Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers (20 page)

The Group Captain drove him in his car to Group HQ at Bawtry and they were ushered into the great man’s presence. After he heard the story, the AOC looked at Ben. ‘You are a very determined young man. I am going to grant you 48 hours’ leave to get married.’

The wedding day went off splendidly. The bride looked beautiful, the groom handsome in his uniform. The guard of honour was provided by the girls of the Women’s Junior Air Corps. Apart from good coverage in the local papers, the
Daily Mirror
did a follow-up story, a sequel to ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’.

The following Monday evening he was back on ‘ops’ with a trip to Le Mans. Then on Wednesday Hollander’s crew flew to Stuttgart. They were harried most of the way there by fighters, coned by searchlights over the target and attacked by a twin-engine fighter, an ME 210, on the return journey.

By the end of that week new replacement crews had filtered in to the squadron from the HCUs. To Ben’s delight, his CO told him he could now get back to enjoying his interrupted honeymoon and granted him 14 days’ leave. That stroke of generosity may well have saved his life. During the time he was away, on four raids alone – two to Frankfurt, one to Berlin and one (the most disastrous) to Nuremberg – Bomber Command lost 222 heavy bombers – more than 1550 aircrew.

His leave lasted from 17 to 31 March. When he returned on the Friday morning, he found 51 Squadron in a state of deep depression, a depression shared by all other squadrons on that day. In those two weeks they had lost twelve aircraft, six of them the previous night on the Nuremberg raid. Their own aircraft had gone. Flown by their Flight Commander, Squadron Leader Hill, the crew had included the gunnery and engineering leaders. That night Ben wrote in his diary: ‘The whole squadron seems as if it will never get over this last loss; there is an air of despondency over the whole camp.’ From then on even his optimistic attitude
was tempered by a new realization of the grim game they were playing. Later, after a raid to Düsseldorf, he wrote: ‘Coned tonight. Really scared for the first time in my life.’

Hollander’s crew, now flying in an R Robert, were nearing the end of their tour. It was the night of 5/6 June, 1944. By this time their aircraft was equipped with H
₂
S, an electronic device for ‘seeing the ground’ through cloud. As they neared the French coast while returning from the target, Ben was studying the screen. Instead of a reasonably defined impression of the coastline what he saw looked like a violent snowstorm. Puzzled, he switched the set off, after trying unsuccessfully to clear the supposed fault.

A few minutes later, shortly before dawn, Tommy MacCarthy called up from his position in the nose: ‘Funny thing. There are masses of white specks all over the sea. It’s still too dark to make out what they are.’

Back at base other crews were reporting the phenomenon. The Wing Commander drew them all together and said, ‘You have just witnessed the start of the greatest invasion in history!’ It was D Day.

When the thirty trips were completed, they opted to become instructors and were all posted to 21 OTU, Moreton-in-Marsh. Ben was promoted to Flight Lieutenant, awarded the DFC and became a senior navigation instructor.

Dutch Hollander and bomb aimer Tommy MacCarthy were both commissioned, and each received a DFC. The crew’s ‘grandad’, rear gunner Mick ‘Aussie’ Campbell, was awarded the DFM.

There was one exception to this posting: Harry Bottrell, their wireless operator (who received no award or promotion), decided to continue operational flying. Posted to a Lancaster squadron, he completed three trips with his new crew and was then shot down.

For a long time all wireless operators were also air gunners. It was the practice in the more cramped, twin-engine bombers for the Wop/AG to man, for example, either the beam guns, in the case of the Wellington, or the upper, rear-firing gun in the Hampden. Only after the arrival of the bigger bombers did he hand over his gunnery duties to a full-time air gunner, leaving himself free to concentrate on radio and newly introduced radar equipment. Whereas he had previously worn the AG brevet, he later had his own S (for Signals) brevet. If an NCO, he continued to wear a wireless ‘sparks’ badge on his upper sleeve.

The wireless operator’s course, especially when combined with gunnery training, was longer than that of any other aircrew category. After initial training, which included morse signalling practice up to 12 words a minute, cadets were sent to a ‘wireless school’ to learn every aspect of signals procedure, including the technical side of radio. In order to pass out successfully, pupils had to achieve a high standard in written examinations, as well as sending and receiving at not less than 22 words a minute. The ‘drop-out’ rate was high.

