Flight Engineer Don Gray DFM

Flight Engineer Don Gray DFM

An autobiography of Don's RAF service. It includes reminiscences of specific trips, an extract on his DFM and a footnote by his son about his sense of humour.

14 printed sheets

46 handwritten pages

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[crest of Sir John Deane’s Grammar School, Northwich]

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1.

This is the story of a bomber crew, a main force crew, [deleted] none of your plebs or Pathfinder types, but [/deleted] [inserted] just [/inserted] an ordinary common or garden crew of seven ordinary [deleted] men [/deleted] blokes who derived great pleasure in seeing Jerries towns or railways or oil [inserted] installations [/inserted] go up in quite a large cloud of smoke.

I will start my story at Heavy Conversion Unit [inserted] BLYTON, LIN [/inserted] because that was where I, being an engineer, merged into the story. These units are manned by instructors who have [inserted] generally [/inserted] completed an operational tour and the aircraft are [deleted] generally [/deleted] obsolescent types of 4 [deleted] motor [/deleted] [inserted] engined [/inserted] bombers which serve quite well in accustoming crews fresh from two motor [deleted] solo [/deleted] [inserted] aircraft [inserted] to the intricacies of the multi-

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2.

motor types.

One fine morning, in the beginning of January 1944, seven engineers and myself were ushered into a large room full of engineer-less crews. After the usual pep talks the skippers’ name and his engineer’s were read out. I drew a tall, instantly likeable, rangy Aussie out of the hat. He was over six feet tall, and in his late twenties with streaks of grey already showing in his dark, curly, hair. He was known to everyone as “Duke” and a professional golfer in civie [sic] street. The navigator, a dapper, moustached, Australian had the misfortune to have the same surname as myself [inserted] and so naturally enough Senior and Junior we became. [/inserted] [deleted] so then I became Junior and he became Senior [/deleted]

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He was a [deleted] ban [/deleted] clerk in peace time with thoughts of starting a newspaper business after the war.

The bomb-aimer a tiny [inserted] apparently timid, [/inserted] Lincolnshire lad, [inserted] affect called R. [/inserted] who was to prove one of the mainstays of the crew, [deleted] was so much like an intrepid aviator as Richard Gouldin. [/deleted] He was an Air Force regular and more than pulled his weight in the crew [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [inserted] with [/inserted] his super-abundance of common-sense. Another point in his favour was that he [deleted] was a [/deleted] [inserted] had covered [/inserted] navigation [deleted] bomb aimer [/deleted] [inserted] in his course [/inserted] so we really carried two navigators.

The wireless operator [deleted] was [/deleted] an Australian clerk named Ross, was a chap who didn’t conceal his nervousness at flying but

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who never let it interfere with his job in the air. More than once his consciention [sic] helped us greatly.

The mid-upper gunner, Col, an Aussie bank-clerk, a typical happy-go-lucky type but who was far from casual in the air and, Mac, the Aussie rear-gunner whom we were to lose in the near future. He was never the type for air-crew as we found out to our sorrow.

Myself, well I’m a Lancashire lad, an ex-ground staff fitter and still possessing the keeness [sic] which had matured out of [deleted] many [/deleted] [inserted] several [/inserted] years trying to get into an aircrew. I had joined the RAF in a burst of patriotism straight from school.

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Well, that’s the mob you’re going to hear about, not a very outstanding lot you may say, but welded together from the start by mutual [deleted] self [/deleted] confidence [deleted] in each other [/deleted] and respect. I have always thought that it was this team spirit both at work and play which enabled us to succeed where better individuals have failed.

The first week of our training was spent on the ground, going over the a/c we were about to fly and learning thoroughly the various systems and gadgets peculiar to the type and which had been passed over in our general trade training. This naturally is a boring business but none the

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less very necessary. [deleted] and we set about [/deleted]

The big day arrived when we were to prove our theory in practice and we were given an experienced Australian instructor with the purple and white silk ribbon of the Distinguished Flying [inserted] Cross [/inserted] on his tunic. He proved to be a very able instructor and no matter what happened, and believe me there was never a dull moment, he was always the acme of coolness and helpfulness and earned himself the title of “I never mention your name” [deleted] as [/deleted] by [deleted] this was the song he [/deleted] croaking [inserted] this song [/inserted] permanently over the intercomm. [sic] His a/c was a Halifax under the letters

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E2 or Easy 2. These letters were to [deleted] dog [/deleted] [inserted] follow [/inserted] us throughout our flying together and they proved to be a lucky charm, I think.

From that day onwards my life became a blurred mass of “Wheels up”, “Flaps up”, “2650 revs”, “30 degrees Flap,” “Wheels down,” and then as we touched or rather crashed on to the runway the skipper would say “Right off” and I would chop the throttles right back and hope that we settled down O.K.

Gradually we gained more confidence and we soon lost our instructors. After an hours circuits and landings one day, the pilot and engineer instructors climbed out with a last

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warning “Remember to do so and so” and we were on our own. Just the six of us in this vibrating monster of the air. We felt a little dwarfed by its immensity and by all the things that [deleted] caught [/deleted] could possibly go wrong. Would a tyre burst on that first touchdown? Would I retract the flaps instead of the u/c? Would that swing to port get out of hand at take-off? Well, this was the test.

We maneuvered [sic] into position at the end of the runway, slightly to the right hand side to allow for this tendency to swing to the left and the Duke said, “All O.K boys?” We all chorussed [sic] “OK Duke”

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and he slowly opened the throttles, left hand outboard leading slightly, and with the control column well forward to get the tail airborne. We gathered speed with no trace of the dreaded swing, the Duke was doing his stuff. The air speed indicator crept round towards the hundred mark, the tail rose and at 105 m.p.h the Duke eased her off the ground. We were airborne. All on our own in that great, noisy, world of nothingness dominated by the roaring of our four Rolls Royce Merlins.

I was recalled from my reveries by the skipper “Wheels up”, “Wheels coming up,” I replied and up they came. “Flaps up,” “Flaps coming up,” the flaps came up slowly

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5 degrees at a time, any faster than that and we might go straight into the ground. “Climbing power,” I change the revs and boost from take-off to climbing power and we begin [deleted] the [/deleted] to gain altitude. At 1000’ we levelled out, [inserted] CRUISING G Power [/inserted] and did our circuit, the boys were all feeling pretty happy, rotating turrets, and Ross was trying to get some dance music on the wireless. The Duke soon stopped that with a “Not now, Ross.” On the down wind leg came [inserted] R.T [/inserted] “Wheels down,” “Flap 20 degrees”, “Revs 2650” in rapid succession and we turned, slowly losing height, cross wind, “Flap 35 degrees,” and we started our approach. The Duke was calling flying control on R.T. “East 2 to Bandy –

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may we pancake,” back came the reply “Bandy to Easy 2 – Pancake,” “Easy 2 pancaking out.” Then came “Full flap” “Full revs.” I put these on and gave a last look at my guages. [sic] We all felt a little apprehensive, things ran through my mind – did I check those tyres correctly?, is the u/c locked down securely? and then we touched with our wheels at the end of the runway. “Right off” shouted the Duke [deleted] and [/deleted] little anxiously, I chopped the throttles and after a couple of bounces [inserted] we [/inserted] settled down nicely to a straight run down the runway. We looked at each other and grinned, it was all over and our first solo flight together

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was a success. Then just as we turned off the runway the port tyre burst! Why hadn’t it burst on landing? We couldn’t say, but that wasn’t the only bit of luck we had!

