My Service Story - part 2 of 4

Part 2 (www.syates.co.uk)

On occasions in '44, we were given the job of laying mines, dropping them with parachutes off Cherbourg, Brest and St. Nazaire at different times.

The St. Nazaire raid was the most hazardous. St. Nazaire is on the west coast of France and directly opposite was an island and the channel between was the entrance and exit of submarines heading into U boat pens located at St. Nazaire.

Lining up to drop our mine, Chuck remarked that there was a hell of a lot of flak coming up to the aircraft in front us; there were three aircraft on this particular raid. The first aircraft got through dropping its mine. The second aircraft caught the full force, exploding in mid-air directly in front of us.

The German ground gunners must have been cheering their success which allowed us to drop our mine and hightail it out of there fast as the flak was again coming up thick and fast.

On our return to M.S.G. — George Games, our ground crew Sergeant, complained that we had allowed the German gunners to damage our Q-Queenie!! - Actually we had a few minor holes and scratches to the fuselage from the flack, but these were soon repaired and Q-Queenie was as good as new.

We dutifully apologised to the ground crew for the damage and promised it would not happen again!! All lighthearted banter, which helped to cement a happy association with our ground crew.

Returning from a raid on Berlin, we encountered enemy fighters. Harry and Stan saw them and with a quick reaction from Wilf, we corkscrewed our way out of trouble and managed to get back to M.S.G. unscathed. Unfortunately, we saw one or two of our bombers go down in flames and we hoped and prayed that they had bailed out safely.

On a number of raids, to ensure we hit the target of major importance, a pathfinder aircraft would fly low over the target to check the accuracy of the bombing. If the bombing was off, the pathfinder would drop different coloured target indicators and call the incoming bombers by R.T. to comb these T.I’s. — The pathfinder was called “The Master of Ceremonies”. A very hazardous job.

Chuck, our bomb aimer, had been a photographer back in Canada and he was also a terrific cartoonist. Often whilst we were being briefed for a mission he would start to draw a cartoon — usually some casual remark by the briefing officer triggered a thought and away went Chuck with his cartoon.

On the first raid where we had a “Master of Ceremonies”, it triggered Chuck into action. As the briefing progressed, Chuck began to draw his cartoon — it consisted of a Mosquito with a man sitting astride it in dinner jacket, bow tie and top hat, holding an old fashioned microphone. The caption read, “This is your favourite announcer speaking”.

Chuck created a number of cartoons during our time together and he gave me a few of them to keep. Alas, on my return to England I discovered that my personal belongings, which were forwarded to my mother, did not contain any cartoons so sadly I only have the memory of them.

On each mission, after briefing and our return from the mission, we were treated to our “night flying supper”. This consisted of egg and bacon and all the trimmings. At other times we were lucky to see an egg or rasher of bacon!

One evening during dinner in the Mess, Chuck asked if we had ever tasted a “Dagwood sandwich”. We replied “No”, so he began to demonstrate. First he buttered a slice of bread then he spread a layer of peanut butter, then a layer of jam, followed by a slice of cheese. A further slice of buttered bread completed the sandwich. We tasted it. It was delicious! Sometimes he came up with not so appetising mixtures — these we gave a miss.

Before each mission take off, 419 and 428 lined up on the perimeter each side of the runway. Engines were switched off and we climbed out onto the grass away from the aircraft for a last cigarette and attend to the “wants of nature”.

Prior to this ritual, we were visited by the Padre for a quick chat and prayer for our safe return. One such Padre was Father Lardie, a catholic priest who was incredibly thoughtful and understanding and although I was Church of England, I admired him very much. The whole squadron really appreciated his kindness and when we returned from a mission he would be there to meet us, all smiles offering us cigarettes and coffee laced with rum which wasn’t always the best thing as we were about to appear before the intelligence offices for our interrogation.

The debriefing consisted of information from us regarding: position of search lights on route; flak density and position; flak ships on the coast and their position; fighter interception, if any and any other movements that may have been seen below us or on our H2S radar. As the wireless operator, I was asked if I had picked up any messages near our own frequency. As we were on a W.T. silence, it was a listening brief. W.T. silence could only be broken in a dia emergency.

One such emergency occurred when we were returning from a Leipzig raid. Switching from group broadcast frequency to D.F. frequency, I heard one of our aircraft trying to contact the D.F. station giving the S.O.S. signal as it was about to ditch in the North Sea. By this time we were nearing the English coast at a good altitude. I informed Wilf about the aircrafts problem and after a short discussion, bearing in mind that we were in W.T. silence, Wilf agreed this was an emergency so he gave me permission to break W.T. silence to assist them. I was able to relay the aircrafts messages to and from the D.F. station until I was told that the D.F. station were in contact with them.

A few days later, we were told by Group that the aircraft had ditched in the North Sea, but near enough to the English coast for the crew to be picked up by R.A.F. air/sea rescue boat. We were not told if anyone was injured, but thanked by Group for our help.

Two thirds of the way through our tour we converted from Halifax’s to Lancaster's. Wilf found this a great aircraft to fly being very manoeuvrable. During a number of cross-country and practice bombing flights, Wilf gave Chuck, Pete and myself some tuition flying. Again, we were allocated Q-Queenie as our call sign.

One of our most memorable op’s happened at the beginning of our tour. The raid was on Gwent and we approached from the north, dropped our bombs and immediately turned west with a fast glide out along the English Channel, as there was very heavy flak from Gwent to the coast. Our route took us along the English Channel turning north over Southampton to home at M.S.G. Over Southampton we experienced a lot of heavy flak from our own ack ack and even though we flashed our identification signals, our outer engine was lost and wing tip damaged. We were diverted to Newmarket racecourse — at that time an R.A.F. maintenance unit where we landed safely. After a quick interrogation, we then had to travel back to M.S.G. with all our kit, by train!

We were given a week’s leave whilst our Q-Queenie was being repaired and on our return from leave we were all flown to Newmarket to collect her and then flew her back to M.S.G. to continue our tour.

Most of our missions were trouble free; lots of flak and action taking place around us, but due to the watchfulness of Harry and Stan, our gunners, we were able to corkscrew out of harms way if any fighters were near. That is, alas, until our last mission.

Continued in part 3 …..

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