Crewing up
Well, the first crew on Halifax's were all RAF. All English, yes. They were all English except me. But we formed a very strong bond within the crew and we completed 41 ops together. Uh, 31, I'm sorry, ops together.
The crewing up was quite unusual. At what was called the heavy conversion unit where pilots all went to convert onto four-engined bombers, well, as a navigator finished his course, they would be sent to the heavy conversion unit, and similarly with the gunners and the wireless operators.
So eventually, at the heavy conversion unit we had all these various bods coming in and we just said, ""Hey, do you want a pilot?"" If they said yes, we crewed up. It was just like that. We didn't know who they were, just that they, I wanted a pilot, I wanted a navigator, and I wanted a bomb aimer, and I wanted a gunner and so on, so I just looked for someone with the badge on their chest and asked if I would do for them for a pilot. That was it, and we stuck together like glue.
Halifax's and Lancasters
When we reached a bomber squadron, we anticipated we would do up to 30 operations. Operational flights, or ops as we call them. When we got to our 30, they were still very short of air crews, and see, we were asked to carry on and do the extra one. But the rest of my crew were getting a bit of itchy feet. They really had had enough, whereas I wanted to keep on flying, so they were taken off operational flying and posted to various other units, where I made inquiries about volunteering to join the Pathfinder force and went down to a navigation training unit in Pathfinders as a single unit.
Eventually, within a few days, in would come an odd navigator or an odd crew member, and we just crewed up like that. Then, when we had a full crew, we were sent to an operational squadron flying Lancasters. Well, I preferred the Halifax, much to the Lancaster people's disgust, but I just felt that in times of trouble the Halifax could get me out of trouble more quickly than a Lancaster. And the pilot's ejection seat, ejection hood, was better placed in a Halifax than it was in a Lancaster so, if need be, a pilot could get out, it might only be a matter of seconds, but it was vital. Those seconds were vital.
Pathfinders
Well, the Pathfinders were recognized as more dangerous because we were out in front looking for targets. On a raid, perhaps 20 minutes ahead of what was called the main force, the Pathfinder aircraft would go over, and if we were bombing, say, Berlin, the rail yards in Berlin, well, the Pathfinder aircraft would go over first and have a look over the city and see if we could find the rail yards. If we did, we dropped a flare.
Now, for example, we might be looking, using Adelaide as an example, we might be looking for the rail yard at Adelaide Railway Station, but our flare landed on Adelaide Oval, so by the time that 2 or 300 or more aircraft arrived, we'd have to call them up and tell them not to bomb on that flare, but to bomb so far away from it.
Also, Pathfinder aircraft were amongst the main force of aircraft as well. But once you got to a certain standard of flying in Pathfinders, it became a very, very dangerous operation. The losses were about 50 per cent, Pathfinders. So to having got through it, you know, you prove yourself pretty lucky.
The Nuremberg Raid
The Nuremburg raid was actually our last trip on Halifaxes, our 31st op, but it was a historical night as far as the RAF was concerned and the worst night for casualties in the history of the RAF. It was about 96 aircraft ended up being lost which is close to 500 men on that one night. We'd had a particularly bad night. We'd been shot at, lost the nose cone of our aircraft and it was a really tough night but we made it back. That's the main thing.
Of course you're going at a fair speed and the aircraft fills with air, it's very hard to handle, very hard to land, of course. Well we were trained for it, didn't really prove any serious problem except that we had got hit, it was a bad night as far as that was concerned. On that particular night of Nuremberg we did see a fighter, got attacked by a fighter, and we actually shot it down.
It was very hard for an RAF aircraft to confirm the shooting down of a fighter. Not only did we have to say that we think we got one, but we had to give the exact time and the longitude and the latitude also. But as well, other planes on the raid had to see a fighter being shot down and confirm, write down, again, the time and latitude and longitude.
If it didn't agree with other factors, we weren't allowed to claim it. But on this particular night, we did claim it and it was approved. That was a feather in our cap.
My greatest fear
Once an aircraft got coned, or once an aircraft got caught by a searchlight, even one, it was, then every other searchlight looking would cone on that one aircraft, and the cone would become so big, so wide in length, that it was just almost impossible for an aircraft to get out of it because not only could the gunner see the plane, but the fighters could as well.
Searchlights were actually my greatest fear because if you got caught, well, it was almost goodnight.