A couple of days after, a sleety, rainbowy sort of day, we had to go down south to pick up one of [deleted] over flight [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] V.I.P. [deleted] commanders [/deleted] We took our instructor with us and flew all the way down at 500’ as vis. was very poor. We arrived there after a bit of frantic map reading and just scraped in on the very short runway. The V.I.P. came aboard and off we belted again. We [deleted] came [/deleted] [inserted] tore [/inserted] down the runway [deleted] on [/deleted] staggered into the air and

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looked with horror at the hill looming up in front of us! The V.I.P. turned round to my panel and retracted the radiator flaps! Such was the state of the poor old Halifax. On the way back we ran into snow and a little icing. The VIP tapped our instructor on the shoulder and yelled “Look at the ice on the mainplanes.” Our instructor glanced nonchalantly at the erring mainplane and bellowed back, “I think she can just [inserted] about [/inserted] carry the extra weight,” the V.I.P, mollified, sat down again. We just happened, by chance, to find our own drome again and came in for a landing. It was just about the worst the Duke ever made – and that’s saying

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something. We kangarooed down that runway, swung from side to side, but finally managed to straighten up somehow. The Duke looked round with a relieved expression to see the V.I.P. quite safe, standing there with a worried expression [deleted] The V.I.P. [/deleted] He said, [inserted] with a sickly grin [/inserted] “I think you’re trying to scare me”.

Our next venture was a solo day x-country. It was a dull day with 10/10ths cloud, and we took off feeling as dull as the weather. We climbed steadily and then, with a thrill I have experienced many times since yet never tired of, we broke into the world over the cloud. What a difference it makes. Our dull feelings

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were immediately transformed into [deleted] on to [/deleted] [inserted] ones of [/inserted] elation and a feeling of bouyancy [sic] at the grandeur of the scene. The cloud tops, snow white and billowy with an occasional cu-nimb towering above the rest, all [deleted] lit [/deleted] [inserted] tinted [/inserted] with a [deleted] ruddy [/deleted] [inserted] rose-like [/inserted] glow from the sun.

We climbed steadily, the oxygen coming on at 10,000, until we reached 20,000 when we reduced to cruising revs., put the automatic pilot in and settled back to do our jobs quietly and comfortably. Everything went smoothly until about halfway home when Senior said, “The G. box has gone for a burton, Duke, and I’ve only the vaguest clue where we are”. This was the one and only time Senior

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was void of clues “Oh,” said the Duke, “that’s bloody brilliant get Ross on the intercomm”. [sic] The wireless op is generally off the intercomm [sic] attending to his broadcasts. Ross came on with “Want me, Duke?” “Yes, Ross, try and get a Q.D.M. for base will you.” [deleted] said the skipper. [/deleted] Ross’ next words shook us a bit, “Sorry Duke but the sets u/s, I’m working on it now.” “Christ, this is shakey do, we’d better get down and try and map read home.” said the Duke. Down we went and after several minutes of the always horrible sensation of passing through cloud – it’s just like driving a car in a thick fog, you keep expecting something to

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loom up and hit you, we broke cloud right over a big town. We didn’t have time to identify before Col came on with, “Better get up, Duke, there’s bloody barrage balloons all round us.” Indeed there was and there was no time wasted in getting full power on and up through the cloud again. “Hasn’t anybody got a clue where we are,” asked Duke. “Not [deleted] a [/deleted] [inserted] the [/inserted] bloody [deleted] clue [/deleted] [inserted] vaguest [/inserted] came Senior’s voice. and we all felt a bit worried as the petrol was not too plentiful. We bashed along for five minutes more, “How’s the juice, Junior.” asked Duke. “About another half hour,” I replied after consulting my log. The Duke looked

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a bit serious, “If we don’t find out where we are soon, I don’t fancy our chances of getting back to base,” he said. Another five long silent minutes and then a voice came on the intercomm, [sic] a voice which seemed more pleasing than Stuart Hibberd’s at that moment. It was Ross, he said, “O.K. Duke, I’ve got a Q.D.M. It is two five zero for 18 minutes.” The Duke relaxed, adjusted the course on the compass and said “Good show, Ross.” Twenty minutes later we were on the deck feeling as though we had earned our tea, we had triumphed over our first spot of bother, almost veterans!

Our next trip was a

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diversionary stooge for the main force. We took off in the late afternoon, climbed to 21,000 and headed for the north west German coast over the North Sea. This was our first view of a bomber stream, it was very exciting to see a/c of all shapes and sizes, all around us, all heading towards Germany in the fast fading light. We were a little annoyed on looking up to find a Wellington 1000’ above us. Hardly the thing for the elite Halifax crew to have to give best to a poor measly Wimpey. Still our kite wasn’t the best and we couldn’t stagger one foot higher than our 21,000.

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We droned on and soon saw our first enemy flak as some of our [inserted] main force [/inserted] bombers crossed the coast. It looked very frightening to us poor learners, lighting up the clouds with its wicked flashes. The skipper warned the gunners, “There may be fighters about here boys so keep your eyes skinned,” “O.K. Duke,” came the reply and Col and Mac returned to their vigil, straining eyes out into the seemingly impenetrable gloom, moving their turrets this way and that, protecting our vulnerable tail from the Boche. It’s a very comforting feeling to have to [sic] good gunners behind you.

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Just before the coast we turned and started back for home. On our starboard below us, a Lancaster was spiralling slowly down with two motors on fire and black smoke pouring out of it. That was the first kill we had seen going down and we shivered a little and renewed our search of the dark heavens expecting any minute to see tracer come hurtling out of the gloom towards us. We regained our own coast uneventfully and started our “bullseye.” This is an exercise for training bomber crews, A.A. crews and fighter crews and consists of mock attacks by fighters and interceptions by searchlights

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There are certain rules to obey - no evasive action to be taken from searchlights, if you want them to shut down flash your downward ident light. If you spot the fighter closing in you flash a torch at it, and if he sees you without you seeing him he flashes his landing light. A bit farcical but quite good training.

We crossed the coast and up came the master beam of the searchlights. Just like an octupus’ [sic] tentacle feeling round in the sky for us and just as loathsome. The beam came closer and closer until it finally caught us and everything was bathed in a brilliant bluish light. The moral effect

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of searchlights is very great. It makes you feel as if everyone in the world can see you, as if you were the one and only target of all the fighters and flack in the district. The beam held us for a few minutes and then wandered off in search of new victims. We saw no fighters that night. We also had a practice bombing but returned thankfully to base when we couldn’t contact them on R.T. – it is not a very pleasant spot to be circling, a bombing range at night there are too many collisions.

We finished our night circuits and landings and took off on our final night

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x-country prior to conversion on to Lancasters. We took off into a very dark night and soon levelled out at 20,000. It feels very lonely up there at night in the gloom of the cabin, [deleted] with [/deleted] only broken the [deleted] th [/deleted] gleaming luminous dials of the instruments.

