R.A.F.V.R. - Topcliffe - 102 Squadron - 'A' Flight - Frankfurt et al - Dalton - Orders is Orders - Sentanced to Life
This is mainly about one crew ,one trip and what transpired over the years.
To give the reader some idea of how things were in the early days of the war, when we finished our course at 19 OTU Kinloss ours was the only crew posted to Topcliffe and 102 Squadron.
Arriving there the middle of May 1941, the pilot and Navigator were posted into “B”Flight and Alec Jaggers and I into “A”Flight, being W/Op.AG’s we had to report in to the Squadron Leader Signals, he told us that the Squadron had changed over to the Marconi 1154/1155, whereas we had been trained on the 1082/83.
He had a Marconi set up there and asked us to demonstrate our ability, Alec didn’t do too well having had only a few hours on the one at Kinloss, I lucked out having spent two months on 106 Squadron at Finningley and became quite proficient with the sets.
For some reason he sent me to Marconi College in London for a course there, so off I went hoping to see some of the sights in London. What a let down that was, as we worked twelve hour days and about the only thing I saw was Holloway Gaol down the road from the college, but I enjoyed the course and learned a lot.
Back at camp there being no straight A.G’s in those days we had to fly as tail gunners until such time as someone was forming a crew. I flew five trips with Alan Davies and one with Eric Borseberry.
During this time we had lost two Flight Commanders, S/Ldr McAuthur failed to return from Essen on June 27th and S/Ldr. Moseley failed to return from Essen on the 3rd of July.
F/Lt J.G.Walker who had only been with us for a couple of weeks took over the Flight. Forming his own crew he asked me to be his W/Op. of course I said that I would be happy but thinking that it looked as if this was going to be a short life. Johnnie Groom was our Navigator and “Big Jock” Jamie Williamson was our tail gunner.
Contrary to popular belief, the main purpose of the W/Op during the early part of the war was not for communication but to assist the navigator by getting bearings from fixed ground stations via the loop antenna. All this secret gen was written on thin rice paper which we were supposed to eat if coming down in enemy territory.
Our first trip was to La Pallice ( one of the German battleships in there) July 23rd.reasonably quiet except over the target, in interrogation the Signals Officer asked how things had gone and I told him fine except the bearings I got did not give good fixes being only about 60 degrees but being where we were and the current stations was the best that could be done, he said that they were working on something and hoped to give an announcement on our next trip.
Sure enough on July 25th we were briefed for Hannover and the Signals Officer told us that they had been researching using the German high speed morse stations and gave us three. The one that took my fancy was DAN in Berlin, the main problem was that they did not send there call sign that often, Johnnie agreed that along with our own stations would be just great.
Thinking about it I asked Johnny to tell me when we were on course and I took a bearing of Dan and repeated the procedure 30 minutes later, Johnny checked them out just to make sure that they hadn’t moved and I used him with excellent results and this turned out to be standard procedure for all our trips.
After the loss of two Flight Commanders S/Ldr Walker was restricted to the number of flights he did so others pilots would take us, Sgt. Borsberry took us to Frankfurt on Aug 3rd and the on Aug 5th we were told ops were on.
During briefing we sat together as a crew and in came S/Ldr Walker with this F/Lt. he introduced him as F/Lt Davies from “B”Flight (he had just returned from leave having brought his aircraft back after being attacked by a night fighter and the tail gunner killed, he had been awarded the DSO and sent on leave), so we figured he must be alright., what a mistake that was.
They opened the drapes and we saw that it was Frankfurt again, flying south to Aachen and the south east to Frankfurt and return the same way thereby missing all the action flying down Happy Valley.
We took off at 2305 hours and had a good trip, seeing Frankfurt in the distance and all the fireworks going up Johnny made his way to the nose and the bombing position and I went down the fuselage, grabbed a photo flash, inserted it in the flare tube, set the timer. Hooked up the cord to the safety pin and waited for Johhny to tell me when bombs were gone, on his call I counted out seven seconds and launched the flash, told the pilot to hold steady and when the flash went off told him OK flash had gone.
Going back to my seat the first thing I did was to send the bombs gone signal to Group and the time, then tuned in the receiver and got a couple of bearings, something was wrong here as we appeared to be flying due North so took another two bearings with the same results, changed plugs to the intercom and told the pilot and navigator what I was receiving and queried as to our heading back to Aachen as we were supposed to be doing. After much discussion the pilot told me that he was the captain of the aircraft and if he said that we were heading for Aachen so be it.
Now I was stuck, nothing else I could do except carry on as usual, we gradually got into more flak and I was sure that we were heading up Happy Valley, the weather turned bad with electrical interference on the set which finally evolved into St Emo’s fire with sparks shooting off all points and haloes around the props, quite a sight to see.
