William Tweddle Audio memoir. Two

William Tweddle Audio memoir. Two

Doug Tweddle was a pilot with 9 Squadron based at RAF Bardney. Here in his second part of his interview he talks about relationships at his home station. He describes meeting Ralph Cochrane on a flight. He talks about the ground crew who always knew whether it was a long or short distance op based on the bomb load and armament. Doug and his crew flew to Russia to prepare for the attack on the Tirpitz.

00:50:53 audio recording

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The Germans had many, many vessels in Brest, and the Navy thought well they would sink them across the Mole, the entrance to the harbour and block the port. We didn’t disagree with that thinking but two of the possible ships that they were going to use was an oil tanker and an old French battleship of the Courbet class which was, which was alongside the jetty. 617 were allocated the battleship and 9 were allocated the tanker. Well, what we didn’t know at the time but we found out the hard way was that the gunnery defences, ack ack at Brest were German Naval gunners who had every small portion of the sky completely plotted. Until we were committed on our bombing run they didn’t fire. As you are aware if you want to drop a bomb very accurately you have to be flying straight and level and no variations. We were using Mark 14 air bombsights and normally after you dropped the bombs you keep on the same steady course until you get the photograph which is really synchronised to go with the bomb burst. So you were still committed to fly straight after the bombs have gone down. I’m talking now about targets of accuracy rather than a bulk area target. So on these particular ones that we were very careful about a ship at sixteen thousand feet is very small. We were dropping at the time I recall the only time is two Brest trips. The only time I did drop them were armour piercing. Quite a small bomb with a solid steel nose on them for deep penetrative qualities. So there we were, 9 going for this tanker which is out in middle of the dock and when we were arriving I suppose at the point of the bomb drop the hun opened up with a large marker shell which burst like a ball of orange coloured wool like the old thermogene wool burst in the sky and undoubtedly that was absolutely on the bomb release point. We had to go through it at that particular point to drop them. Then immediately every gunner they had hammered it up the pipe to this point and quite a lot of us were hammered. We lost one [unclear] One of our Squadron. I recall this man. I believe he was born in China and he was flying down on my starboard side not far away and I think he got a complete one to himself because he just turned down and pranged on the side of the dock and burned for a considerable time as we were leaving. I lost my starboard inner. The first thing I knew of the mid-upper, Alan reported that there was streaming back and it was the coolant from the radiator and I feathered to stop it and got off the target as quickly as I knew how.
[recording paused]
That was the 13th of August which I think was a Saturday. Not that one seemed to recall any day of the week. Although there were seven days in the week at times you couldn’t, you didn’t know whether it was Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday at all. It meant nothing really. But I think I recall that was a Saturday because the next morning we [pause] we went out to our dispersal. By this time I’d got the dispersal next to the hangar and that was a good move because I could walk to it instead of waiting to be carried out in the crew coach and I could go and see the ground crew and it was more, very convenient rather than be dispersed on the far side of the field. My ground crew led by a laddie called Corporal Bert Savage had built themselves a small corrugated iron hut complete with flagpole and on the top of the flagpole we had our own flag. Y. And they were always there for a cup of tea and a brew and a chat. In fact, Bert Savage said that the kite belonged to him and that he allowed me to use it as long as I brought it back. But believe it or not if my landings as you remember my landings go off a little now and again and you seem to lose the touch and then it comes back, you know. He used to play hell with me and ask me if I was trying to break the thing and whether he was a corporal and I was a flight lieutenant made no difference. He gave me a loud whipping. But he was a wonderful man and later in this little chat I’ll tell you how he proved it to me. But when I went to see Bert the next morning he looked very down in the mouth and his ground crew and he said, ‘The same place, Doug. Same bomb load, same petrol load.’ These lads became very expert at forecasting targets by bomb loads and petrol. They knew the ranges. They knew everything. I must say the idea of going back there really probably a long time low because as it worked out we had set our tanker and the 617 had not visibly disabled the Courbet class and they were briefed to go back on that one and we were going to go for another ship. I forget its type which the hun had pulled out in the middle of the water one assumes ready to take the place of a tanker. Well, what really upset us was that honestly there were thirty vessels there all suitable for sinking across the Mole which let’s face it it could have sunk any time it likes in any of the twenty four hours that we weren’t there and achieved the purpose and yet the Navy wanted us to go out, sink two. Go out sink two. On that argument they would have cleaned us out. That’s just about the level of their thinking. You’ve probably gathered from the odd comment I’m not a nautic man and nothing I’ve seen or heard in the Falklands recently gets me to change my mind about them. They were as dim as Toc H lamps. However, we went off on the, on the second Brest affair and we were delighted to experience very similar but the flak seemed lighter or less accurate. I think we were probably just a little lucky. But we came off it and there was a tremendous sigh of relief. The following day I see we were at a place called Gilze. Gilze-Rijen actually. It’s an airfield in Holland and about that time both the Lancasters at night in the main force and the Americans during the day were getting regularly bothered with the fighters, night fighters and day fighters so someone decided at Bomber Command HQ and the American 8th that they would take out as many of these airfields as they could in one big swipe. So we were briefed to go to Gilze-Rijen, and the Americans took out other fields and almost every Group had its own field or two in which to prang and I remember the concentration on this field. We dropped five hundred ton of bombs inside the peritrack on the runways in two minutes. Now, when you think back that the Germans dropped about four or five, nearly five hundred tonnes of bombs on Coventry spread over about seven hours you get some idea of the, of the progress of heavy bombing and the concentration and the timing. I recall once later seeing some photographs taken by the Dutch people who had actually gone out of their houses and photographed this bombing from a fairly short distance which again was tribute to the intense accuracy of it. Whether it was effective is another point because by that time the hun was pulling out his aircraft and parking them probably well off the field, bringing them back at night when he wanted to use them and on top of that around that part of the world there were about ten thousand Russians with as many picks and shovels who promptly repaired any damage that was done by sheer manpower. So, and whether it, I didn’t notice in subsequent reports or even experience that we quietened down these night fighters to any significant degree. The 16th again, the following day we went to La Pallice which again is down on the French west coast and on this occasion I took up a new task of wind finding. Someone had brought out a device that you attached to the aileron and it was a small computer repair which if you flew over a fixed point on a fixed heading accurately, picked out a landmark a two or three minutes, or maybe four minutes orbit say to the left and came back over this point on the same run, same height, same speed you got a plot from which you could figure out a very accurate local wind. So we worked a system which we used later on Tirpitz and the main targets. We worked a system on 9. You would appoint about four of the aircraft to wind find and we might, as we were later be wind leader and each of these aircraft sometimes they went a few minutes ahead to be able to do it in time. We produced this accurate wind, reduced it for bombsight setting and the wind leader would broadcast it to the force which meant that you were all dropping our bombs with one wind setting. Course and airspeed. Course and speed on the long sight. Which meant of course that assuming they were dropped accurately you’d got a much higher concentration of bombs and a much less scatter which was what you were trying to do. The quality of the wind when you got your wind sent into you from the other wind finders your navigator knowing them personally and judging their ability and otherwise did an averaging ability judgement and emerged with an average wind which he felt was an accurate one. Or in turn he may discard the ones he was doubtful about but it proved itself to be a very very good idea. So that was the wind finding. And down at La Pallice where again we were chasing U-boat pens and E-boat pens, these concrete structures. On the west coast these U-boats used to come right in from the sea and sail right into these big, thickened U-boat pens and well, we found out of course that we could damage them with our Tallboys at a later date. Anything else up to that was no good at all. So I suppose that was really the beginning of sounding out this particular future task. I must have had some leave about then because I see there is a gap between the 16th and the 24th. Our normal leave interesting as an aside, our normal leave technique used to work out about nine days every five weeks. How we did it, when I was running the flight I used to do this. How you did it the four top crews on the Battle Order went on leave and you worked your way up. And of course if there were any fatalities that took