A Night to Remember (Part 4 of 4)

Onward through the night, the engines keeping up the continuous drone, enough to induce sleep after all that excitement but we must keep wide awake, for we are not home yet. It would be a shame to be shot down on the last leg and the thought of all that cold black sea underneath us sends a chill down my back and a longing for a warm bed. “Wireless to Pilot, we’re cleared to Woodbridge, call on R/T when we get closer” “Roger, fifteen minutes to run now”. Switch R/T over to Woodbridge frequency and call “DARKEY from RELATE NAN Squared request QDM one two three four five, over” “RELATE NAN Squared QDM two seven zero, two seven zero over” “NAN Squared, two seven zero, Roger out” A slight turn to port on to 270 and ease off power to reduce height to 2000ft. Ahead all is dark until, a glimmer of light, flashing, yes, dar dar dar dar dar dit dit, yes OZ, the beacon at Woodbridge. “Woodbridge from RELATE NAN Squared your beacon in site, landing instructions please” “NAN Squared you’re cleared for a straight in approach Runway 27 QFE 1012 wind 260, 15 to 20 knots, what is your damage, over” “Woodbridge, NAN Squared, three engines, no hydraulics, undercarriage suspect, your runway in site over” “Roger NAN Squared call finals” Reduce power, down to 1000ft “ Right Engineer, landing checks, undercarriage selected down, operate the emergency compressed air system” “Undercarriage down Skip……..we’ve only got one green light Skipper” “OK Engineer, the port’s OK, look out of your window and see if the starboard leg looks OK” He searches with a torch and it appears to be down but we can’t be sure it’s locked. “Woodbridge from NAN Squared we only have one green, starboard leg is down but we don’t know if it’s locked, over”. “Roger NAN Squared can you do a circuit and be number two for landing, we have another aircraft in distress” “NAN Squared, Wilco”. Blast! I guess they don’t want us doing a wheels up
landing and blocking the runway. Ease over to starboard to fly up-wind with the runway lights looking very inviting down on the port side. “Pilot to Crew, hang on chaps we’re doing a circuit….we may finish up with a wheels up landing so get to your crash positions and brace yourselves when I say, OK Reargunner?” “Wilco Skipper” “Midupper OK, Skip” “Special OK Skipper” “Wireless OK Skipper” “Navigator OK Skipper” “Bombaimer coming up Skip” “Engineer Wilco”. Just past the end of the runway and a gentle turn to port holding 1000ft and on to the down-wind leg and now for the landing checks. Undercarriage is down, Trim set, Mixture rich, Pitch to 2850 RPM, Flaps we haven’t got, Fuel Booster pumps on. “ OK Engineer” and I get the thumbs up. “Woodbridge from NAN Squared down wind” “NAN Squared call finals” “NAN Squared Wilco” This is it, will that starboard undercarriage stay down? Round we go again to the left in a gentle turn with the perimeter lights sliding away underneath, reduce power to start a gradual decent at 150mph, I can sense every body holding their breath. “Engineer, I will land slightly port wing low to keep the weight on the port wheel as long as I can.. As soon as I feel the starboard leg collapsing I will shout Undercarriage Up, OK? “OK Skip, I’m holding the lever”.
The runway lights slowly come round into line as though the land below is twisting and we are standing still. “NAN Squared, Finals” “NAN Squared, clear to land”. Glide path indicator showing green…….. now changing red, GETTING TOO LOW increase power…….that’s it, airspeed 130, back in the green…. runway suddenly begins to approach rapidly….end of runway coming up….”Pilot to Crew BRACE BRACE!” Back gently on the control column, left wing low, ease off power, back, back, power off……with a slight squeal the port wheel touches the ground…….. rumbling along, faster than usual, the starboard wing gently sinks and as the wheel touches, we hold our breath and…………IT HOLDS! Keep her straight and control column hard back the speed slowly drops off. “NAN Squared, clear left if you can” “NAN Squared, Roger”. With the aid of the inboard engines we steer gently to follow the van to the parking area where we come to a very gentle halt., close down the engines and the ground staff quickly chock the wheels.

Silence, everything is still while everybody digests the fact that we have survived and slowly we start to unbuckle seat belts and parachutes and gather together our bits and pieces and start to make our way down the fuselage to the exit door. The Flight Engineer stands aside to allow me to stiffly get out of my seat. “OK Stan, we made it!” “Yes Skip, I’m glad that undercarriage didn’t fold up”. The Navigator is just finishing stuffing his charts and gear into his green canvas bag. “OK Alex” he gives me a wry smile “Yep, I guess so”. Why are we all so subdued ? Mentally exhausted? We should be cheering and shouting, but we don’t, we just climb into the crew bus which takes us over to a welcome cup of coffee, a tot of rum and de-briefing. “Your eyes look very red Smithy you had better get them looked at after we’ve been de-briefed.” “OK Skip, they are bloody sore but I’ll have my rum and coffee first”. We walk to the mess where egg and bacon is on the menu and at four o’clock we fall into bed and sleep the sleep of the exhausted.

We wake in time for lunch after which we report to the Admin Office to discover that our Squadron can’t spare a crew to come and collect us and that we will have to make our way back to Ludford Magna by rail. We are a motley looking bunch in our flying boots, May-Wests and parachutes etc when we are taken to the railway station to board the train for London, where we find that we have missed our connection to Lincoln and will have to stay over night. Who’s complaining? I live in London, so does Peter, our Special and Junior the Midupper, so we make our way through the underground and on buses, six of us to my home where I can be with my wife and the other two to their homes having made arrangements to meet up again in the morning to catch the train back to Lincoln. It’s very strange, dressed as we are nobody seems to be taking any notice of us. It feels as though we are invisible and
nobody knows that just a few hours ago we were over Germany in an aircraft in flames and
facing instant oblivion. Oh well, we won’t tell them, we will just go on enjoying the fact that
it’s good to be alive and hope that we can survive the next twelve operations.

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