Six bomber aces
Title
Six bomber aces
Description
The careers of the bomber and fighter pilots Wing Commander G L Cheshire, D.S.O D.F.C; Squadron Leader R A Mackie, Wing Commander J R Jeudwine, O.B.E; D D Haig, D.F.C; Wing Commander D S S Wilkerson, D.S.O and Squadron Leader Douglas 'Hank' Iveson, D.F.C and Bar
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Spatial Coverage
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Five newspaper cuttings
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Identifier
SIvesonD19171121v10006
Transcription
SIX BOMBER ACES and why
by Wing-Commander CHARLES BRAY
“OUR bombers were out over Germany last night.
“More details are available of yesterday’s daylight activity over Western Europe, when squadrons of Spitfires and Typhoons . . .,” etc., etc.
Do you ever wonder, when you hear the bald phrases on the morning radio, why one set of men in crews of eight should have been navigating 20-ton, four-engined Lancasters over Berlin and another set cutting deadly capers in Spitfires over, say, Rouen?
For there is a very real reason, and it can be expressed in one word – [italics] temperament [/italics].
THE qualities which make a fighter ace like “Johnny” Johnson are not more specialised than those of a bomber ace like the late Squadron-Leader Nettleton.
Bomber and fighter are two different breeds of men – different, that is, in temperament – and they are sorted out early in training.
The expert instructor at once perceives the dash, individualism and almost harum-scarum gallantry of a born fighter pilot.
And he sees too, the more methodical, patient capacity for team work and the powers of endurance and concentration which mark the future bomber captain.
The training of the two types therefore goes on different lines.
So, too, do their positions in the public eye. The individual fighter has a more spectacular job and soon becomes better known.
Bomber Command as a whole is in the forefront of the war – but how many people can name six leading bomber pilots?
MIGHTY few. And therefore I am going to introduce a few of them to you.
You will probably recognise the name of the first. He is Wing-Commander G. L. Cheshire, who has three times won the D.S.O., as well as the D.F.C.
Although Bomber Command modestly maintains it has no aces owing to the nature of its operations, Cheshire surely is entitled to be regarded as one of the greatest bomber “aces” of the war, and that goes for any air force.
[photograph]
Cheshire – 80 raids
With over 80 operational missions to his credit, this young man – he is still in his twenties – modest and unassuming, voluntarily forfeited his rank of group captain in order to return to command a squadron and fly on operations.
I WONDER if anyone still on bomber operations can beat Squadron-Leader R. A. Mackie’s record?
He has made 97 operational flights. They have ranged over Egypt, Western Desert, Malta, West Coast of Africa, Eritrea, Greece, Crete, and all parts of Germany, including, of course, Berlin.
And he has never had a “boomerang” – starting out on a raid and having to return before reaching the target.
He is a Rhodesian, in his thirties, calm and phlegmatic in any emergency.
A 30-years-old Yorkshireman is my third selection. And he holds the distinction of having bombed the Japanese, the Italians and the Germans.
[page break]
WING-COMMANDER J. R. JEUDWINE, O.B.E., has been bombing our enemies for three years.
He began by re-forming a squadron in Egypt in 1941 and taking it to Sumatra and Java. For six weeks his squadron bombed Japanese convoys by day and anchorages and airfields by night. He took part in 10 of these operations.
When Java fell he escaped with 11 men from his air crews in a small lifeboat, and sailed for 47 days across more than 900 miles of ocean to Australia.
He next commanded a squadron of Baltimores in the Middle East, then had a period with Transport Command, and now leads a bomber squadron of Lancasters with 16 raids on his record.
[break]
WING-COMMANDER D.S.S. WILKERSON D.S.O., D.F.C., is another of Bomber Harris’s young men, given the responsibility not only of commanding a squadron, but of taking over a brand-new one and welding it into a fighting unit.
In four months his new Halifax squadron has become known as the “Aiming-Point Squadron” so accurate is its record of bombing.
Wilkerson was raised in Canada, took two years to rise from pilot-officer to wing-commander and win the D.F.C., and another year to make his mark as a squadron-commander of exceptional merit and also to win the D.S.O.
Tall and slight, with remarkable energy, he seems to be everywhere at once. Has bombed Berlin, Kiel, Essen and many other hotly-defended places and expects to go on doing so.
ANOTHER born bomber is tall, slim, youthful Squadron-Leader Douglas Iveson, twice winner of the D.F.C., whose appearance gives no hint of the cold determination that at least twice made him offer his own aircraft as a target for German flak to divert it from other aircraft.
[photograph]
Iveson – asked for flak
He did that in the Trondheim raid in April 1942 and again in the Middle East in a combined operation.
He took part in the daylight attack on the German battle-cruisers at Brest, was in the first thousand-bomber raid, did the old “mail-run” to Tobruk on which the pilots used to tune into the German wireless and sing in their own version of “Lili Marlene.”
He now commands the squadron in which he was a flight-commander in Egypt.
[break]
AND, finally, one of the youngest wing-commanders in charge of a Lancaster squadron is 25-years-old D.D. Haig, D.F.C. and Bar, who has done 41 operations and takes every possible opportunity of leading his own squadron to Germany.
A Londoner, educated at Rencomb College, he was commissioned from Cranwell in 1939. He first flew on operations in a Hampden, became a staff officer, but fretted to get back on operations.