out anyone who was ahead of you well you got your leave quicker. So living in Carlisle as I did at the time Margaret and I used to spend a lot of our leave in the Royal Oak at Keswick which is a delightful place. Good food, good drink, good company and we didn’t do a great deal. Walked down to Friars’ Crag. I don’t know whether you, you probably know the Lake District having lived up here for a while and it was a nice change and there it was. Anyway, we went back and on the 24th we did a trip on Ijmuiden which again is in Holland, a port in Holland and it had its E-boat pens again and I’ve got some bombing frames. One of the intelligence girls did a thieving act for me and stole most of my bombing plates out of intelligence towards the end. So I have about twenty or more actual bombing frame photographs of these targets in which you can see the detail particularly on Brest and Ijmuiden. Extremely accurate at sixteen thousand feet. You can see people stripping them out in little speedboats in the wake spreading. Some of our, the right kind of magnifier could get a lot of information out of these. Anyway, on the, we were now sort of getting practiced and set up for the Russian trip. A great deal of secrecy about this. Not a lot of people let in on this. But I had an interesting episode on the 6th of September. I didn’t have Y. I think Y was in for one of the majors, major overhaul about this time and I was flying U-Uncle and it had the annoying feature that when you were flying straight and level the spectacle of the old control was pushed slightly starboard down and it annoyed me. I liked it to be level. So I got hold of the chiefy who was the rigger and he said, ‘Oh, I’ll sort that out for you, Doug. I’ll come down in the evening for it. We’ll get that right.’ Because we were trying to get these aircraft in top, top nick for this. This trip abroad. Anyway, while we were down there on a very bright evening Cochrane came over the fence in his Percival Mew Gull he used to fly with a white boiler suit and I saw the old man’s Hillman car, Jim Bazin, the station master was Group Captain [MacMullan] a New Zealander. A hell of a nice chap. He and Jim Bazin tore out to meet old Cochy and then they headed my way along with a lot of other people and I found out that he wanted to drop some practice bombs which was his wont and incidentally he was very very good. He ran a 5 Group bombing ladder in which everyone, wing commander and above, not below, a wing commander and above had to drop practice bombs and drop them accurately. Cochrane argued that if they couldn’t drop bombs how could they control people whose job it was to do exactly that. Sentiment, the man was right but then Cochrane was always right. He came up and the bombing armourers came on and put some practice bombs on to my kite and the old man was trying to come around the corner and whisper things to me when I had a lot to do. One was interesting. He said, ‘Tell your crew they must call you captain. You won’t have all of these nicknames and other things you do.’ So that was interesting. But anyway we went home. He wanted me to go to Wainfleet on the Wash to drop bombs. Well, I wasn’t a particular big user of Wainfleet. The range I knew inside out was at Tollerton which is again out towards Newark and Nottingham way. I knew that range pretty well but Wainfleet was a bit of a stranger to me so I thought I must get him off this one. So I said, ‘Well, I’ve been checking up with the weather briefing man and I think there is a sea fret coming in and if you take Wainfleet out then you may not get them down.’ He looked at me as if, ‘You’re pulling my leg aren’t you?’ But I had a good point. So he said, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ I said, ‘We’re going to Tollerton.’ So with an aside to Jim Bazin I said, ‘For God’s sake Jim make sure the range officers are awake and are reset.’ So off we went to Tollerton and Cochrane got in the nose of my kite and took Jack Singer the bomb aimer through every screw and nut in the nose and eventually dropped his six practice bombs on all the separate headings and he was giving me corrections of course of one and two degrees as if one could do this very very easy. It was possible on a fine night. But anyway, he seemed very satisfied and when we got back to the Mess by the time I’d put the kite away and came in for my dinner he said, he bought me a drink and he said, ‘Go and eat.’ So I said, by that time of course everybody else had gone out of the dining room so I sat down with him and he said, ‘Now, I’ll tell you about your crew.’ And he started the turret to the back end and I don’t even recall that he saw Ken but he came forward through the aircraft, mid-upper, wireless op, navigator, engineer, bomb aimer and he gave me a character and an ability assessment of my own crew and he was absolutely right. It had taken me what? Eighteen months. Getting on a bit to find out all these things and this man had been airborne with me for about three quarters of an hour which has got to be some measure of his ability and why he became the boss of 5 Group. A wonderful man Cochrane. Completely ruthless but he would come and meet you in the morning when you came back off a trip, sit at your table on debriefing, listen to you and ask penetrating questions and if he thought your point was valid he went into function right away. He was very very good. I met him subsequently at a reunion when he must have been [pause] oh well up to his late seventies, early eighties and along with his personal secretary who was another dear old soul, a female and he said, ‘Oh, my memory isn’t what it was.’ But it was pretty good even at that stage. A wonderful man. Anyway, that was my little jaunt with Cochy and of course he was then briefing us for this Russian trip which we carried out on the 11th of September and I was flying this U-Uncle. We went off to Yagonik which is an island in the delta of the Dvina near Archangel. I think that’s right. It’s an enormous river. You sort of stand on the river, on the island bank in the estuary and you can hardly see the far banks. A Mississippi style thing. And we stood up to go there taking the Tallboy with us and I see from my logbook that it was eleven hours twenty. All night. We took off about teatime, sixish, something like that in the evening and the plan was they turned up the strength of the Gee chain, the northern Gee chain so that we would get a good start. We were way past Scotland. Peterhead, Aberdeen going north and we went up as far as [Lafoten] and I think the additional strength probably kept as accurately up to then. We then turned across Norway, Sweden and Finland and flew across an enormous stretch of what seemed to be forest all the way particularly once you get into Russia, Russia and Finland, over there. Came out of the White Sea and of course by that time it was coming around morning again. We were on I suppose pure DR. There was no aids to navigation in that part of the world. It was supposed to be, Russia was supposed to have a system which transmitted radio in ten degree segments which had a letter for each segment and the segment which you missed when you were listening was the segment in which you [unclear]. That didn’t sound a bad idea actually except that when we landed eventually it hadn’t been switched on. So that was a nice theory but beyond that there was no clue. No help. In fact, they didn’t seem to know we were coming because they fired at us and we got a burst of ack ack as well which didn’t please us because we were getting very tired wondering all about it. When I emerged over Archangel I could see the top of the masts of the ships coming out of the fog in the morning but I couldn’t see the decks and needless to say at that stage we had practically no fuel left and there was the bomb inside and you could hear kites on our own wavelength saying they were in trouble and they were going down to do a forced landing. So I told Paddy my wireless op to switch it off. I said, ‘We’ve got enough problems of our own without listening to other people who are in trouble.’ And at the point of really beginning to sweat believe it or not I saw some searchlights in daylight flashing about coming across our eyesight so I then saw a light aircraft like a Tiger Moth buzzing around. Between one thing and another I saw this aerodrome on an island and I went in and no flying around, not seriously we had nothing left and then when I got near enough and I saw one or two of them were pranged, standing up on their noses. It was a grass field and I didn’t know the length of it but I got in, taxied over to this group of, I could then see there was a Liberator there. We had two Liberators accompanying us. They were supposed to go ahead of us and send them some aids. In fact, they came no sooner than we did so they were no good. And there we were at least two or three pranged of 617 and ourselves and we found out of course that we weren’t at Yagonik. We were at an airfield just a few miles down the, down the estuary but we were in very short flying distance. So then we set about trying to get some fuel. At least enough to take us up to the other place. You can imagine that the scene there. There was one of our kites up towards the hut standing up on its nose. There were two or three like me with no juice. The Russkies, most of whom incidentally were marine, they were their Naval crowd, back to the old argument again and the [pause] everyone was in uniform. Some of the kids looked about twelve years old and the formula seemed that any non-commissioned types could grow their hair as long as they liked but the commissioned types were almost shorn Telly Savalas style except that the, they all had two or three days growth of beard on them and none of them could speak English. I suppose few of us could speak Russian too but with various sort of pointing there and shouting they must have got the message that we wanted some, some juice. In the corner there was a small bowser and I thought well they have aircraft around this field there must be some kind of supply. I knew that one or two of our aircraft had Mossie overload tanks inside and there must be some juice left in there so I was trying to make sense. There was one, there was a couple of air traffic, squadron leader lads who had come up with the Liberators and we all tried to knock into their heads