We had just turned on to our second leg when I noticed a sharp fluctuation on the starboard outer radiator temperature gauge. At this moment the Duke shouted, “What the bloody hell’s the matter with this engine, Junior.” For a moment my mind went a complete blank and I tried in vain to picture the instructions which had been pounded into me from the very

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first. I can remember vividly the feeling of helplessness and I wondered how I would be like on ops. if I panicked now. I pulled myself together and said as calmly as I could “It’s O.K. Duke I’m watching it.” I glanced out of the cabin and saw that sparks and flames were coming from the exhausts. “Don’t let the damn thing catch fire Junior” said the skipper. I took a final glance at the temperature gauge – it was right off the clock and the kite was starting to swing to starboard as the power failed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to feather it, Duke.” “O.K Junior carry on” came the reply. My head cleared at last and the feathered drill came

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easily to my mind. – Fuel, I turned off the engine master cock, revs through the gate, throttle back and I pressed the feathering button. The rev counter dropped slowly back to zero and there was the [deleted] prop [/deleted] airscrew straight and stark and useless. With the motor the g. box had gone and we were almost without navigational aids “Well, boys, what shall we do,” said the Duke, “Lob down at the first drome we come [deleted] could [/deleted] to or try and get back.” The majority [deleted] was [/deleted] [inserted] were [/inserted] in favour of getting down and not risking getting lost so we reduced power and slowly circled the height off. We went into cloud

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at 2,000 feet and Duke asked, “What’s the high ground round here Senior,” “About 1500 as far as I know” said the navigator, “ I should break cloud very slowly” “Okey doke”.

Down we circled and called on the R.T. “Hello Blackie Hello Blackie this is Juneday calling, this is Juneday calling”. – the standard distress procedure. No reply. We tried again. All the time we were enveloped in the thick veil of cloud, our navigation showing eerily against the opaque mass. I can tell you I didn’t feel too good about, breaking cloud on three motors and not being sure of the height of ground.

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At last a faint reply was heard, “Hallo aircraft calling can we help you.” At this moment we broke cloud into pouring rain. [deleted] it [/deleted] I glanced at the thermometer, it was zero, I told the skipper, it was a bad temperature for the dreaded glazed ice. He said “Yes its bloody bad but we can’t do much about it” and then, “Hello Blackie can you land a 4 motor aircraft. We have only 3 motors” “Hello aircraft calling. Yes you may land here Q.D.M. 325 Q.D.M. 325.” “Hello Blackie, thank you coming in.” the Duke replied. At this moment we ran into a patch of cloud and lost the aerodrome lights which were coming into view. When we broke

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out again a different ‘drome was calling. “Hello Blackie can we help you, can we help you.” The voice was very faint so we decided to turn and try out locate our first drome. After a couple of minutes we sighted the lights, very indistinct even at 1000 ft in the pouring rain. We descended to 500 and rockets started coming up to mark the end of the runway. At the last turn in on to the approach we lost the lights and made our approach very high. The Duke stuck the nose down but too late, we were too far down the runway to make a safe landing. “Overshoot” he yelled [deleted] the Duke [/deleted] I jammed

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the throttles open and whipped the wheels up and crossed my fingers wondering whether she’d take it on three motors. For one horrible moment she seemed to hover, vibrating from stem to stern. I glanced at the A.S.I – 100 mph – a little too near the stalling speed I thought. I whipped 5 degrees of flap off and the speed began to build up under our thankful eyes. We had made it.

We made another circuit and and [sic] managed to get in O.K kangarooing rather badly. We breathed our sighs of thankfulness and followed the taxy van to our dispersal.

The next day we went

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down to the kite and found that there had been a leak in the cooling system and not a drop of coolant was left in the motor. We spent all day taking conducted tours over the “mighty bomber” as the drome was a Wellington O.T.U. and the boys were very interested in the kite they would probably be flying in a few weeks.

The lads had a bit of fun in the mess that lunchtime, Col shooting a deadly line to a WAAF sergeant who thought we had been on ops. We had to wait until the 1 o’clock news to find out where we’d been and, according to Col, [deleted] the [/deleted] we had had more opposition that night than Bomber

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Command had had in all its years of operating. The glib way he told of fighters, rockets flack and searchlights with the Duke backing him up caused the rest of us considerable amusement. The WAAF sergeant began to get a little wise, I think, for she asked where was the other member of the crew. (Mac had stayed at base as he was sick) Col casually mentioned that he had bailed out over the Channel. The Halifax had no mid-upper turret but, according to the boys, it had been retracted.

We stayed there four days snow-bound and in the end went back by train. We felt very operational marching through London

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in full flying kit carrying our Mae Wests and ‘chutes. I shall never forget when we were sitting in the Sally Anne having a cup of tea a policeman asked Col “Come down mate,” Col replied “Yes chum, we lost our rear gunner over the Channel.” We got another tea on the strength of it!

Back again, we packed our grips and embarked upon the next stage of our training Lancaster Finishing School. We got really stuck in to it then as this was the kite we were to operate on. The usual ground school, and then eight hours flying, circuits and landings, fighter affiliation, and practice bombing and we were regarded as the

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big operational types with just a couple of night cross countries to do, a few circuits and landings and then the real thing.

I think we all felt a little apprehensive as to how we would react to the nerve strain and other rigours of operational flying. I know I did, I was horribly afraid of a cowardly streak coming out or my nerves not being able to stand the strain. I think the real fear is that you will let your crew, [inserted] down [/inserted] boys who had grown into [deleted] f [/deleted] more than friends by now You feel very close to one another when you’re flying in the same crew.

We arrived at our squadron with two other crews, signed

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in at our various sections and had our aircraft assigned to us. Ours was a veteran of 45 operations and the letter was E.2 We were to learn that every time we flew in another aircraft something went wrong.

I remember sitting in the crew bus on our arrival and watching the operational crews coming down the road with their thermos flasks of hot tea and getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wondered how many times we would leave this place and, more important, how many times we would return.

Before starting to operate we had a few night circuits and x countries

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to do. We were hurried through these in a week doing 5 1/2 hours solid circuits and bumps one night. 5 1/2 hours of “Wheels up” “Wheels down” and then the shock as we hit the runway none too lightly. I became almost an automaton.

At last came the big moment when at 10 o’clock one morning in April the Duke came into my section looking a bit tense “We’re on tonight, Junior, get the stuff out and get on with your checks” he said. I went with Ross and Senior and loaded the ‘chutes, harnesses and Mae Wests into the crew bus which took us out to our aircraft. She was all

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ready and the corporal in charge of our ground crew, Len, a big capable hardworking Australian looked a bit doubtful when he realised his previous E2 was to be entrusted to a sprog crew. [deleted] We didn’t know then but we were soon to know that [/deleted] Those ground crew boys never let us down once during the whole tour of flying their aircraft we never had one mechanical failure.

[deleted] More over [/deleted] We lost Mac, our rear gunner, the same day. We noticed he had been looking a bit seedy during fighter affiliation a couple of times and the Duke had said to me that he didn’t think Mac

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was cut out for his job. The previous night an aircraft had come back from ops pretty badly shot up and the rear turret had been practically torn to pieces. The rear gunner lost both his legs. That finished Mac. He went straight to the C.O. and applied for a ground job. It was a sensible thing to do and we were very glad he had not left it any later when he might have let us down although it meant taking spare gunners for a few trips until a new one could be posted to us. Our gunner for that night was a London lad, who had done nine trips called Curly.

I finished my checks

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and wandered over to lunch. I didn’t eat much. We discussed the possibilities of the target, where could we go on 1600 gallons. The Ruhr? Central France? or would it be farther into Germany? We didn’t know but we sincerely hoped that Happy Valley would be left until we were a little more experienced.

