RAIDING BERLIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1944, Page 8

RAIDING BERLIN

STORIES OF BOMBER COMMAND

Squadron-Leader L. A. Nichols recently broadcast in the B.b.c. Overseas short wave service as xoilows: — , These raids on Berlin that you ve been hearing so much about lately I wonder if you realise all that those long night journeys right in the heart of German involve, and what tne men who fly on these raids are up against The best way to deserwe things, I think, is for you to imagine that you’re a member ol a Royal ah Force bomber crew and to come on one of these Berlin shows, so that you can see for yourself what its like. J T , - v We’ll go out, you and I, to an an - field in one of the eastern counties of. England. It’s been hacked and hewed out of barren heathland, this airfield. Nothing has grown here for centuries except bracken ana pine. It is wild and lonely; and. a little eerie at night when the mists come creeping over the heath. Stone Age men lived in the countryside around here. Even to-day you can see the pits where they quarried flint and dug their tunnels deep beneath the surface of the ground. And today, there’s a heavy bomber squadron stationed on the heath. There’s no glamour here; I must warn you about that. This is a wartime airfield, dispersed against enemy attack from the air, and it’s pretty grim. You sleep in wooden huts. The whole place is hutted. You turn into bed and the thought that keeps running through your mind is; “This time to-morrow night, if ops. are on; this time to-morrow night, I’ll be over Germany.” In the morning you go down to breakfast, again with that thought at the back of your mind: “Ops. to-night.” WAITING ORDEAL The waiting has begun, you . see. You’ll probably wish that you didn’t have to wait and. you’ll probably wish that it was already night a«id time to start. . Most of the fellows will tell you that all the preparations and all the waiting can be much the worst part of a raid; that it’s a relief when at last you’re in the air and on your way, course set for Germany. But that won’t be for hours yet. In the morning, though, there’s plenty to keep you busy and to keep your mind occupied. First of all you go over Io the squadron crew room. You spend a bit of time there, waiting for orders, and chatting with the other fellows, discussing the weather and so on. Everybody will be wondering what the target is going to be. But you v/onT know that till later. Your aircraft is a mile and a-half away on the other side of the airfield, It’s backed into a small bay which they’ve cut out of one of the copse of pine trees. A little Women’s Auxiliary Air Force drive runs you out there in a lorry. Your captain has a word with the non-commissioned officer in charge of the ground crew. “Everything on the top line, sir,” says the N.C.0.; you climb in and you take the aircraft up, fully manned, for an air test. So the morning passes’. Back to the mess again for lunch, coffee in the ante-room afterwards. You pass half an hour or so reading the daily papers and chatting with the others. No one talks about the raid.

First briefing is at two o’clock today. That’s for the captain of aircraft, Hie navigators and bombaimers. It’s a sort of “pre-view” before the main briefing and it gives the navigators time to plot their charts. At the main briefing, which follows, all the members of the crews are there. The Squadron Commander tells you about the German defences. The Met. man talks about the weather. You’re getting nearer to it now—but there’s still a lot of waiting yet. Everybody’s a bit tensed up, and trying to cover it up and look casual. Now the briefing’s over. You go down to the mess. The W.A.A.F. waitresses give you a hot tea. “The operational tea,” it’s called. The take-off is early to-night, so it won’t be long now. You’re waiting for the light to fade. The plan is to cross the enemy coast just after darkness falls. You wish that you could stretch out your hand and shove the clock on a couple of hours. But there’s nothing you can do about all this waiting. PASSING THE TIME

A chap over there is writing' a letter. The little whistle on the front of in's jacket keeps dangling to and fro as lie leans over, writing. The whistle’s for use in case you come down in the sea in the darkness, so that you can let the others know where you are. Who is he writing to, you wonder? And what is he saying? Those two over by the table there are playing shove-ha’penny. It’s as good a way as any of making the slow minutes pass. You pick up the line book and glance idly through it. That’s the book in which you pur down what the line-shooters say. One of the new entries is rather amusing. This is what It says: “Squadron-Leader Jackson, on being asked if he had much experience in flying four-engined aircraft, stated: Tiy ’em! Can 1 fly fourengined aircraft? Why, I can fly the crates they pack the engines in!” Some of the others have disappeared now. They’ve gone up to their huts or up to the crew rest room. But there are quite a lot sprawled out in aim-chairs round the tire. All of them just waiting. What are they thinking about, you wonder. And no one talks about the raid. The time moves slowly on; and, looking round, you realise that the mess is emptying. Unobtrusively—singly and in twos and threes—they’re slipping quietly out. No fuss. No heroics. And no goodbyes. But there’s still a lot of time to go. Nearly an hour and a-half yet. You walk over ■to the airfield, following the others. You drag your heavy flying kit from your locker and put on aU the bits and pieces that go with it. The little Waaf turns up again to take you round to your aircraft. Two or three crews clamber into the lorry and she drops them off: crew by crew. On scores of other airfields the same thing is happening and the drabcoloured lorries are taking the flying crews out round to dispersal points; to bombers spaced out round the airfields; to bombers dotted through the fields and meadows; and bombers half hidden in the woods. * An hour to go now. You climb into the ah craft and the captain runs up the engines. All round the airfield, the bombers are revving up. The noise of the engines goes roaring across the heath. Then they’re switched off and the quietness settles down again. •

Each member of the crew makes his

FINAL CHECK-UP.