Before the introduction of the flight engineer, the Wop/AG was looked on as the ‘practical’ man of the crew. He was the Mr Fixit of the team, always ready in an emergency with a screwdriver and bits of wire, and, in extreme cases, wielding the axe or smothering a fire. It was his responsibility to set the detonators to destroy secret equipment before the aircraft force-landed in enemy territory. In some ways the wireless operator led a lonely existence in a bomber, mentally isolated from other members of the crew for long periods of time, while he strained to listen through the static in his headphones for faint but vital signals. The wireless operator who flew with a squadron specializing in radio countermeasures
led a full and interesting life. It was only over the target that he sometimes had to endure moments of terrifying idleness.

I suppose it was the Junkers that did it. Or at least not so much the Junkers as the Spitfire that was chasing it. We were outside the tuckshop during a mid-morning school break when we heard the grinding growl of unsynchronized German aero-engines. It was the summer of 1940. The Battle of Britain was at its height and schoolboys knew all about these technical matters. The twin-engine Luftwaffe bomber flew low over the school, and then, thrill of thrills, came the shapely little Spitfire in hot pursuit, the distinctive whistle from its Merlin engine sounding almost like the wind itself.

In an instant the two planes had passed from sight over the Wiltshire downs. Later we learned that the Spitfire had shot down the Ju88 on a bleak corner of the Plain to the west of Salisbury. But what really set us boys on fire was the news that the victorious Spitfire pilot was Eric Marrs, who, not so long ago, had been a pupil at our school. As far as Dauntsey’s School was concerned, the RAF could not have had a more effective recruiting officer than Marrs. As for me, this was the day I jilted the Royal Navy after a passionate affair that had lasted more than ten years.

I was 16 years old at the time, born on 6 November, 1923. The following year, on leaving school, I started broadcasting as a radio actor with the BBC Repertory Company. The Drama Department had been evacuated from London to Bristol because of the bombing. It was the break of a lifetime, and a great privilege for one so young to be in the company of then famous people doing work that brought me so much pleasure and satisfaction. Under normal circumstances it would probably have been the doorway to an exciting career. However, the ‘war was on’ and, like many thousands of others, I knew I had to do my bit.

My father, who was a professor, wanted me to give up broadcasting and go to university, where, until I had completed my three-year course, I would have been exempt from war service. To my mind such an existence would have been impossible – to sit studying in complete safety while others of my age were dying for their country was not on. My father himself, as a 20-year-old subaltern
in the 8th Devons, had been badly wounded on the Somme in 1916. He had been a fine athlete, but the First World War stopped all that when it took away his arm.

So on my 18th birthday, with visions of that avenging Spitfire of the previous year still clear in my mind, I walked into the RAF recruiting office and volunteered for flying duties. Eventually, called before an Aircrew Attestation Board with thirty others, I spent the morning doing basic written examinations in mathematics and English and filling in intelligence tests. In the afternoon we appeared before a board of officers who fired questions at us of a ‘Why do you want to kill Germans?’ variety.

From those tested that day, three of us were accepted for aircrew. One, who turned up in ATC uniform wearing gliding wings, was accepted for pilot training. Another, good at maths, was designated as navigator, while I was to become a wireless operator/air gunner – with the promise that I could re-apply to train as a pilot ‘at a later date’ (something which, in the event, I never did). The Spitfire suddenly seemed a long way off. Oddly, the passing of that dream did not worry me much. I just felt elated that I was going to fly anyway.

It was a bit of an anticlimax when we were given little winged badges to wear in our lapels, and told we were now on ‘Deferred Service’. The RAF would call us when it was ready. That call came in March, 1942. It was a shame that a fine service like the Royal Air Force should have tolerated such an unworthy reception camp as Padgate, near Warrington. Enthusiastic young volunteers entered this gateway to their new career only to be cursed at, degraded and insulted by the low-quality types on the permanent staff. I was well prepared for all this bullying nonsense, having tasted the rigours of life in public school, but some of those lads were away from home for the first time. I used to feel sorry for the ones I heard sobbing in our hut at night.