Main briefing was scheduled for 19.00 and we arrived at 18.30, a little worked up by this time after an afternoon of speculation. We entered the briefing room and there stretched across the map of Europe was our course marked [deleted] in [/deleted] [inserted] with a [/inserted] red cord. The cords led to a marshalling yard just south of Paris. We felt a

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little better. Not so much flak round there anyway. We drew our escape aids and [inserted] flying [/inserted] rations and sat [deleted] to [/deleted] down to wait for the briefing. The various sections ran over their gen. Met:- a clear, moonlight night not so good Intell:- giving details of flak and fighter opposition – not too bad [deleted] and [/deleted] Flying Control:- giving our runway for take off and beacon letters. The section leaders Gunnery Bombing and Engineer giving their instructions to the crews and finally the C.O. with our take-off times, routes, heights and tactics. The C.O. finished with a ”Good Luck Chaps,” and off we hurried, chewing madly at our gum to the locker rooms to change

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into our flying clothing. The Duke, myself, Senior and Ross only needed flying boots and a pullover but Robbie, Col, and Curly all needed their electrically heated suits as the cabin heating didn’t reach them.

We changed, got into the crew bus, and were taken out to our kite. We ran the motors up, did a final check on navigational equipment and turrets and settled down to an hour’s wait for take off. That’s just about the worse time. You sit and talk and laugh too much trying to hide your real feelings but it is a necessary evil to give the ground crew a chance to rectify any snags which

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might crop up during the final run up.

Nine o’clock was our take off time so at ten to we started our engines and taxied into the line of waiting A/c at the end of the runway. Just in front of us was Jock, one of the crews whom we had trained with and who was also doing his first trip. He taxied on, got a green from flying control and started off lumbering down the runway. He got airborne but [deleted] he [/deleted] we saw he was flying very port wing low. We taxied on, cleared our motors and slowly opened them up. Well, this was it, there was no turning back now. That 14,000 lbs of bombs didn’t feel so healthy right underneath either.

We got half-way down the runway when the whole sky was lit up by a huge, orange explosion. The Duke mutters “Jesus, someones [sic] hit the deck. I hope it isn’t Jock.” [inserted] MCKENZIE [/inserted] We were to learn later that it was indeed Jock who had been unable

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[inserted] Bottom of back cover page [/inserted]

No. 1 SERGEANTS’ MESS
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION
HEMSWELL
GAINSBOROUGH
LINCOLNSHIRE

to get his port wing up and had gone straight in. They were all killed.

[inserted] Dad converted to Lancasters at Hemswell [/inserted]

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Flight Engineer Don Gray, DFM

This is the story of a bomber crew, a main force crew, just an ordinary common or garden crew of seven ordinary blokes who derived great pleasure on seeing jerries towns or railways or oil installations go up in quite a large cloud of smoke.

I will start my story at Heavy Conversion Unit, Blyton, Lincolnshire because that was where, I being an engineer, merged into the story.

These units are manned by instructors who have generally completed an operational tour and the aircraft are obsolescent types of 4 engined bombers which serve quite well in accustoming crews fresh from two motor aircraft to the intricacies of the multi motor types.

One fine morning, in the beginning of January 1944, seven engineers and myself were ushered into a large room full of engineerless crews. After the usual pep talk the skippers name and his engineers were read out. I drew a tall, instantly likeable, rangy Aussie out of the hat. He was over six feet tall and in his late twenties with streaks of grey already showing in his dark curly hair. He was known to everyone as Duke and a professional golfer in civie [sic] street. The navigator, a dapper, moustached Australian had the misfortune to have the same surname and so naturally enough Senior and Junior we became. He was a clerk in peace time with thoughts of starting a newspaper business after the war.

The bomb-aimer a tiny apparently timid, Lincolnshire lad, Arthur (Robbie) Robinson who was to prove one of the mainstays of the crew. He was an Air Force regular and more than pulled his weight in the crew with his super abundance of common sense. Another point in his favour was that he had covered navigation in his course so we really carried two navigators.

The wireless operator an Australian clerk names Ross, was a chap who didn’t conceal his nervousness at flying but who never let it interfere with his job in the air. More than once his conscientiousness helped us greatly.

The mid-upper gunner, Col, an Aussie bank clerk, a typical happy-go-lucky type but who was far from casual in the air and, Mac, the Aussie rear-gunner who we were to lose in the near future. He was never the type for air crew as we found out to our sorrow.

Myself, well I’m a Lancashire lad, an ex-ground staff fitter and still possessing the keenness which had matured out of several years trying to get into an aircrew. I had joined the R.A.F. in a burst of patriotism straight from school.

Well, that’s the mob you’re going to hear about. Not a very outstanding lot you may say, but welded together from the start by mutual self confidence and respect. I have always thought that it was this team spirit, both at work and play, which enabled us to succeed where better individuals have failed.

The first week of our training was spent on the ground, going over the aircraft we were about to fly and learning thoroughly the various systems and gadgets peculiar to the type and which had been passed over in our general trade training. This naturally is a boring business but none the less very necessary.

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The big day arrived when we were to prove our theory in practice and we were given an experienced Australian instructor with the purple and white silk ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross on his tunic. He proved to be a very able instructor and no matter what happened, and believe me there was never a dull moment, he was always the acme of coolness and helpfulness and earned himself the title of “I never mention your name” by croaking this song permanently over the intercom. His aircraft was a Halifax under the letters E2 or Easy 2. These letters were to follow us throughout our flying together and they proved to be a lucky charm, I think.

From that day onwards my life became a blurred mass of “wheels up”, “Flaps up”, ‘2650 revs’, ‘30 degrees Flap,’ ‘Wheels down’ and then as we touched, or rather crashed, onto the runway the skipper would say ‘Right off’ and I would chop the throttles right back and hope that we settled down O.K.

Gradually we gained more confidence and we soon lost our instructors. After an hours circuits and landings one day the pilot and engineer instructors climbed out with a last warning ‘Remember to do so and so’ and we were on our own. Just the six of us in this vibrating monster of the air. We felt a little dwarfed by its immensity and by all the things that could possibly go wrong. Would a tyre burst on that first touchdown? would I retract the flaps instead of the undercarriage? would that swing to port get out of hand at take-off? Well, this was the test.

We manoeuvred into position at the end of the runway, slightly to the right-hand side to allow for this tendency to swing to the left and the Duke said, ‘All O.K boys?’ We all chorused ‘O.K. Duke’ and we slowly opened the throttles, left hand outboard leading slightly and with the control column well forward to get the tail airborne. We gathered speed with no trace of the dreaded swing, the duke was doing his stuff. The air speed indicator crept round towards the hundred mark, the tail rose and at 105 m.p.h. the Duke eased her off the ground. We were airborne. All on our own in that great, noisy world of nothingness dominated by the roaring of our four Rolls Royce Merlins.

I was recalled from my reveries by the skipper ‘Wheels up’, ‘Wheels coming up’ I replied and up they came, ‘Flaps up’ ‘Flaps coming up’, the flaps came up slowly 5 degrees at a time, any faster than that and we might go straight into the ground. ‘Humbug power’. I change the revs and boost from take off to climbing power and we begin to gain altitude. At 1000’ we levelled out, cruising G power and did our circuit, the boys were all feeling pretty happy, rotating turrets and Ross was trying to get some dance music on the wireless. The Duke soon stopped that with a “Not now, Ross.” On the down wind leg came R.T. ‘Wheels down’ ‘Flap 20 degrees’ ‘Revs 2650’ in rapid succession and we turned slowly, losing height, cross wind, ‘Flap 35 degrees, and we started our approach. The Duke was calling flying control on R.T. ‘Easy 2 to Bandy, may we pancake?’ back came the reply ‘Bandy to Easy 2 Pancake’ ‘Easy 2 pancaking out’. Then came ‘Full flap, Full revs’. I put these on and gave a last look at my gauges. We all felt a little apprehensive, things ran through my mind – did I check those tyres correctly?, is the undercarriage locked down securely? And then we touched with our wheels at the end of the runway. ‘Right off’ shouted the Duke a little anxiously, I chopped the throttles and after a couple of bounces we settled down nicely to a straight run down the runway. We looked at each other and grinned, it was all over and our first solo flight together was a success. Then just as we turned off the runway the port tyre burst! Why hadn’t it burst on landing? We couldn’t say, but that wasn’t the only bit of luck we had!

