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CHAPTER 3
The Fine Line

Ron Auckland

The average member of a Bomber Command crew had a 30 per cent chance of being killed before they completed their first 30-op tour. Of a total of 125,000 aircrew, 55,573 were killed: an overall death rate of 44.4 per cent; another 8,400 were wounded and some 10,000 taken prisoner. In no other branch of the armed forces were the chances of dying so high, or the combatants called into action night after gruelling night. Yet every one of the 125,000 recruits who took to the skies to wage war by night was a volunteer.

There were those whose fathers had fought in the First World War and who wanted to avoid the gruesome grind of trench warfare. There were others who were seduced by the glamorous modern image portrayed by the RAF, given added lustre by the glorious victory of ‘The Few’ in the Battle of Britain. For many, such as Ron Auckland from Portsmouth, who had experienced the damage wreaked by the Luftwaffe earlier in the war, there was an element of revenge.

Ron had witnessed the first German raid on the docks of his home town, where he worked as a civil servant. On duty as a fire officer, he had carried out the dead and rescued the injured after an enemy bomb fell down the air vent of a crowded air-raid shelter. During another, he and his family were bombed out of their home. That was enough; he signed up. ‘I’d seen a lot and knew just what the Germans could do. I was in a reserved occupation but I still wanted to join up. I wanted to be part of the war effort.’¹⁶

George Prince grew up in New Malden, Surrey, the son of a garage owner. He left school at 14 to work for his father as a mechanic, a job in which he learned many skills that would prove useful when he became a flight engineer. He coveted a green, four-seat 1934 MG PA in his father’s showroom and was mortified when a German bomb shattered the windows and riddled the car body with shrapnel. George was only 15, but his father told him that if he repaired the MG he could have it.

‘I mended the bodywork lovingly, and filled the holes in the radiator with putty. I couldn’t drive it, but it became my pride and joy.’¹⁷ George, like his near neighbour Cyril Barton, dreamed of being a pilot, but when he signed up his superiors decided that his experience in his father’s garage was too valuable to sacrifice, so he became a flight engineer. The MG would come into use later, when he was operational and old enough to drive it. ‘The whole crew would get in: two in the front, and the rest would squeeze in the back and hang out over the side.’

As a 16-year-old Londoner, Harry Evans had watched in awe as the night sky above his home city glowed red during the Blitz. That image and the sound of the Heinkel 111s were imprinted on his soul. One day a German bomb landed on his street. ‘It demolished the house just to our right. The whole house shook like there had been an earthquake; all the windows were blown out and the ceilings came down. Some of the neighbours were killed. Once you’ve experienced something like that you never forget it. Shortly after my 18th birthday I volunteered for the RAF. My father had been in the Navy on submarines in the First World War and it didn’t sound very appealing to me. I wanted to be one of the Brylcreem Boys!’

Bomber Command recruits also came from far-flung corners of the Empire. Ron Butcher grew up in Middle Sackville, a village near New Brunswick in Canada. He joined the RAF because all of his friends were doing it, even though there was no pressure for them to volunteer; just a sense of duty towards their ancestral home and ally. Britain needed their help against the Nazi terror, and to stand idly by seemed like an act of cowardice.

Andy Wejcman did not come from any corner of the Empire. He was born in Berlin in January 1923. When Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933 and revealed their virulent brand of anti-Semitism, his father, a politically active lawyer and intellectual Polish Jew, moved the family to Poland. In 1939, just before the German invasion, Andy was sent to England to learn the language. Despite having an American mother, the only English phrase he knew was ‘Stick ’em up!’ – from watching a cowboy film. Ironically, she insisted that he travel by train and boat because she believed flying to be too dangerous. On the day he left, his entire family came to wave him off at the station. It was the last time he saw his father.

Andy learned English at a school in Hampshire and proved to be such a good student that he was offered a place at Oxford University. He turned it down, even though he knew his mother would be appalled. ‘I decided I would join the Air Force, and if you’re going to join the Air Force you might as well fly. I knew what the war meant; I heard the bombs and I’d seen the results of bombing and the destroyed buildings. I certainly wanted to help overthrow Hitler. I felt it was my moral and physical duty to do so.’¹⁸

Being a member of Bomber Command had benefits the Army and Navy couldn’t offer. Even though most nights were spent dodging fighters and flak, the crews slept in a bed on British soil. It was a shorter journey home on leave. They could also enjoy their familiar comforts: pubs, dances, the cinema, and, for those who were single, local girls whose eye might be caught by a young man in uniform.

