholme Lodge and was asked if I would help in the office until such times as I was needed. I was listed as a spare engineer. Well, different pilots came in one after the other and I went on raids to Stuttgart, Bremerhaven, Karlsruhe, Munchen Gladbach and a place called Handorf. The pilot was a Flight Lieutenant Dobson. We were about to climb into the aircraft when a waggon pulled up. ‘You’ve been selected to carry the Window,’ the driver told us. ‘Well, where are we going to put the Window?’ ‘It goes in the cockpit,’ he remarked. Well, they loaded the Window boxes in my compartment so there was no room for me to do my job so I had to stand. Anyway, I reckoned that we were approximately a ton over the top of maximum weight. The weather was really warm and there was no wind to help get a comfortable take off. Anyway, we piled in, got permission to take off and headed down the runway. I called out the speeds. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety. Well, at ninety we should be lifting off and we were still rolling. Well, at the end of the runway is about a hundred yards of gravel. This is in case you can’t get off the ground and you run into the gravel and it breaks the momentum of the aircraft and stops it. Well, the pilot was asking for more power because we were at maximum power. Three thousand revs and I couldn’t give him any more. But we had a safety device. The tit. If the tit was pulled you got an extra ten pound boost into your engines and that would give you a little bit extra thrust. We were approaching the point of no return and the wheels were still rolling down the runway. The pilot gave me a command, ‘Pull at it. Pull at it.’ And I pushed the throttles through the gate. That gave me the three thousand plus revs and the extra ten pound boost. ‘Wheels up,’ he called. ‘Wheels up.’ And I thought I’m still on the ground and I pulled the lever to lift the wheels up and by a miracle we were airborne. We crossed the gravel at ground height and as the wheels gradually came up I felt them crash through the hedge at the bottom of the runway. We were airborne. I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, we climbed up to a safe height, dropped the revs back to twenty eight fifty climbing speed and headed out towards Germany. Well, as we were destined to arrive at the very start of the raid it was our job to distribute the Window to cover the rest of the raid from being picked up by radar. Every fifteen seconds a packet was discharged down the tube and into the slipstream where it was spread across the area that the aircraft were to travel through and protect it from being, the aircraft from being picked up by radar. We continued on, finished the raid and headed back to our base at Dunholme Lodge. When we got back a notification had come through from Group that we were due to change sites and move to a place called Spilsby on the 30th of September. Well, the squadron packed and shifted to Spilsby. By the time we got settled in it was time for leave and I managed to squeeze fourteen days leave. Returning to operations again because I was sitting in the office one Saturday morning and in came the pilot. Flying officer Plenderleith. ‘Who’s in charge?’ He said. ‘Well, I am if you want.’ ‘Well, I want a new engineer.’ ‘Oh. Ok. What’s wrong with your engineer?’ ‘He’s a womaniser. He’s going to sleep on the job and upsetting the crew and I want rid of him. Who’s engineer are you?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m spare.’ ‘Well, I’ll have you.’ ‘Oh no. No. No. I take orders from the man in charge. Not from the likes of you.’ ‘We’ll see about that.’ And off he went. A few minutes later Dickie Bird, the squadron commander came in. ‘Hi Nick, how are things?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know what you want.’ I said, ‘You’ve got a problem by the name of Plenderleith.’ ‘What? How do you know?’ I said, ‘He’s been in in mind of having a new flight engineer.’ ‘Well, it’s possible if you want to join that crew he’s wanting you to be his engineer. He wants a new one and there’s only you that’s spare.’ ‘No. No. No. I’m not crewing up with the likes of him.’ ‘He’s the best pilot that we have on the squadron at the minute.’ ‘Get away,’ I said. [unclear] ‘Yes. He is one of the best pilots and you’ll rue if you don’t join up and be his engineer.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll take [the change]. I’ll do one trip and see what the score is.’ ‘Ok. I’ll see to it that he will be on the next trip out.’ Sure enough I was listed as his flight engineer. Flying Officer Plenderleith and crew. So we went for the first briefing which was Dortmund Ems Canal.