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A couple of days after, a sleety, rainbowy sort of day, we had to go down south to pick up a V.I.P. We took our instructor with us and flew all the way down at 500’ as visibility was very poor. We arrived there after a bit of frantic map reading and just scraped in on the very short runway. The V.I.P. came aboard and off we belted again. We tore down the runway, staggered into the air, and looked at horror at the hill looming up in front of us! The V.I.P. turned round to my panel and retracted the radiator flaps! Such was the state of the poor old Halifax. On the way back we ran into snow and a little icing. The V.I.P. tapped our instructor on the should [sic] and yelled ‘look at the ice on the mainplanes’. Our instructor glanced nonchalantly at the erring mainplane and bellowed back, ‘I think she can just about carry the extra weight’. The V.I.P., mollified, sat down again. We just happened by chance to find our own drome again and came in for a landing. It was just about the worst the Duke ever made – and that’s saying something. We kangarooed down that runway, swinging from side to side, but finally managed to straighten up somehow. The Duke looked round with a relieved expression to see the V.I.P. quite safe, standing there with a worried expression. He said, with a sickly grin ‘I think you’re trying to scare me!’

Our next venture was a solo day x-country. It was a dull day with 9/10ths cloud and we took off feeling as dull as the weather. We climbed steadily and then, with a thrill I have experienced many times since yet never tired of, we broke into the world over the cloud. What a difference it makes. Our dull feelings were immediately transformed into ones of elation and a feeling of buoyancy at the grandeur of the scene. The cloud tops snow white and billowy with an occasional cu-nimb towering above the rest, all tinted with a rose-like glow from the sun.

We climbed steadily, the oxygen coming on at 10,000’, until we reached 20,000’ when we reduced to cruising revs, put the automatic pilot in and settled back to do our jobs quietly and comfortably. Everything went smoothly until about halfway home when Senior said, ‘The G-box has gone for a burton, Duke, and I’ve only the vaguest clue where we are’. This was the one and only time Senior was void of clues. ‘Oh’ said the Duke, ‘that’s bloody brilliant get Ross on the intercom’. The wireless op is generally off the intercom attending to his broadcasts. Ross came on with ‘Want me, Duke?’ ‘Yes, Ross, try and get a Q.D.M. for base will you.’ Ross’ next words shook us a bit, ‘Sorry Duke, but the sets U/S. I’m working on it now’. ‘Christ, this is shakey do, we’d better get down and try and map read home’, said the Duke. Down we went and after several minutes of the always horrible sensation of passing through cloud – it’s just like driving a car in a thick fog, you keep expecting something to loom up and hit you – we broke cloud right over a big town. We didn’t have time to identify before Col came on with, ‘Better get up, Duke, there’s bloody barrage balloons all round us’. Indeed there was and there was no time wasted in getting full power on and up through the cloud again. ‘Hasn’t anybody got a clue where we are?’ asked Duke. ‘Not the bloody vaguest’ came Senior’s voice. and we all felt a bit worried as the petrol was not too plentiful. We bashed along for five minutes more, ‘How’s the juice, Junior?’ asked Duke, ‘About another half hour’ I replied after consulting my log. The Duke looked a bit serious, ‘If we don’t find out where we are soon I don’t fancy our chances of getting back to base’ he said. Another 5 long silent minutes and then a voice came on the intercom, a voice which seemed more pleasing than Stuart Hibberd’s at that moment. It was Ross, he said ‘O.K. Duke I’ve got a Q.D.M. It is two five zero for 18 minutes. The Duke relaxed, adjusted the course on the compass and said ‘Good show Ross’. Twenty minutes later we were on the deck feeling as though we had earned our tea, we had triumphed over our first spot of bother, almost veterans!

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Our next trip was a diversionary stooge for the main force. We took off in the late afternoon, climbed to 21,000’ and headed for the north west German coast over the North Sea. This was our first view of a bomber stream, it was very exciting to see a/c of all shapes and sizes, all around us, all heading towards Germany in the fast fading light. We were a little annoyed on looking up to find a Wellington 1,000’ above us. Hardly the thing for the elite Halifax crew to give best to a poor measly Wimpey. Still our kite wasn’t the best and we couldn’t stagger one foot higher than our 21,000’. We droned on and soon saw our first enemy flak as some of our main force bombers crossed the coast. It looked very frightening to us poor learners, lighting up the clouds with its wicked flashes. The skipper warned the gunners ‘There may be fighters about here, boys, so keep your eyes skinned’. ‘O.K. Duke’ came the reply and Col and Mac returned to their vigil, straining eyes out into the seemingly impenetrable gloom, moving their turrets this way and that, protecting our vulnerable land from the Boche. It’s a very comforting feeling to have two good gunners behind you.

Just before the coast we turned and started back for home. On our starboard below us, a Lancaster was spiralling slowly down with two motors on fire and black smoke pouring out of it. That was the first kill we had seen going down and we shuddered a little and renewed our search of the dark heavens expecting any minute to see tracer come hurtling out of the gloom towards us. We regained our own coast uneventfully and started our ‘bullseye’. This is an exercise for training bomber crews, A.A. crews and fighter crews and consists of mock attacks by fighters and interceptions by searchlights. There are certain rules to obey - no evasive action to be taken from searchlights if you want them to shut down flash your downward ident light. If you spot the fighter closing in you flash a torch at it and if he sees you without you seeing him he flashes his landing light. A bit farcical but quite good training.

We crossed the coast and up came the master beam of the searchlights. Just like an octopus tentacle feeling around in the sky for us and just as loathsome. The beam came closer and closer until it finally caught us and everything was bathed in a brilliant bluish light. The moral effect of searchlights is very great. It makes you feel as if everyone in the world can see you, as if you were the one and only target of all the fighters and flack in the district. The beam held us for a few minutes and then wandered off in search of new victims. We saw no fighters that night. We also had a practice bombing but returned thankfully to base when we couldn’t contact them on RT – it is not a very pleasant spot to be circling a bombing range at night there are too many collisions.

We finished our night circuits and landings and took off on our final night x-country prior to conversion on to Lancasters. We took off into a very dark night and soon levelled out at 20,000’. It feels very lonely up there at night in the gloom of the cabin, only broken by the gleaming luminous dials of the instruments.

We had just turned on to our second leg when I noticed a sharp fluctuation on the starboard outer radiator temperature gauge. At this moment the Duke shouted, ‘What the bloody hells the matter with this engine, Junior?’ For a moment my mind went a completed blank and I tried in vain to picture the instructions which had been pounded into me from the very first. I can remember vividly the feeling of helplessness and I wondered how I would be like on ops if I panicked now.