Once they signed up, the mundaneness of day-to-day training dispelled any notions that RAF life might be any more glamorous. Harry Evans joined in the summer of 1941, at the Yorkshire Grey pub in Eltham, where the ballroom had been converted into a recruiting centre. It was the end of the year before he was summoned to the Air Crew Selection Centre on the Euston Road, where he was tested, interviewed and given a thorough medical. Eventually he was accepted and kitted out as an Aircraftman 2nd Class, the lowest rank in the entire Air Force. When he was sent to digs near Regent’s Park his spirits lifted; the airmen were billeted in luxury flats overlooking the park, where businessmen, bankers and diplomats once lived before the Blitz. Once inside, it became clear that this was just an accident of geography; it was the middle of winter, there was no heating, the interior doors had been removed and, despite the expensive tiles and fittings, nothing worked. The flats had become filthy and neglected, and the meals served to the airmen were in keeping with their surroundings.

A few days later, Harry was asked to report to another prestigious address. The Pavilion at Lord’s Cricket Ground had been turned into a reception centre where new recruits were issued with uniform and equipment. There was one other test, of which few were aware. In the hallowed Long Room, with the great ghosts of the summer game looking on, each man was ordered to drop his trousers to be inspected for venereal disease by a medical officer. This was not the sort of thing Harry had in mind when he signed up to be one of the Brylcreem Boys.

The wait between signing on, being processed and starting training was interminable. Sam Harris,¹⁹ a young Scotsman, had signed on in January 1941 at the age of 17, but his training in London did not start until November. He wanted to be a pilot, but his scores in the maths test were so good that he was earmarked as a navigator. Later that month he was sent to Babbacombe in Devon with 47 other trainees.

The life of a new recruit was no more exciting in the West Country than it had been in London. He shared a room with three others in a small boarding house with only enough hot water for a bath once a week. Every morning they paraded outside in their PT kit, ‘gargled with some bluish purple mixture’, and then went for a 30-minute run, followed by a splash of cold water, a change into uniform, and another parade before breakfast.

Their lectures were held in the windowless basement of what used to be a garage. ‘There we wrestled with the mysteries of air navigation, including the triangle of velocities and the fact that straight lines on a Mercator navigation chart are not straight lines on the earth. In another building we learned to tap out Morse code and to send and receive messages by Aldis lamp. There were drill periods, a sports afternoon – which meant a long march to playing fields where we played football – and a long march back. We certainly became fit.’²⁰

The recruits were free to spend Saturday nights as they pleased, as long as they were back at their digs by 10 p.m. Sam and his friends used to visit a pub in St Mary’s, drink a few half-pints, go to the town hall dance and sprint back to their digs to beat the curfew. ‘There were other perks – a bath on Sunday morning, Church Parade, and an afternoon walk to Cockington, followed by a free tea at a church in Torquay. Well, not quite free; we had to listen to a bit of a religious service first. Such was the glamorous life of the navigator under training …’

Harry Evans was fortunate enough to be stationed at Ponca City, Oklahoma – a world away from what he had left behind. ‘We were all volunteers and keen to learn to fly and there were no disciplinary problems – it was the life of Riley. Instead of a mess there was a cafeteria where we all queued to be served and rank was of no importance. The food was exceedingly good, especially compared to wartime Britain, and we tried such strange and exotic delights as peanut butter, sweetcorn and unusual mixtures such as bacon, griddle cakes and maple syrup.’ But an ill-advised low-flying stunt over the local swimming pool to impress his fellow trainees and some local girls landed him in trouble. He and two other airmen were thrown off the course and sent to Canada to remuster. Harry chose to be a navigator.

After 28 weeks abroad – and a year since they had volunteered – the recruits were sent back to the Advanced Flying Unit in the UK, where they were taught to fly at night, and then to Operational Training Units, where they finally became part of Bomber Command.

Few of these young men – the average age in Bomber Command was 22 – would get near the aircraft they would eventually fly in combat until they graduated to a Heavy Conversion Unit. Even when the production lines were running at full capacity, the Lancasters were all needed for the main offensive. Raw, inexperienced crews were forced to learn on the older Stirling, Halifax and Wellington bombers, and even the lucky ones were only introduced to the Lancaster in the final moments before they became operational.

Harry Evans recalls acting as a pall-bearer at the funerals of fellow trainees three Mondays running. ‘The crash rate was high, but this was bound to happen when you were training on old aircraft under operational conditions. I remember one of the most spectacular: a Canadian pilot flying a Wellington hit the runway hard, the aircraft bounced, he lost control and went straight into the side of the control tower, about 15 feet above the ground. It was still stuck there the next day. Four of the crew and three flying control personnel were killed, including two WAAFs. Only the rear gunner survived.’

The members of a crew risked their lives together, slept together, ate together and socialised together. The ones that gelled quickly were the lucky ones, and forged friendships that would last a lifetime. Those who failed to get along, or whose camaraderie faltered under the strain, often met with fatal consequences. Arguments or disagreements put the aircraft at risk. Total discipline was required on board; it was a fundamental rule of survival, and yet the process of ‘crewing up’ was surprisingly haphazard.

In July 1943 Sam Harris was nursing a pint with Sandy Clarkson, an Edinburgh-born fellow navigator, at The Golden Fleece in Loughborough. It was like the first day of school, but instead of making friends they and their fellow recruits were forming crews. As the afternoon wore on the number of unattached airmen grew fewer; it was time for Sandy and Sam to make a decision.