What a contrast when we arrived at Blackpool to start our basic training. Ultra-smart drill and PT instructors; efficient classroom teachers; wizards at morse code – especially two civil servants in striped trousers, one short and portly, the other tall and thin – inevitably known as ‘Dot’ and ‘Dash’. To hear them signalling to each other at well over 25 words a minute was like a symphony.
Unfortunately, not every cadet could ‘take’ morse and those who failed were remustered as ‘straight’ air gunners. One pupil disappeared for a week and was eventually discovered sleeping rough in an air-raid shelter. He was muttering to himself in morse, having gone completely out of his mind.

At pay parade we received 30/- per fortnight. After deductions for the PSI fund and other mysterious organizations we did not have a great deal left. Nevertheless, entertainment was cheap. We could see a show at the Tower Theatre for 4d. Stars were plentiful – Arthur Askey, Max Wall, Michael Bentine were just a few. I went to have a chat with Arthur in his dressing room and took a couple of my pals along to impress them with my show biz contacts!

On one occasion we were all gathered in the vast Tower Ballroom to hear a lecture about the Poles, of whom there were many in the RAF in Blackpool. The speaker was introduced as a world expert on Poland and its people. Who should walk on the stage in Flight Lieutenant’s uniform but Reggie Hill, my former history master. Turning to my mate, Pete Bishop, I said, ‘I know him!’ My reputation as a chap who knew everything, and everybody, became difficult to refute. During the rest of my stay by the sea, Reggie, who enjoyed a smoke, used to welcome my cigarette ration, while my friends and I never went short of chocolates from the Officers’ Mess.

One of my most terrifying experiences ever occurred during this period. We cadets were scheduled in rotation to do ‘fire-watch’ duty at night in the larger buildings. My turn came to look after Woolworths. The extensive area on the first floor above the store had been converted into a morse instruction room. Bare trestle tables with benches occupied the whole floor space. With careful precision, morse keys were screwed in rows at three-foot intervals along the tops of either side of these tables. The black shiny knobs appeared to stretch into infinity. It was like a parade of soldiers, or the dead straight lines of headstones in a military cemetery.

I occupied my time wandering about the building and climbing up on to the flat roof and staring out to sea. But it was a chilly night and I soon took up position in the instructor’s chair facing the tables. Time passed slowly. Only the light on my small desk
fought to penetrate the gloom of the vast interior. In diminishing return as they faded away into the shadows the parallel rows of bakelite knobs reflected back the light. As I contemplated these objects, so familiar to me during the day, my mind started to dwell on the hundreds of hands that must have pressed those silent keys. How many of those hands now lay immobile in death? Before long I was ‘seeing’ those keys moving up and down in unison. Horrified, unable to turn my back as these noiseless messages were being transmitted from another world, I sat transfixed until dawn. Then, when I glanced in a mirror, I saw my face had turned a sickly green. Group Captain Leonard Cheshire once said that aircrew were better off without too much imagination!

After three months those of us fortunate enough to complete the course participated in a grand parade. As we marched along the promenade, toting our heavy First World War Lee Enfield rifles, the salute was taken by Sir Archibald Sinclair, complete with morning coat and winged collar. He was the Minister for Air. ‘I suppose you know him,’ whispered Pete Bishop. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘and considering how little he knows about aviation, I wouldn’t want to.’

One might have supposed, with all the fuss, that this was the culmination of something important. In fact it was only the beginning. The wireless operator’s course was longer than any other in aircrew. Still only Aircraftmen 2nd class, we proceeded to No 1 Signals School at Compton Bassett, near Calne, in Wiltshire. In a matter of months we had to try to absorb all the technicalities of radio, virtually double our morse sending/receiving speed to twenty-two words per minute, and cover related subjects including navigation, beam approach, aircraft recognition and radar. Such a course would have been spread over three
years
in peacetime.

Pete Bishop and I looked at each other with grins of satisfaction when, at the end of it all, we sewed our ‘sparks’ on our right sleeves. Nothing that we achieved subsequently meant quite as much to us as those ‘sparks’. They represented months of unremitting study, and only about a third of our original intake had made it. There was no outward sign of an increase in rank, but an appreciative RAF turned us into Aircraftmen 1st class.