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I pulled myself together and said as calmly as I could ‘It’s O.K. Duke I’m watching it’. I glanced out of the cabin and saw that sparks and flames were coming from the exhausts. ‘Don’t let the damn thing catch fire Junior’ said the skipper. I took a final glance – it was now right off the clock and the kite was starting to swing to starboard as the power failed. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to feather it, Duke’, ‘O.K Junior, carry on’ came the reply. My head cleared at last and the feathered drill came easily to my mind. – Fuel, I turned off the engine master cock, revs through the gate, throttle back and I pressed the feathering button. The rev counter dropped slowly back to zero and there was the airscrew straight and stark and useless. With the motor the g-box had gone and we were almost without navigational aids ‘Well, boys, what shall we do?’ said the Duke, ‘Lob down at the first drome we come to or try and get back?’ The majority were in favour of getting down and not risking getting lost, so we reduced power and slowly circled the height off. We went into cloud at 2,000’ and Duke asked, ‘What’s the high ground round here, Senior?’ ‘About 1500’ as far as I know’ said the Navigator ‘I should break cloud very slowly’, ‘Okey dokey’.

Down we circled and called on the R.T. ‘Hello Blackie, Hello Blackie this is Juneday calling, this is Juneday calling’ – the standard distress procedure. No reply. We tried again. All the time we were enveloped in the thick veil of cloud, our navigator showing eerily against the opaque mass. I can tell you I didn’t feel too good about breaking cloud on three motors and not being sure of the height of ground! At last a faint reply was heard, ‘Hello aircraft calling, can we help you?’ At this moment we broke cloud into pouring rain. I glanced at the thermometer, it was zero. I told the skipper it was a bad temperature for the dreaded glazed ice. He said ‘Yes its bloody bad but we can’t do much about it' and then ‘Hello Blackie can you land a 4 motor aircraft. We have only 3 motors’. ‘Hello aircraft calling. Yes you may land here QDM 325, QDM 325.’ ‘Hello Blackie, thank you, coming in’ the Duke replied. At this moment we ran into a patch of cloud and lost the aerodrome lights which were coming into view. When we broke out again a different ‘drome was calling. ‘Hello Blackie can we help you, can we help you?’ The voice was very faint, so we decided to turn and try and locate our first drome. After a couple of minutes we sighted the lights, very indistinct even at 1000’ in the pouring rain. We descended to 500’ and rockets started coming up to mark the end of the runway. At the last turn in on to the approach we lost the lights and made our approach very high. The duke stuck the nose down but too late, we were too far down the runway to make a safe landing. ‘Overshoot’ he yelled. I rammed the throttles open and whipped the wheels up and crossed my fingers wondering whether she’d make it on three motors. For one horrible moment she seemed to hover, vibrating from stem to stern. I glanced at the A.S.I. – 100 mph – a little too near the stalling speed, I thought. I whipped 5 degrees of flap off and the speed began to build up under our thankful eyes. We had made it.

We made another circuit and managed to get in OK, kangarooing rather badly. We breathed our sighs of thankfulness and followed the taxy van to our dispersal.

The next day we went down to the kite and found that there had been a leak in the cooling system and not a drop of coolant was left in the motor. We spent all day taking conducted tours over the ‘mighty bomber’ as the drome was a Wellington O.T.U. and the boys were very interested in the kite they would be flying in a couple of weeks.

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The lads had a bit of fun in the mess that lunchtime, Col shooting a deadly line to a WAAF sergeant who thought we had been on ops. We had to wait until the 1 o’clock news to find out where we’d been and, according to Col, we had had more opposition that night than Bomber Command had had in all its years of operating. The glib way he told of fighters, rockets, flack and searchlights with the Duke backing him up caused the rest of us considerable amusement. The WAAF sergeant began to get a little wise, I think, for she asked where was the other member of the crew? (Mac had stayed at base as he was sick) Col casually mentioned that he had bailed out over the Channel. The Halifax had no mid-upper turret but, according to the boys, it had been retracted.

We stayed there four days snow bound and in the end went back by train. We felt very operational marching through London in full flying kit carrying our Mae Wests and ‘chutes. I shall never forget when we were sitting in the Sally Anne having a cup of tea a policeman asked Col ‘Come down mate?’ Col replied ‘Yes chum, we lost our rear gunner over the Channel.’ We got another tea on the strength of it!

Back again, we packed our grips and embarked upon the next stage of our training, Lancaster Finishing School. We got really stuck in to it then as this was the kite we were to operate on. The usual ground school, and then eight hours flying circuits and landings, fighter affiliation and practical bombing and we were regarded as the big operational types with just a couple of night cross countries to do, a few circuits and landings and then the real thing.

I think we all felt a little apprehensive as to how we would react to the nerve strain and other rigours of operational flying. I know I did. I was horribly afraid of a cowardly streak coming out or my nerves not being able to stand the strain. I think the real fear is that you will let your crew down, boys who had grown into more than friends by now. You feel very close to one another when you’re flying in the same crew.

We arrived at our squadron with two other crews, signed in at our various sections and had our aircraft assigned to us. Ours was a veteran of 45 operations and the letter was E2. We were to learn that every time we flew in another aircraft something went wrong.

I remember sitting in the crew bus on our arrival and watching the operational crews coming down the road with their thermos flasks of hot tea and getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wondered how many times we would leave this place and more important, how many times we would return.

Before starting to operate we had a few night circuits and x countries to do. We were hurried through these in a week doing 5 1/2 hours solid circuit and bumps one night, 5 1/2 hours of ‘Wheels up’ ‘Wheels down’ and then the shock as we hit the runway none too lightly. I became almost and [sic] automaton.

At last came the big moment when at 10 o’clock one morning in April, the Duke came into my section looking a bit tense. ‘We’re on tonight, Junior, get the stuff out and get on with your checks’, he said. I went with Ross and Senior and loaded the chutes, harnesses and Mae Wests into the crew bus which took us out to our aircraft. She was all ready and the corporal in charge of our ground crew, Len, a big, capable, hardworking Australian looked a bit doubtful when he realised his previous E2 was to be entrusted to a sprog crew. Those ground crew boys never let us down once during the whole tour of flying their aircraft, we never had one mechanical failure.

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We lost Mac, our rear gunner, the same day. We noticed he had been looking a bit seedy during fighter affiliation a couple of times and the Duke had said to me that he didn’t think Mac was cut out for his job. The previous night an aircraft had come back from ops pretty badly shot up and the rear turret had been practically torn to pieces. The rear gunner lost both his legs. That finished Mac. He went straight to the C.O. and applied for a ground job. It was a sensible thing to do and we were very glad he had not left it any later when he might have let us down although it meant taking spare gunners for a few trips until a new one could be posted to us. Our gunner for that night was a London lad who had done nine trips called Curly.

I finished my checks and wandered over to lunch. I didn’t eat much. We discussed the possibilities of the target, where could we go on 1600 gallons? The Ruhr? Central France? Or would it be further into Germany? We didn’t know but we sincerely hoped that Happy Valley would be left until we were a little more experienced.

Main briefing was scheduled for 1900 hours and we arrived at 18.30, a little worked up by this time after an afternoon of speculation. We entered the briefing room and there stretched across the map of Europe was our course marked with a red cord. The cords led to a marshalling yard just south of Paris. We felt a little better. Not so much flak round there anyway. We drew our escape aids and flying rations and sat down to wait for briefing. The various sections ran over their gen. Met - a clear moonlight night - not so good. Intell - giving details of flak and fighter opposition – not too bad. Flying Control - giving our running for take off and beacon letters. The section leaders Gunnery Bombing and Engineer giving their instructions to the crews and finally the C.O. with our take off times, routes, heights and tactics. The C.O. finished with a ‘Good Luck Chaps’ and off we hurried, chewing madly at our gum to the locker rooms to change into our flying clothing. The Duke, myself, Senior and Ross only needed flying boots and a pullover but Robbie, Col, and Curly all needed their electrically heated suits as the cabin heating didn’t reach them.