Between ops
We'd normally know by about 11 o'clock in the morning if we were rostered for an op that particular night. Or if there were no ops on at all because of weather or any reason at all, most crews would hop into the local village and go to the pub. We would do that too, but we would often stay behind.
The rear gunner would give us a lecture on aircraft recognition, or the navigator would give us a lecture on some of the things he had to do and so on, right throughout the crew.
Although no one else in the crew could actually fly the plane or land it, the day when it was my turn to give a lecture I would show the engineer or someone the basics of flying straight and level and being able to get out if they had to.
Flight commander at 19
When a commanding officer, CO of a squadron, when he became a CO he had finished his tour of ops and he had then been sent to a squadron to be the commanding officer, and he was really forbidden to fly any more ops at all. On one occasion, the CO of the squadron I was on in Yorkshire decided he would like to do an op, but he didn't have a crew, so he took with him all the senior officers of the squadron, and he got shot down.
Here we are on the squadron with no CO and no senior officers. I was 19, I had done 23 or 25 ops, and I was the most senior pilot on the squadron. There were other officers on the squadron, but they hadn't had much experience. One of the officers that was shot down was a flight commander, and we didn't have a flight commander, and I was asked if I would take over the role of flight commander until such time as we got a replacement.
Well, crews were short at that time, and they didn't find one, and so I was asked then to take over as the flight commander. Now, a flight commander's rank was a squadron leader, and so I went from sergeant pilot to a squadron leader in about six weeks. And I kept the job. They couldn't find another. Air crews were very short at that time. Replacements were very short, so I was just asked to take it over.
Well, the role of flight commander was to detail the crews on ops. There was normally about 12 to 15 crews on what they called a flight. On an op they might want 12 crews, so we would detail 12 crews and the other three or four would get the night off. So the flight commander had the job of detailing which crew went on ops. That was a pretty hard job for a lad of 19, to send off crews that might not come back.
Dangers of Bomber Command
When you think that 4,000 Australians in bomber command alone died during the war, it's hard to take in. Bomber command had the highest death rate of any other service, 44 per cent. No other service in army, navy had that rate.
Well, most of these towns were guarded by so many thousand ack-ack guns, and even if they didn't hit an aircraft, the shells would explode and shrapnel would go everywhere. And if a chap came back on three engines, on four engines, we used to joke, ""Haven't you been there?"" A number of times I came back on three engines. Unreal.
Well, next morning we used to always go out and have a look at the planes that were damaged. Some of them, how they ever got back, you'd never know how they ever got back. But a place like Essen I always put down as the worst place that they wanted to go because Essen was reportedly to have been guarded by about 30,000 enemy ack-ack guns, and they're all firing at you.
"Corkscrew, skipper!"
If a rear gunner saw a fighter, he would say, ""Corkscrew, skipper,"" and you'd go all around, up and down, to get away from the fighter so that you wouldn't be in one place for him to get a sight on you. Flying straight and level was absolutely forbidden. Once you flew straight and level, if you did, the people on the ground would be able to get a sight on you and let go.
So you've got 800 planes all, collision was always a very hard thing to avoid. Unfortunately, yes. You see planes go down. You don't know who they are or what squadron they're from, of course, but it's a very harrowing sight to see a plane go down, particularly, as we mentioned, being caught in searchlights. Coned.
We'd always have a meal before we went. It was usually an egg. And when you're sitting there having a meal before, you know, and eight hours later 20 of them are not there, it's unreal. Then you've got to ring up and tell their parents or their family, and then you've got to get, say if four planes are missing, you've got to get four in the next day, and you've got to get four more crews in. It was hard.
Ground crews
Not enough credit has been given to ground crews. They were fantastic. They worked in the cold and the snow because we had to send out as many planes as we could. Usually, a plane would have its own ground crew, and if there was no flying that night we'd go into the local pub, so would they, and we'd all mix, and rank didn't matter. You were just all there together.
Lucky parachute
I wouldn't say I was a superstitious person but strangely enough after that I always had the same parachute.
Now normally when we would go on a raid we would be issued with a parachute and then when we got back we'd hand it back in and it would be repacked but the pilots had a sit on type of parachute, used it as a seat and I always held on to my parachute and instead of handing it in I would just get it repacked twice or three times a week but always the same parachute and always the same girl that packed it.
And I said to the girl, strangely enough, one day, she was a young, must have been about a nineteen year old girl, a WAAF just packing parachutes, I said to her facetiously ""Are you sure this parachute will work?"" and she said to me 'Oh Yes Sir. If it doesn't work you can bring it back.""