Johnny tapped me on the knee to change plugs and the pilot called me to get a fix, I told him we were up Happy Valley, tuned in the set to the 200-400kcs range, rolled out the trailing antenna and called the appropiate station, they kept asking me to repeat as static was so bad, then BOOM and I lost the trailing antenna (one could usually hear the build-up of static, grab the antenna on the board and ground it, so saving the antenna but it happened too fast), I changed the antenna and this time I had hold of the knob on the antenna board all ready to ground the thing and started again calling the ground station again.
Someone is shaking me and telling me to wake up, slowly I realise it is Johnny and I’m lying on the floor of the cockpit. there seems to be blood everywhere, I feel around wondering where I am hit and find that it is my nose and blood is really running, fish out my handkerchief to stem the flow and in no time at all it is soaked, Johnny passes over his and I finally manage to get back into my seat.
The antenna board looks a little charred and when I finally get my wits back to working and thinking what to do next, switch the antenna around to the fixed antenna and try again to get a fix which I manage to do and as I surmised put us right in Happy valley.
All this time we are getting pounded with flack and one hit is really close knocking out the port engine, I’m still trying to get organised and my log book looks as if it has been used to wrap meat, what a mess.
A little while later, change plugs and the pilot is screaming at me to send an SOS, get a fix, by this time I’ve just about had enough of this fellow and told him I would get a fix but didn’t know about the SOS as I didn’t think that they would be sending anyone out to pick us up.
The electrical storm had abated somewhat and in no time at all I got a fix which Johnny transposed on the map and sure enough we were I figured we were at the North end of the Rhur Valley.
Flak was diminishing so we must be getting away from Happy Valley, another tap on the knee to change plugs to be told by the pilot to prepare to bail out. This was the last straw for me and I asked him WHY as the aircraft was still flying he screamed at me and finally I told him in no uncertain terms that it was his fault that we were in the predicament we were in and if we bailed out I would make sure that he wouldn’t go so he had better buckle down and fly the aircraft. He said he didn’t know which way to go as the compass was swinging all over the place.
I told him that I would show him the way to go, checked my gen, picked out the beacon nearest to base, tuned it in, set the loop antenna on 0,switched the signal over to the RDF meter, told the pilot that the needles were crossed on the right side and to turn right until they crossed in the centre line. Told him to check his DI as I was switching off to check to make sure we were flying toward the station,
Everything was set, we were flying toward the beacon, told the pilot I was switching off for a minute to send a signal to group as there was no way they could contact us while we were homing. Called up Group and sent “ Port engine and compass U/S. “Homing”, they acknowledged and we were all set, all I had to do now was to check my times and change stations according to the timetable.
Nearly a hour later the pilot called me and said that he figured we were over the North Sea, he was having a problem maintaining height and we would go down in the sea and be killed and it was all my fault, asked what height we were and he said 5000feet,I told him that I would see what I could do to lighten the load.
Went back down the fuselage and threw everything down the flare chute, Flares, photo flashes, flame floats etc. Came back to the cockpit, told him what I had done and to let me know if he was still having problems and if so would go back to the tail turret and throw out the guns and ammunition but on second thoughts maybe better to throw out “Big Jock” as he probably weighed more, of course that elicited a ribald comment from the tail.
Slowly dawn arrived and it was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and the North Sea looked quite placid, after a while the pilot called for me to check the TR9 as it seemed not to be working, taking my flashlight I got into the starboard wing root but didn’t have to do any checking for it was obvious what was wrong, a large piece of shrapnel had gone right through it and it would never work again.
Told the pilot and asked why he needed it and he said that there a couple of Spitfires alongside, I told him that I could tune in my set and speak to them but couldn’t patch him through, what did he want to tell and he said to thank them and thought that we could make it back to base.
I tuned the receiver to 6440kcs and then tuned the transmitter holding down the gain as much as I could (didn’t want to blow their heads off) and spoke to them, they were out of Coltishall, told them what the pilot had said, thanked them and off they went.
Couldn’t see the coast ahead but figuring that we must be getting close I told the pilot that I was switching him off, was going to call base and the next time I switched on would be on a direct bearing for base. I called up base, asked them to clamp there key for one minute and got the pilot back on course for Topcliffe.
Finally came to the coast and then we could see our way home, so I could now sit back and relax. Coming over the boundary of the airfield the starboard engine quit, finally run out of gas after 10 hours and 45 minutes a few minutes earlier and we would have crashed in the village of Topcliffe, the silly clot should have landed sooner at one of the airfields we had passed.
Gathered my junk and headed down the fuselage didn’t realise just how weak I was from losing so much blood for when I jumped out of the plane my legs gave way and I collapsed on the grass, Jock picked me up and we waited for the meat and fire wagon. The boys in the ambulance wanted to take me to the hospital but I said that I was alright and they took us to the crew room where we got out of our flying gear and headed for interrogatioin.