We changed, got into the crew bus and were taken out to our kite. We ran the motors up, did a final check on navigational equipment and turrets and settled down to an hours wait for take off. That’s just about the worst time. You sit and talk and laugh too much trying to hide your real feelings but it is a necessary evil to give the ground crews a chance to rectify any snags which might crop up during the final run up.

Nine o’clock was our take off time so at ten to we started our engines and taxied into the line of waiting a/c at the end of the runway. Just in front of us was Jock, one of the crews whom we had trained with and who was also doing his first trip. He taxied on, got a green from flying control and started off lumbering down the runway. He got airborne but we saw he was flying very port wing low. We taxied on, cleared our motors and slowly opened them up. Well this was it, there was no turning back now. That 14,000lbs of bombs didn’t feel so healthy right underneath either.

We got half-way down the runway when the whole sky was lit up b [sic] a huge orange explosion. The Duke muttered ‘Jesus, someone’s hit the deck. I hope it isn’t Jock McKenzie.’ We were to learn later that it was indeed Jock who had been unable to get his port wing up and had gone straight in. They were all killed.

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[underlined] REMINISCENCES [/underlined]

For some reason, flying over enemy territory and being shot at did not worry me unduly as I had confidence in my own ability and that of all the crew. I thoroughly enjoyed my 32 trips and was convinced that nothing could happen to us.

On April 24th 1944 we had a 6 1/2 hour trip to Karlsruhe in Germany. We commenced our bombing run at 00.51 from 21,000 feet and when the Bomb Aimer shouted his usual ‘Bombs gone’ we did not feel the normal lift as the weight of the bombs left the aircraft. We turned to port to start our homeward leg and the Skipper said that the control felt heavy and asked the Bomb Aimer to check. He looked in the bomb bay and found we still had a full bomb load – they had frozen up! We did not return to the target!

On August 4th 1944 we were briefed for a low level raid on the oil storage facilities and refinery at Pauillac on the west coast of France – a 7 1/2 hour trip. We were ordered to fly at 50’ – not an easy task more or less all over water including the Bay of Biscay. We saw one of our squadron misjudge the height and crash into the sea. We climbed to 8000’ to bomb which we did successfully in daylight at 18.00 hours.

On another trip to Essen in the Ruhr, we were on our homeward leg and approaching the Dutch coast. We saw on our starboard side mayhem going on. There was anti-aircraft fire, searchlights and tracer from both night fighters and return fire from our bombers. The skipper remarked that some poor sods must have got off track and were getting hammered. Just then we crossed the coast, the Navigator got a fix and said ‘sorry Skipper, we are 20 miles to port of our intended flight path!’ – the sort of luck you need to survive.

There were a few operations which were out of the ordinary starting with a 7 1/2 hour trip to Stettin (originally part of Germany but now part of Poland) on August 16th 1944. We flew through a violent electrical storm which arced along the wings in a Christmas decoration sort of way and we were illuminated as though we had been coned in searchlights. It was very pretty but we felt rather on view for night fighters.

My crew, when I was in hospital with my shoulder wound, took a spare engineer to Hasselt on May 11th 1944.

The Master Bomber aborted the mission due to weather conditions and all aircraft were ordered to bring their bombs back. The skipper landed too far down the runway, went through the perimeter fence, wiping the undercarriage off, and finished in the adjacent field resting on a bomb bay full of bombs, which fortunately did not detonate. Luckily the Flight Commander did the same thing so not too much was said.

My Pilot recounts that, as the Lanc. shuddered to a halt, he heard the noise of the overhead hatch being jettisoned, and felt the engineer’s foot on his right shoulder as he disappeared into the night!

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We spent a lot of time in the Mess, drinking or playing cards or table tennis. The Marquess of Granby pub. in Binbrook was a favourite haunt and we quite often went into Grimsby to pubs and dances. One night we were in Grimsby at a dance, having been in the pub. until 10.30, when the Service Police came in and ordered us back to camp as the A.O.C. had ordered a maximum effort on Berlin. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had gone but mercifully the weather over the target clamped and the sortie was abandoned.

One of our pilots, returning with a full bomb load after an abortive sortie, was on his approach when his engineer decided that he was landing too far down the runway and closed down all the throttles. The aircraft sank like a stone and hit the runway with a bump that rattled the windows in the Control Tower. By some miracle the undercarriage held up, the tyres did not burst, and, as the Lanc. got to dispersal the Commanding Officer, Group Captain Hughie Edwards V.C. DSO. DFC drew up in his car and warmly congratulated the pilot on the finest landing with a full bomb load he had ever seen!

After a drinking session, a Free French Wireless Operator went missing. He was found late the following day peacefully asleep in a ditch near the airfield with a loaf of bread under his arm half eaten by birds!

I also went home whenever possible to my parent’s house and generally took one of the Aussies with me in my old Riley which was somewhat unreliable! I removed the engine at one time to do a decoke, the crew were not too happy when I did the work in the kitchen of the married quarters where we were billeted. When I reassembled the engine I found I had a few bits left over! I think this was the reason that the interior always filled up with blue smoke! This, coupled with the fogs we used to get in those days and the dubious light from the required slit headlights, made for quite an exciting ride particularly over the Cat & Fiddle!

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[underlined] THE CREW [/underlined]
PILOT F/S D.J. (DAN) CULLEN R.A.A.F.
FLIGHT ENGINEER F/S D.A. (DON) GRAY R.A.F.
BOMB AIMER F/S ARTHUR (ROBBIE) ROBINSON R.A.F.
NAVIGATOR F/S W.H. (BILL) GREY R.A.A.F.
WIRELESS OPERATOR F/S R.W.R. (ROSS) YATES R.A.A.F.
MID-UPPER GUNNER F/S C.H. (COL) WHEATLEY R.A.A.F.
REAR GUNNER F/S A.W. (ARTHUR) KNAPP D.F.M. R.A.A.F.

[underlined] THE AIRCRAFT [/underlined] LANCASTER J.A.683 D2

[underlined] THE TARGET [/underlined] FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, LAKE CONSTANCE

[underlined] THE DATE [/underlined] APRIL 27TH 1944 OUR 6TH SORTIE

NARRATED BY: DON GRAY, FLIGHT ENGINEER

We took off at 21.43 in the company of 18 other aircraft from 460 squadron, a total of 322 Lancaster in all were briefed to attack this target which was an important manufacturing town for tank engines and gearboxes.

Everything proceeded normally until we strayed off course and were caught by heavy, predicted flak over Strasbourg, when, in spite of repeated corkscrews, we were hit in the starboard outer engine, in various parts of the airframe and the hydraulics to the mid-upper turret were severed. I was hit in the right shoulder by shrapnel which went right through and shattered the canopy above my head. Afterwards, assessing the angle the piece of metal took, it seemed impossible that it missed my head.

My shoulder was numbed for a time but I managed to activate the fire extinguishers and then feather the engine. The skipper asked for a damage report from the crew and it was decided to continue to the target which we bombed all on our own at 02.19, the target being seen to be burning fiercely over a large area.

We were routed out over the Swiss border and encountered some ill directed neutral flak over Swiss Territory. We were well behind the bomber stream by this time, struggling to maintain altitude, and half-way up France, I decided to balance the petrol tanks. I asked the Wireless Operator to open the balance cock to feed the port engines off the starboard tanks and immediately the three remaining engines cut out and we dropped like a stone for 1,000 feet. As it was patently obvious that the fuel line was cut, I yelled to him to return the cock to the central position and, after a deathly quiet period which seemed to last for ever, the engines picked up and we resumed our course at around 15,000 feet.

