Briefing for an operation to Essen

Briefing for an operation to Essen

Recording of an operational briefing.

1944-11-28

00:17:00 audio recording

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APappleFJ[Date]-01

Quiet please. Well, we have our old target again tonight and the plan is we have some three hundred and forty aircraft going. Our target as you can see is Essen. [pause] We have all been to Essen before and it doesn’t need much introduction from me. I want to remind you that it has the famous Krupps works there in the northern part of the town and also the railway facilities are most important now. They are feeding the front-line troops. You all fly today in the morning to the southeastern part of the built-up area of the city. It’s adjoining a fully built up residential part. The Germans will be asleep by that time in the morning so you’ll be able to wake them up with a good fire. There will be [unclear] in the morning. There are three hundred and forty aircraft on the target including the Pathfinders. The attack will be carried out in four waves of two minutes each. The whole attack is scheduled to last eight minutes. 640 Squadron are the second, third and fourth wave. Here are the aircraft and captains of the various waves [unclear] The [unclear] is at 05:30. The second wave over the target 05:32 - 05:34. E - Flight Lieutenant Anderson i.e. one of the [unclear] Flying Officer Gieves YEO Flying Officer Ford. The third wave time on target 05:34 to 05:36. A - Flight Lieutenant Easton, C - Flying Officer Jenkins, D - Flying Officer Harper, H - Flying Officer Boynes J - Flying Officer Wakeman, K - Flying Officer Cooks, L - Flight Sergeant Brown. The fourth wave time over the target 05:36 to 05:38. G - Flying Officer Neville, A - Flight Lieutenant Morris, F - Flying Officer Smith, P - Squadron Leader Rogers, U - Flying Officer [unclear] Flying Officer [unclear] , X - Flying Officer Buckland and Z - Flying Officer Goodrun. Right. Decoys. There are too many decoys around Essen for me to give you a whole list of them but there’s one very important one which will be just to your, on your starboard side three miles before you get to your aiming point. It is quite possible [unclear] down the Pathfinder markers there. Look out for them. They are always weaker in colour and they don’t go as long as the German ones. The Pathfinder method is Musical sky marking and ground marking. The attack opens at eight, nine and six minutes. The Musical Mosquitos will drop red ground markers, red and yellow sky markers and green and yellow sky markers. You are to aim your bombs at the [unclear] One, at the main TIs which you can see. They ignite at four thousand feet. Or two at the main shooting yellow star sky markers or three at the green shooting yellow stars sky marker. The sky markers tonight at seventeen thousand feet. If you attack the sky markers you will do so on an exact heading of 0484 degrees two. Remember the main ground markers [unclear] There will be no master bomber. Now at the same time as you are at Essen 3 Group will send a hundred and fifty Lancs to [unclear] which is a suburb of Düsseldorf. [unclear] Group [unclear] and may come this way and back you up [unclear] Now as regards to jettisoning any bombs when you get over Germany you must drop your bombs live there. But in the case of an aircraft making an early return and having to jettison your bombs you must jettison at least eighty miles in the North Sea to avoid any [unclear] the following aircraft are carrying propaganda leaflets tonight. You will find two packets stashed [unclear] in each aircraft. The mid-upper gunners will put these into the bomb bays at the [unclear] hatches immediately after take-off. Don’t forget to [unclear] the North Sea. The final warning remember you must empty your pockets before you leave the briefing room. Don’t take any paper across with you that may be of assistance to the enemy and remember the golden rule should you bale out over the other side the only thing you are allowed to tell the enemy is your name, your rank and your number. Are there any questions? No? Thank you. Met officer?
[pause]
New speaker: [unclear] bombing height one eight five six degrees east [?] That’s about fifty or sixty miles away from the target area there is a [unclear] cumulus layer and I’ll give you details on that later on. For take-off it will be [unclear] clear on the day. On the night an amount of cloud and visibility about three miles. You’ll have the same conditions all the way down [unclear] to about Reading. But from Reading on towards the enemy coast, the French coast rather you will have a small amount of Cu building up over the Channel [unclear] six tenths unbroken clumps at about ten thousand feet. [unclear] drop to twelve thousand feet and sharp climb but feel very very scattered and you shouldn’t run into any of those anywhere. From then on [unclear] six degrees east in similar conditions the tops and lower at about eight thousand feet and there should be some large gaps in the cloud with ten tenths from the sun into the target area. [unclear] tops five thousand feet. There are one or two holes inside the Cu and you may get eight tenths but it would be very unfortunate if you actually find one of these in the target area. [unclear] some cumulus cloud over the sea decreasing to [unclear] in Norfolk and cloudless all the way home with some small [unclear] with visibility of one to two miles. Freezing [unclear] about three thousand feet. Icing index is moderate but you shouldn’t be flying through cloud anywhere and [unclear] temperatures tonight minus six twenty four at twenty thousand feet would be the minimum.