Arriving in the room they took one look at me and wanted to send me to the hospital but I said that I was alright and they told me to go and get cleaned up so off I went to the washroom, looking in the mirror, no wonder they said what they had for I looked like hell, took a little while to get cleaned up and when I returned everything was all over, they told me that they were putting me in for the DFM, I said thank you but was more concerned about being courtmarshalled for threatening the life on an officer.
Had breakfast and off to Skellfield house and bed.
Two days later and we were off to Dortmund I “A” for ar----., that was Aug 7th.then on the 12th, we air tested our own kite “L” for leather, the boys had done a wonderful job, patched her up .and just like new.
Continued flying with S/Ldr Walker with the odd trip with other pilots, the C.O.W/Cmdr Howard took up to Nurnberg which was quite a long trip 10hours 25 minutes and so things continued until I went on leave in November only to return to the news that the boys had gone for a burton, what a thing to come back to.
Finally word came through that only “Big Jock” had survived and was a POW, and heard that they had been shot down over Kiel, couldn’t understand that as they were on Hannover and must have been at least 50 mile off course.
Over the years this bugged me for I couldn’t help thinking about it and it wasn’t until some 40 years later that I found out just what had happened.
Like everyone else I was busy earning a living and helping to raise a family but it all started in the Spring of 1980, we were visiting our daughter in Whalley BC and sitting reading the paper I saw an “AD” for the 3rd Commonwealth Aircrew Re-union in Winnipeg in September.
Flew into Winnipeg on the Wednesday evening, registered on Thursday morning and looked through all the bumph for the name of someone I knew but didn’t see a name I recognised.
That evening we all gathered below the Convention Centre for an informal get to-gether, 3000 people wandering around looking for people they knew, some lucked out and you could hear the shouts going from various places. About 11-00pm I wandered into the little boys room and standing there doing the usual a fellow came and stood by me and he was complaining that he couldn’t find anyone must be all dead, so being polite I asked him what Squadron and he replied 102 and I said where were you stationed, Topcliffe he replied so I asked him if he was billeted in Skellfield House, he looked at me and said”You were there’. His name was Frank Keubler and was in “B” Flight, I vaguely remembered the name and he knew all the Canadian boys with me in “A” Flight, so we had finally found someone from those days in ’41.
The re-union went off without a hitch and we enjoyed ourselves, could write lots more but one thing, they put on a Air Show at Portage La Prairie about 40 miles west of Winnipeg, all these school buses to take us there,(the ladies had a lunch and fashion show), a hangar was all set with various things of interest, one part had box lunches for us and the bar was a Labatts Tanker Truck of beer which dispensed all day, the air show was a no show as the weather was lousy and trying to snow.
Sunday was the march to the cenotaph, lunch and then good-bye.
Late 1991 I had a letter from a chap in Nottingham to say that he was trying to form a 102 Squadron Association, we communicated a few times and he sent me a list of the people he had to date.
The first name to hit me was Larry Carr, he was a Sgt Pilot with me and I knew him fairly well, he had the name of Crasher Carr as he seemed to leave his aircraft scattered around the country on his way home.
In 1942 we changed over to Halifax 11’s, Larry failed to return from Cologne on the 27th of April and we didn’t hear a word about him until he walked into the crewroom six weeks later after being shot down over Belgium, we always visited with him in Gloucestershire whenever we were over, couldn’t get him to attend a re-union though.
The other one on the list was “Batch” Batchelder, he was in “B”Flight but I knew him, he was shot down while on Essen and was a POW.
January 1983 I decided to retire, the 102 Squadron Association was having there first re-union in the Polish Hall in Nottingham in May, so in April we headed off to England for three months spending the first week in London. Walking around we passed New Scotland Yard so in I went to see what I could find out about “Big Jock” as he was in the Met Force, got all the particulars and after much correspondence finally found the old man.
Over the next few years met Jock at the re-union and he told everyone that it was my fault that he was a POW as I would rather go on leave to visit with Elsie than look after them. Finally got the whole story from him and the thing was that the W/Op didn’t do a job like me and actually it was his fault as he never supplied Johnny with loop fixes and finally the compass acted up and they ended up over Kiel, the W?Op if he had been doing his job should have caught it.
So that ended the mystery of the why and how, but to top it all off, I got a letter from a chap in Gloucs, he is a WW11 buff and had bought the medals, log book and uniform of A.Davies and being a friend of Larry Carr had queried a few of the log book entries so Larry had given him my address and he wanted to know about the Frankfurt trip.
I wrote a small account of the trip for him and asked what Davies had written in his log Book and here is what he had written"the navigator used the wrong winds and we flew up the Rhur Valley losing an engine and badly damaged aircraft”
So much for being an Officer and a gentleman.