what we wanted and what we were doing because by then we had gathered that if we could get ourselves a pint or two aboard we’d fly up to Yagonik where we ought to have been. Anyway, we weren’t getting a lot of joy so I suggested that if I could get at this Mossie tank in the Lanc that was dumped I’d put my own ruddy juice in. So I got my lads to haul this tank, overload tank and believe it or not we got a bucket and a rope and we were going to pour it in our own tanks. So when the Russky saw us going to these lengths it seemed to dawn on him that they let us have some juice out of the tanker and as it were what he gave it out of the tanker he could take back out of these overload tanks if he was worried about losing on the deal. But anyway to cut a long story short I eventually got enough put in and I thought well that would get me up the river anyway. I forget whose kite it was, I’ve an idea it was [unclear] but it was somebody out of 617 that had written his off pretty effectively so they wanted a ride up with me. And I saw a little bit of nodding and whispering from this laddie to 9 Squadron friends of mine as if is he safe to go with? You know. So I stuck them in, taxied out to the far end of what wasn’t a big field, a grass field. Incidentally of course we were still carrying a Tallboy and [unclear] and I was halfway along and just as I was getting airborne there was a great big ditch. Fortunately, we just had enough weight to stay airborne over the top. Flew up the river and saw of course where we ought to have been which really was only next door and landed at Yagonik and taxied in and there was a band and a big red banner welcoming the glorious fliers of the Royal Air Force and alongside the field was like a Mississippi river steamer anchored by which we gathered this was where was going to be our quarters. But in some ways I was lucky because by arriving a little later than some of the others they suggested that I could stay on the, in some of their log huts that were buried to what would normally have been the eaves of the house and you had to go down to get in. I suppose that was for safety. They were all log construction, a brick floor, an iron bedstead, clean linen I must say. Clean white bed linen except when the Russky sort of threw the bed back he sort of whipped up a lot of little black flies that were running across the seams. Swept them off with the back is hand in a nonchalant manner as if they were always there in every bed aren’t they you know. And hanging on the wall there was the five gallon drum with a big nail sticking out of the bottom and when you pushed the nail up with your hand the water trickled down the nail and that seemed to be to me to be a perfectly adequate toilet affair. They had a great big log toilet outside with sloping boards and everything just went downhill into an enormous pit. Little kids in uniform about. Absolutely organised chaos. But [pause] well we didn’t know what to expect and there we are. They were, they were all friends then of course and we were fed on board this Mississippi river steamer. The food was reasonably adequate I remember and they brought some very fine looking drink up which turned out to be a hundred percent pure vodka and I remember from what appeared to be a bunch of semi sort of half flaked out types who had turned into a fairly roaring drunk lot in no time at all. So I think that was a Sunday I think and we actually flew up on a Saturday and landed there on the Sunday morning but my book is saying it was the 11th and we actually bombed the Tirpitz on the 15th. I don’t know whether that adds up but I seem to recall that it was a Thursday. Would that be right? 13, 14,15. Heading that way. Then we had a Mosquito. A beautiful PRU Mossie there of ours and his job was to fly out to the target and see whether it was clear and that was up at Kåfjord which is the most northerly fjord at North Cape in Norway. It really is quite some distance away. In fact, looking at the logbook now it was a seven hours ten minutes trip. So we’re talking about nearly four, three and a half hours each way. That’s from Archangel up to North Cape to bomb. That was why of course we couldn’t tackle it from Lincoln in those days. So we hung around and we played football and we wandered around the field and we went to, they put on cinema shows in a great big long hangar again which was obviously below the ground and they entertained us with dances and accordion players and all kinds. And there were many amusing incidents which I’ll tell you a couple which seems indicate the kind of built in suspicions that Soviets have. Let’s face it no one has been friends with them ever since they were set up in what? 1917. But I recall movie. One night they said they would put on a film and would we like a film? One of ours or one of theirs. So we said, ‘Oh, we’ll have one of yours.’ So it was a film about them recapturing Sevastopol and it was bloodshot and bayonets and just blood all over. Incredible how they loved this. And we were sitting in the row before the cinema started and right in front of us was one of those close hair shorn cardboard epaulet captains or something and we were behind. I recall that my navigator as usual Cas not wasting any time was playing a game I think with John Mackintosh’s navigator. A very elegant bloke called Nigel Hawkins who wanted to be a film man in Civvy Street and they were doing a lexicon word game as navigators wanted to do. They never waste time, navigators. They’re always intelligent occupying every spare minute you know. Anyway, Paddy my wireless operator shuffled down the row trying to get a seat and in going past the backside of this, behind the seat of this Russian captain he patted him on his bald head and said, ‘Hello, you bald headed old bastard. How are you?’ And this fellow just turned around and grinned at him, you know and smiled and gave a little nod of his head. Paddy sat down. Later when the navigators were doing this word game and they were arguing about some word and the spelling of it the bald headed old lad leaned around and said, ‘Gentlemen, I suggest —’ so and so, ‘Might fit in there rather well.’ In pretty good English you know which of course was what these people did. They were rather reluctant to let you know that they knew your language until they were on more sure ground and I gather that the normal drill is that they don’t pretend to speak much about it until the liquor flowed and then when sufficient of them are in the same kind of state and they all decided well now is the moment that we can enjoy ourselves. They might then disclose to you that they are perfectly ok with everything that is going on. Which seems to be an eminent way to self-preservation. One of our crew George [Camsell] who was a Canadian, he had a lot of fun much later over Bremen but George was one of the unfortunates who came down on a fighter field a little further away from [pause] from Archangel and went over the fence and took his wheels off and finished up on this field and was promptly put inside a cabin with a guard mounted over them. Well, you can imagine a bunch of Canadians. How they would feel after being tired out and so and so and then put under guard so the language and the description would be well worth recording. But a car turned up with a girl driving and one of their commissioned Johnnies again who was supposed to be an interpreter. He apparently spent a considerable time getting nowhere with George and his boys and you can imagine that their opinions of him and the nation and the trip and everything were well expressed. And at that stage the girl said, ‘Well, gentlemen, if you care to come this way with me we’ll go along and see the commanding officer and the rest of your friends.’ And of course you hadn’t to put, well put two and two together to realise that she was the interpreter and the other boy was the Charlie and she listened out for quite a while until you said what you were doing, what you were there, why you were there and all about it which again I suppose is a cunning way for the intelligence people to do their job.
[recording paused]
Oh, there’s scores of stories like this. Another one that [Kealey, Scouse Kealey] who was a well-known type in 9, he baled out. Went down in a place more remote than that. The incredible thing was that in a very short time of us arriving there they’d counted up everyone who was missing. The Russkies knew exactly where they were and had made arrangements to sort them all out in a very short period of time. [Kealey] had the experience of seeing a Walrus come over him. Incidentally, he regretted that he had set fire. To make the little fire he had to burn the foreign notes which we always carried with us. The money. He never got over that and burned a few maps to make the fire to warm up. I suppose they were getting miserable by then. Then this character came over in a Walrus and a fellow baled out of it and drifted down to them and sort of said, ‘Follow me,’ type. So, there were a lot of stories like this that someone one day may well put together. But I don’t know that anyone has as yet done it. But another little sideline to this was we had a couple of BBC types. I don’t recall the name of the one that I spent some time with. I’ve forgotten now. Quite a quiet dark haired man with glasses but the other one I do remember his name. He was called Guy [Brian] and he was dressed in a paratroopers kit. Camouflaged smock with a red beret. The lot. And why I gather he was turned out like this was that he’d been with Sydney [Maxted] on the Arnhem affair. Hence his kit. And he had a lot to say about this. In fact, so much that he upset the Australian skipper on the photographic kite. We had a photographic kite with us and he was going to fly with us from Archangel to Kåfjord to the bombing and straight on to England because he had overload tanks and he was going to bring the film back but he was so annoyed with what he took to be secret information that this [Brian] was spewing out that he in fact reported him. But I don’t know what happened. very little I suppose but I do remember some long time afterwards someone telling me that Guy [Brian] had gone for a burton flying with one of the 8th Army squadrons on a daylight on Berlin. So, he was a nice lad. So, he was a nice lad. He was an extrovert and I was sorry when I heard what had happened.