First speaker: I’ll just run over the flight plans then. We’re taking off on [unclear] on runway [unclear] two and climbing up over base to six thousand feet and setting course to Reading at a speed of a hundred and seventy-five. In all six thousand feet right the way down to Reading and at Reading we circle up and start climbing until we cross the English coast at Beachy Head at twelve thousand feet and we will target of a hundred and sixty. Now we level off here then fly at twelve thousand two zero three degrees east. [unclear] along there at a hundred and seventy. Here we start climbing again to be at nineteen thousand by 04:50 at a hundred and fifty. [unclear] nineteen thousand at a hundred and sixty right the way through and into the target area. Our bombing height is nineteen thousand and we are the lowest height tonight. The others are bombing at nineteen, twenty and twenty-one. After bombing increase speed at a hundred and seventy on the short leg out of the target and maintaining our height right through the Ruhr defences until we reach just north of Cologne. Here we turn starboard and have a gentle dive losing four thousand feet increasing our airspeed to a hundred and ninety and crossing our own lines where we have a very definite loss of height down to eight thousand feet. We are losing height at two hundred and twenty on that length. At eight thousand feet we should be just above the cloud cover and we’re holding eight thousand straight and level at a hundred and ninety to zero three twenty east. Then we turn starboard again as we head up towards the French coast. Just one thing there you want to watch Dunkirk going within about three or four or miles of the town and then we are having a gentle climb to cross the French coast again at twelve thousand feet just in case we fly too close to France. Twelve thousand feet leave the French coast behind. We lose height again at a hundred and ninety back over the English coast at Orford Ness at eight thousand feet. We are going to hold at eight thousand feet right the way up to the Humber at a hundred and ninety and at the Humber we are breaking cloud and going down to thirty. Well, you will probably tonight have ten tenths cloud over the target. You may be lucky and get a break [unclear] but then anyway there is one thing about this you won’t be troubled by [unclear] timings. I’ll see the pilots and engineers at 00:30. The buses for aircraft will leave at 00:45. The first aircraft takes off at 02:05. Set course from base 02:45. [unclear] aircrew at 05:30 and you should be back for breakfast at 08:00.
[unclear]
A mile or two. Anyway, the signals officer will tell you all about the [unclear] work tonight and their efforts to jam the enemy RTM. After leaving at the [unclear] pier just west of Cologne [unclear] eight to nine thousand feet and that is the primary so time slots are vital. Most of the way back I should think it will be quite quiet. Just one or two points actually where we have radar silence. So five degrees thirty east and another point is that there is to be no navigation lights on after we leave the English coast.
I think that’s about all I have to say [unclear] I think it’s a very good point, bombing leader?
We’ve got three different loads tonight. I’ll just read out the aircraft letters followed by their respective loads. First of all aircraft A, D, E, H, J, T and P one two thousand pound HD and eleven five hundred pound clusters. Aircraft M, L, F, U, W, X, Z and K one two thousand pound HD and twelve SBCs containing nineteen four pound incendiaries. The remainder of the aircraft, four aircraft, C, I, Q and Y one two thousand pounder, five one thousand pound American SAPs and six five hundred pound [unclear] . All aircraft flying [unclear] of course. Master bomber switch tonight you’ll have on for take-off and you’ll switch it off once you’ve set course and do not put it on again until you have reached six thirty degrees and then it has to be entered in the navigation log of course. Your camera heater switch, put that on before you take off. Leave it on right through the target and turn it off after you have cleared the camera. During the bombing run through then [unclear] codes. Switch on your bombsight twenty minutes a good twenty minutes before you reach the target so you’ll be quite prepared for your run out. Remember if you have to bomb on Wanganui flares apart from the heading zero eight four two you have to have zero windset and two of height on the bombsight. That is very important. The aircraft K, A, G though will have a delay between the release of the AG [?] and the two thousand pound HDs. So bomb aimers count that delay as an urgency. After bombing then jettison [unclear] then return to normal. After you fly through the target just press the [unclear] once to clear the camera and then you put the camera gear off. If possible do your visual check of the bomb bay over Germany because then if you have any hang ups you can release it live on Germany. And remember once again [unclear] engineers last time and I’ll see you again bomb aimers fifteen minutes before NT time and I’ll give you your orders [unclear] Are there any questions please?
[unclear]
New Speaker 2: As you have already been told there is WT and RT silence, radar silence rather until four four thirty degrees. Keep your H2S switched off up until that point and then use it throughout the trip. [unclear] I think your mid-upper gunner should switch your modulator switch off when you go into the aircraft. Navigator you can switch your H2S on normally but when you reach 04:30 tell your mid-upper to switch your modulator switch on for you to save you running back and forward. Enemy counter measures again paying attention tonight there’s a special force of aircraft covering you there’s a mandrel screen which the navigation officer will get details to the navigators. [unclear] VHF and [unclear] plotting are all being jammed. There is a special Windowing force out covering Europe but don’t forget your own. We’re carrying our own Window. Start out at 05:30, all target to zero four hundred degrees. You are carrying two types. The broad type and the ordinary type [unclear] two minutes to within twenty miles radius of the target area. Your RT call sign everywhere is Veto. [unclear] frequency of [unclear] check with your navigator when you get into the aircraft what the [unclear] is. [unclear] set should be used. Switch it on when taking off and after the English coast coming in. The usual rules for IFF apply. Are there any questions?
[pause]
First speaker: It's a really good target tonight. It’s the largest armament works in the world. So let’s make a really steady bombing run and [unclear] twice a week. Are there any questions? [pause] Well chaps as you know our job tonight is to complete the destruction of an already heavily devastated town. There isn’t much of Essen left so we need all the more accurate bombing. [unclear] once before. Best of luck.
[Recording repeats the first minute of the briefing]