The rear-gunner fires a short burs into the ground testing his guns. Yoi plug in on the intercom, and, one bj one, the captain calls you up. One by one you answer him: “Everything O.K. skipper. Everything 0.K.” Stil more waiting, even in these lasi stages. Half an hour to go now. Yot stand around on the grass, a little away from the aircraft, smoking e iasl cigaiette. Now the first of them is taking off. There goes F for Freddie ana C for Charlie. There goes C lor Orange and J for Johnnie. At last, at long last, it’s your pdot s turn to jaxi out to the head ol the flarepath. He swings the Lancaster round, roars up his engines and ±^J? s T+ ™ n - UP the Lancaster s tail. It rumbles oh, faster, faster;

will it ever get off the ground with all this weight of bombs and petrol, and then, even while you’re thinking that, you’re in the air and up g° es the under-carriage. The pilot cir f/ es > gradually gaining height, and then sets the course, and the dim lights of the airfield fade from view. The waiting’s all over now. The darkness is settling quickly. The light will have gone completely by the time you reach the enemy coast. That’s what you want. Within a few minutes you are over the sea. From now on, except for this same brief spell coming back, this trip is going to be over water or over hostile territory all the way. You’ve said good-bye to England for a bit. Odd irrelevant thoughts slip through your mind as you fly on, headed for Germany-. What are they doing now, back in the Mess, you wonder. Odd, unrelated little thoughts. You don’t fly in formation on these night raids. You just keep to the streatm, But it’s each crew for itself.

OVER ENEMY .COUNTRY

You get a bit of a reception as you cross the enemy coast. But you expect. that and it doesn’t worry you very much. You don’t .have to fight your way through or 'anything like that. You’re over enemy occupied territory now. At any minute attack may come from a night fighter. Not for one second can the gun turrets be left unmanned. And all the time the gunners are searching the sky for fighters. A night fighter gives you no warning, remember. At any minute his tracer may come ripping past the cockpit or tearing into the aircraft. And, at any minute, the guns may open up from the ground. You may have to run the gauntlet of a searchlight bolt; and that’s no pleeisant party. All the lime you’re wondering whether the night fighters are waiting for you—hovering, circling, and searching, on the other side of the belt. So you go on. One of the great stream of bombers heading for Berlin. Away to your left somebody else is carrying out a diversionary attack. That may draw off some of the fighters. Once you get near the Big City the flak comes up all over the place. It’s almost like day with all the flares hanging in the sky and the searchlights silhouetting you against the clouds. They turn the clouds a silver white so that you stand out in dark outline for the fighters above you. That’s the way they’re most likely to come. Down on you from above. A lot of this fire from the ground is a deterrent. Just to keep you from going down low. The fighters fly above it, waiting to pick you up. You’re all mixed up in the sky over Berlin. Our bombers and their fighters. But you know that they’re doing the stalking. And that’s not a pleasant feeling when you start in on your bombing run, flying straight and level. First of all, the Pathfinders go in and drop the target indicators, lighting up the sky. Then in you go with the first wave of the main force. You fly through the flak. The searchlights are below you and the fighter flares forming a path above you. Away io starboard there’s a. big “scarecrow” flare. It looks like a great fire in the sky, orange and red. You can see the bombs burst below, patterning the ground, and mixed with the flashes of the guns. The incendiaries look like istar clusters as they burst, brightly white. Once or twice the Lancaster bumps heavily as you run into the slipstream of another aircraft. You see another bomber fighting it out with a fighter. You can see the coloured tracer passing between the two aircraft. There’s a lot of tracer coming up at you from the ground too. Away to starboard there’s an aircraft going down in flames. Slowly falling like a burning torch. Ours or theirs, you wonder? How can an aircraft'" live through all this? But your pilot takes you safely in. Your own bombs go down. Sometimes, on clear nights, you can see them falling away from the aircraft. The incendiaries look like matches from a tipped-up matchbox. When the whiteness ol' the cloud begins to turn to red, you know that the fires are catching hold down below. The smoke begins to rise from the fires and it blows in the wind across the German countryside, thousands of feet up. And still the bombs keep falling. Now your job is done. Now you've got to got back. Miraculously it seems, your pilot gets you out again unscathed and you set a course for home. It’s a good moment that. Bui. it’s dangerous to think that you're safe yet. You're not sale till you land. Again, on the homeward journey, the same hazards. The night lighters, the flak, the searchlights. But you are lucky to-night. You run into no trouble at all.

The' Boche (ires you an unloving farewell as you recross the enemy coast. You fly, still luckily unworried by night fighters across the quiet channel; and, somewhere in England, your pilot and your navigator find for you the little patch of land that means safety once again. And so, at last,,you come in thankfully to land.