My shoulder was pretty sore by this time and there seemed to be a lot of blood on the aircraft floor, but I decided, perhaps stupidly in hindsight, that we were in enough trouble and to say nothing.

We passed to the west of Paris as dawn was breaking, but our luck held and no fighters appeared. The skipper then decided not to try and make base, as the port tanks were all but empty, and the Wireless Operator started to send a May Day call. This was cancelled when Tangmere (near Chichester, West Sussex) answered and we decided we had enough fuel to make it there. We landed at 05,30 in daylight, the Bomb Aimer carrying out the landing drill as by this time my arm had stiffened up.

I was hospitalised for a month or so and did not rejoin my crew until the middle of June, finishing my 32-operation tour with 10 trips as a spare bod.

LOSSES: MAIN FORCE 18 MISSING OUT OF 322 5.6 percent
460 SQUADRON 3 MISSING OUT OF 19 15.8 percent

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[underlined] EXTRACT FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE DATED 8TH DECEMBER 1944 [/underlined]

The King has been graciously pleased to approve the following award in recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations.

[underlined] Distinguished Flying Medal

1005912 Flight Sergeant Donald Arthur GRAY, RAFVR
No 460 (RAAF) Squadron [/underlined]

This airman is an excellent flight engineer. He has participated in many sorties to heavily defended targets, including attacks against Cologne, Essen, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. At all times he has displayed a marked keenness to participate in any operation, while his consistent courage, technical skill and strong tenacity of purpose have set a high example to all. On one occasion in April 1944, Flight Sergeant Gray’s aircraft was detailed for an attack against Friedrichshafen. It was hit by anti-aircraft fire on the way to the target and he was wounded in the right arm. Although suffering great pain, he continued at his post and enabled his crew to attack this vital target. Only when his aircraft had returned to this country did he inform his captain of his wound.

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LIFE AFTER 460 SQUADRON

My crew finished their tour leaving me with 10 trips to do which I missed when I was in hospital. I was not too happy to be with strange crews but all went well and I completed my 32 trips on September 27th 1944 with a sortie to harbour installations and gun emplacements at Calais.

I was screened for 6 months and bored to death doing admin. jobs. Then I volunteered to train as a winch operator on a glider pick-up squadron and trained in April 1945 at No. 1 Glider Pick-up Unit Ibsley, Hants. If you do not know about this, we flew D.C.3’s equipped with a hook on an arm below the fuselage. A nylon towrope was stretched across two high posts with the glider hitched to the other end. The Dakota dived and hooked the loop of the tow rope and snatched the glider into the air.

[black and white photograph of an airmen leaning out of an aircraft with a towrope in his hand]

My job was to operate the winch in the aircraft which controlled the paying out of the nylon tow rope. After the glider had cast off, I winched the tow in and then leant out of the open door, hanging on to ropes, and hooked the tow rope off the arm on to the quick-release gear – a bit dicey!

We were trained to snatch General Wingate’s wounded men out of jungle clearings in Burma but as we flew out to the Far East we heard he had been killed in an air crash – we were sorry but we heaved a sigh of relief!

I flew from R.A.F. Lyneham in DC3. KG774 via Elmas in Sardinia, Castel Benito in Tripoli, Cairo West, Habbaniya in Iraq, Sharjah in the UAE to Mauripur, Karachi where I spent 3 blissful weeks in a transit camp playing cricket!

I then boarded Empire Flying Boat Coorong at Karachi Marine air Base and lake hopped across India via Rajsamand, Gwalior and Allahabad, landing on the Ganges in Calcutta – a magical experience.

We were once again in a transit camp for around 2 weeks, spent relaxing and swimming at the Victoria Baths. It was the time of the riots and we had to take care, avoiding the mobs and burning buses.

The trip to Rangoon was by boat on the Ambulance Transport S.S. Rajula. We were billeted in the hospital cots below decks but soon found it was far too hot and slept on deck from then on. We had to be careful to pack our bedding up by 6 a.m. as that is when the decks were swabbed! We spent some time on Mingladon Airfield, under canvas where we picked pineapples outside our tent flap and watched carefully for scorpions which tended to make their homes in our boots. From there I was flown to Akyab an island off the Burmese coast, to 194 Squadron to rejoin my skipper, F/L C.L. Smith.

From Akyab we flew in supplies to the forward troops and brought back Japanese P.O.W.’s from Myingyan, Meiktila, Toungoo, Ywataung and Magwe, the main danger being flying in the monsoons plus the odd bit of rifle fire.

In my off duty hours I built a canoe by lashing bamboo together covering it with fabric and applying aircraft dope which waterproofed and stretched it. I did not have time to use it as we were posted but, as we were transported to the airfield, I saw some local boys launch it and it immediately capsized!

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When we arrived on Akyab, we were allocated a basha – a bamboo hut built by the locals. We made our own beds out of thick bamboo poles lashed together with rope across to support the bedding. We strung mosquito netting over each bed.

As we were in the monsoon season it was very hot and humid – ideal conditions for mosquitoes which were always around us in swarms.

The anti-malaria drug was Nepacrine in those days which, when taken regularly, turned our skin yellow. We looked like Chinese immigrants when we arrived home!

The toilet facilities were primitive – the showers were small water tanks which had a pull chain to release the water, and often we were deluged with small frogs which somehow had infiltrated the tank.

The toilet facilities was a rope strung across oil drums. Creosote had been poured over the debris and set alight so that we sat in a cloud of creosote flavoured smoke. I did not hear of anyone falling in!

When stationed there I bought a motorboat off a chap who had been posted, with the idea of going conger eel fishing. I found that when in the water the motor power was so poor that when against the current you were stationary! Ever been had!

When flying we were given K Rations as we never landed anywhere where there was catering. These consisted of a cardboard box in which were tins of luncheon meat, dried egg, cake and orange juice. There was also a packet of biscuits with margarine and after a fortnight of this unappetising fare, we were heartily sick of it but it was that or nothing.

The mess and bar were in a larger basha and was inhabited by many geckos which lurked, mainly around the lights, and cleared up a lot of flies and mosquitoes. They were very welcome.

We had a camp cinema which was housed in a large Nissen hut and it was there that we first heard of the Japanese surrender.

[black and white photograph of a Nissen hut]

After the Americans dropped the atom bomb and the Japanese surrendered, I spent some time in charge of native loading parties at the flying boat base at Seletar, Singapore which was quite interesting because we carried out the loading and unloading with D.U.K.W.’s. The C.O. was G/C Beamish, one of the famous Irish rugby playing family, so I had a marvellous few months playing the oval ball game, generally in a sea of mud.

I came home on the Capetown Castle from Singapore at the end of 1945, which was 3 weeks total luxury, and was demobbed in April 1946. I then finished my accountancy studies and worked in the family business of which I was Chairman until I retired from the day to day running of the Company in 1987 when I was 65.

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Dad’s Sense of Humour

Dad never took himself too seriously. He had a quirky sense of humour and took a delight in poking fun and highlighting the ridiculous. Life must have seemed especially good after surviving the horrors of war, flying Lancaster bombers over Germany.

An extreme example of his humour, which we will never forget, occurred when we were on a family holiday in Austria. He struck up a conversation with a man in a bar who said, ‘I come from Hamburg, have you ever been to Hamburg?’ and Dad, to our horror, replied airily, ‘Oh, just a flying visit’.

Fortunately they had both had a couple of beers and the conversation moved on without incident.