A few months ago he was appointed flight-commander in a fairly new squadron, and only recently was given a Lancaster squadron.
Modest, very capable and extremely popular, Haig is typical of the young school of squadron-commanders upon which Bomber Harris is placing vast responsibility without fear or hesitation.
by Wing-Commander CHARLES BRAY
“OUR bombers were out over Germany last night.
“More details are available of yesterday’s daylight activity over Western Europe, when squadrons of Spitfires and Typhoons . . .,” etc., etc.
Do you ever wonder, when you hear the bald phrases on the morning radio, why one set of men in crews of eight should have been navigating 20-ton, four-engined Lancasters over Berlin and another set cutting deadly capers in Spitfires over, say, Rouen?
For there is a very real reason, and it can be expressed in one word – [italics] temperament [/italics].
THE qualities which make a fighter ace like “Johnny” Johnson are not more specialised than those of a bomber ace like the late Squadron-Leader Nettleton.
Bomber and fighter are two different breeds of men – different, that is, in temperament – and they are sorted out early in training.
The expert instructor at once perceives the dash, individualism and almost harum-scarum gallantry of a born fighter pilot.
And he sees too, the more methodical, patient capacity for team work and the powers of endurance and concentration which mark the future bomber captain.
The training of the two types therefore goes on different lines.
So, too, do their positions in the public eye. The individual fighter has a more spectacular job and soon becomes better known.
Bomber Command as a whole is in the forefront of the war – but how many people can name six leading bomber pilots?
MIGHTY few. And therefore I am going to introduce a few of them to you.
You will probably recognise the name of the first. He is Wing-Commander G. L. Cheshire, who has three times won the D.S.O., as well as the D.F.C.
Although Bomber Command modestly maintains it has no aces owing to the nature of its operations, Cheshire surely is entitled to be regarded as one of the greatest bomber “aces” of the war, and that goes for any air force.
[photograph]
Cheshire – 80 raids
With over 80 operational missions to his credit, this young man – he is still in his twenties – modest and unassuming, voluntarily forfeited his rank of group captain in order to return to command a squadron and fly on operations.
I WONDER if anyone still on bomber operations can beat Squadron-Leader R. A. Mackie’s record?
He has made 97 operational flights. They have ranged over Egypt, Western Desert, Malta, West Coast of Africa, Eritrea, Greece, Crete, and all parts of Germany, including, of course, Berlin.
And he has never had a “boomerang” – starting out on a raid and having to return before reaching the target.
He is a Rhodesian, in his thirties, calm and phlegmatic in any emergency.
A 30-years-old Yorkshireman is my third selection. And he holds the distinction of having bombed the Japanese, the Italians and the Germans.
[page break]
WING-COMMANDER J. R. JEUDWINE, O.B.E., has been bombing our enemies for three years.
He began by re-forming a squadron in Egypt in 1941 and taking it to Sumatra and Java. For six weeks his squadron bombed Japanese convoys by day and anchorages and airfields by night. He took part in 10 of these operations.
When Java fell he escaped with 11 men from his air crews in a small lifeboat, and sailed for 47 days across more than 900 miles of ocean to Australia.
He next commanded a squadron of Baltimores in the Middle East, then had a period with Transport Command, and now leads a bomber squadron of Lancasters with 16 raids on his record.
[break]
WING-COMMANDER D.S.S. WILKERSON D.S.O., D.F.C., is another of Bomber Harris’s young men, given the responsibility not only of commanding a squadron, but of taking over a brand-new one and welding it into a fighting unit.
In four months his new Halifax squadron has become known as the “Aiming-Point Squadron” so accurate is its record of bombing.
Wilkerson was raised in Canada, took two years to rise from pilot-officer to wing-commander and win the D.F.C., and another year to make his mark as a squadron-commander of exceptional merit and also to win the D.S.O.
Tall and slight, with remarkable energy, he seems to be everywhere at once. Has bombed Berlin, Kiel, Essen and many other hotly-defended places and expects to go on doing so.
ANOTHER born bomber is tall, slim, youthful Squadron-Leader Douglas Iveson, twice winner of the D.F.C., whose appearance gives no hint of the cold determination that at least twice made him offer his own aircraft as a target for German flak to divert it from other aircraft.
[photograph]
Iveson – asked for flak
He did that in the Trondheim raid in April 1942 and again in the Middle East in a combined operation.
He took part in the daylight attack on the German battle-cruisers at Brest, was in the first thousand-bomber raid, did the old “mail-run” to Tobruk on which the pilots used to tune into the German wireless and sing in their own version of “Lili Marlene.”
He now commands the squadron in which he was a flight-commander in Egypt.
[break]
AND, finally, one of the youngest wing-commanders in charge of a Lancaster squadron is 25-years-old D.D. Haig, D.F.C. and Bar, who has done 41 operations and takes every possible opportunity of leading his own squadron to Germany.
A Londoner, educated at Rencomb College, he was commissioned from Cranwell in 1939. He first flew on operations in a Hampden, became a staff officer, but fretted to get back on operations.
A few months ago he was appointed flight-commander in a fairly new squadron, and only recently was given a Lancaster squadron.
Modest, very capable and extremely popular, Haig is typical of the young school of squadron-commanders upon which Bomber Harris is placing vast responsibility without fear or hesitation.
Collection
Citation
Wing Commander Charles Bray, “Six bomber aces,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed September 16, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/44784.