[recording paused]
Well, we sat down and introduced ourselves to the rest of the crew. We started circulating the information as usual and down to the aircraft, into the aircraft and off we went. Well, it was an uneventful trip sure enough and we returned all in one piece to Spilsby. Well, different things take place as we go into land and two of my jobs is to test the flaps when the pilot indicates and wheels down ready to land. Well, the flaps up and wheels and I responded and put the flaps down. I looked out of the window and he does likewise to see that the wheels are down. Ok. But on that side the tyres flat. The air pressure was against the tyre and indicating damage to the flaps. So I said, ‘We’ve got a flat tyre.’ The pilot responded. ‘No joke. Everything’s ok.’ ‘Everything’s not ok. We’ve got a flat tyre.’ I remarked. ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘It’s flat on the front. It’s been punctured.’ ‘Well, we were in the funnel now and only about a hundred feet up. Well, we can’t overshoot. I’m going into land.’ I said, ‘What? On one wheel?’ ‘Well, it’s never been done before but it’ll be tried out.’ And we got down. We managed and down he went. Gently putting it down on to one wheel. As soon as the wheel touched down the wing started to drop, the wheel [unclear] The wheels started to spin as it touched the tarmac and I could feel the wings going down further and further until he was right down on the wings and he pulled off the runway on to the grass. By braking he gradually pulled up after a couple of circles on the grass. Thank God for that. That was a close one. Anyway, I said to the skipper, ‘Well, you’ve made me believe the squadron commander’s remarks that you’re the best pilot on the squadron and if you’ll have me as a flight engineer I’ll be willing to fly from now on as your permanent engineer.’ I had to move in with the rest of the crew so that we were all sleeping in the same billet.
[pause]
It so happened in December that the last pocket battleship belonging to the Germans, the Lützow was operating over in the Baltic Sea. It caused quite a bit of commotion over there and it was decided by the higher ups in the RAF that this ship had to be got rid of. Well, oddly enough there was a force of about three hundred bombers lined up to go on this raid. The three hundred bombers weren’t going to be chasing the Lützow. Three out of that three hundred which included my crew and two others were earmarked to go and seek out the battleship and sink it. We carried special armour piercing bombs which would penetrate the armoured deck on the battleship and do justice where it was necessary. So ten to five on the 18th December we took off. We went up around by Sweden and Denmark to a place called Gdynia on the coast of Poland. The main force went in and they started to splatter the dockside. Set it on fire. Now that was more or less to illuminate the shipping so that we could go in and select from a photograph the exact ship, the Lützow. We were about five miles out to sea coming in towards the coast and I happened to look out of the window which I was summoned to do because night fighters were tricky little people and you had to avoid them if possible. And I spotted this twin engine aeroplane in the distance and I remarked to the pilot. I said, ‘There’s a Mossie out there.’ That’s a Mosquito. One of the others shouted out, ‘It’s not a Mossie. It’s an ME262. A jet.’ I’d never seen any jets. That’s the latest one that the Germans had just brought in. It was the most efficient fighter that they had produced so far. As I was looking the pilot of the 262 he must have spotted me looking out the window and he waved and I thought you cheeky devil. But I said to the skipper, I said, ‘He’s coming around to have a go at us.’ So the skipper stuck the nose down and we hightailed it down as low as possible onto the sea. By going down there we were almost invisible from height and by the time he got himself circled around to come back into attack he’d gone. Well that got rid of him so we did a little dog leg sort of style and climbed up again so that we could look at the fire and hopefully pick out the ship that we were supposed to bomb. We started to do our track in and the bomb aimer kept saying, ‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it.’ And when he exclaimed that he’d got it we opened the bomb doors and he takes over the controls of the aircraft and he calls out left or right or straight ahead or whatever he wants the skipper to do and the skipper follows his direction. We followed his instructions so far and then he said, ‘Oh it’s the wrong one. Turn off. Turn off.’ So we had to do a back loop as it were and then come in again. We did that three times and I thought hell’s bells we’re never going to find it. And then suddenly he shouted, ‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it this time.’ So in we went, bomb doors open and as soon as he got the right spot, ‘Bombs gone.’ And we thought, right. That’s a good shot that. Those bombs will go straight down into that dockyard and blow that ship to smithereens. We carried on, took our photograph, shut the bomb doors and away. By then the wall of the raid had finished on the docks and we were left to go back around via Sweden and Denmark back home. Anyway, on the way back as we did on the way in the Swedes put up some flares into the sky more or less to say we know you’re there. Well, then doing that the German spies that were in Sweden would have picked us up over to Germany and said, ‘There’s bombers flying around Sweden. Send some fighters out to catch them as they come back over the North Sea.’ So we had to watch our step going back but eventually we got back and we landed ok. The total of that trip was eleven hours and five minutes there and back. The longest trip I ever did. Anyway, we got debriefed —
[recording from “Dambusters” film]