‘What do you think?’ Sandy asked.

Sam shrugged. ‘Only two pilots left. It’s a toss-up.’

Whilst Sandy’s clannish instincts led him to opt for the Glaswegian of the pair, Sam and a bomb aimer who seemed to be at a loose end approached the remaining pilot, Ken Murray. Ken said that he had a wireless operator ‘around here somewhere’, and had spotted a couple of spare gunners lurking in a corner. A few minutes later the six of them stood at the bar, mugs of beer in their hands, toasting their new partnership.

Both crews were sent to Castle Donington. On 28 July, an eye-popping summer’s day, Sam climbed aboard a Wellington, S-Sugar, a real bomber, for the first time. They were only practising circuits and landings, but Ken proved so capable that when they landed their instructor told him he could fly solo.

Sam sat behind his curtain, working on his charts, listening to Ken going through the checks and drills before they took off once more. Then he heard Ken’s voice on the radio. ‘This is S for Sugar. Aircraft in front has just gone in. Taking off …’ Sam wondered what the hell he meant. He got up from his navigator’s desk as they rumbled into the air and looked over the flight engineer’s shoulder. The Wellington ahead of them had buried its nose in a tree. It looked like a nasty one.

As he watched, there was a vast explosion. The stricken bomber was engulfed in flame and choking black smoke billowed into the sky around them. Sam knew immediately that Sandy – his best friend for the past two years – and everyone else on board were dead. No one spoke. Air Traffic Control gave the order for Ken to land, and he circled the airfield, passing on the details of what he could see to the ground. The shattered bomber was still burning fiercely. Sam turned away.

Rusty Waughman’s crew came together in a similarly haphazard fashion.

Idris ‘Taffy’ Arndell, a wireless operator, and his friend, Colin ‘Ginger’ Farrant, had fixed to meet two local girls in Loughborough the night they were supposed to find a crew. Knowing they would be expected to have a drink or two with their new mates, they decided to hide in the pub toilets until the selection process was over; they didn’t want to miss their double date. Making for the exit as soon as they thought they were in the clear, they bumped into two pilots, one of whom was Rusty Waughman.

‘Are you two crewed up?’ Rusty’s companion asked.

‘Yes,’ they lied.

‘We don’t believe you, and we’re both short of a wireless operator. We’ll toss for it.’

Rusty lost, and the other pilot chose Ginger; he appeared the more intelligent and dependable of the two, or as intelligent and dependable as you can appear when you’ve been caught hiding in a pub toilet. They were posted shortly after to XII Squadron at Wickenby and went missing on their first operation – a long haul to Stettin on the night of 5 January. It later emerged that Ginger had lied about his age; he was only 17 when he joined up.

Of the 55,573 men of Bomber Command who died during the Second World War, 5,723 were killed in training, and a further 3,113 were seriously injured. Like much bad news, these losses were downplayed at the time, in line with Charles Portal’s decree that ‘Statistical information regarding the chances of survival of aircrew should be confined to the smallest number of people; this information could be distorted and dangerous to morale.’²¹

The casualties also included men who had completed the full 30 mission tours and were then posted for six months as OTU instructors. It was often as hazardous to sit beside a nervous young pilot in a bomber he had never flown before as it was to be at the controls of a Lancaster in the night skies above Berlin.

Roger Coverley was a pilot with 76 Squadron at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor in March 1944, after completing 30 ops with 78 Squadron. He had been a pilot instructor on Halifaxes in the interim. ‘I didn’t enjoy it. It was boring and much too dangerous because you’re teaching young kids how to fly. I was sitting in the right-hand seat, unable to get at the controls if anything went wrong. I had some very close shaves. I couldn’t wait to get back on operations.’²²

CHAPTER 4
In the Face of Death

Members of Rusty Waughman’s 101 Squadron kit up prior to take off

Sam Harris and his crew travelled by train to Elsham Wolds, home of 576 Squadron, in early January 1944. They pulled up at a small rural station and Sam leaned out of the window to ask the lone porter on the platform if it was Elsham. He nodded and they lugged their bulging kitbags off the train.

As they looked around, wondering what to do next, the porter approached them. ‘Are you boys after the airfield?’

Sam raised his eyebrows and surveyed the featureless Lincolnshire countryside. They were in RAF uniform, they were laden with kit. Did the man think they were here to enjoy the scenery? There wasn’t any scenery.

‘Yes,’ one of the crew replied wearily.

‘In that case, you need the next station. They’ll pick you up from there.’

The train had sounded its whistle and was starting to pull away, but they managed to grab their stuff and climb back on board before it was too late. They flopped back into the seats they had left a few moments earlier. No one said a word.

Finally Ken spoke. ‘Six bloody months to get here and we get off at the wrong bloody station.’

Though operational crews had little say in their immediate future, Rusty Waughman asked to be posted to 101 Squadron; Paul Zanchi, who had become a friend during training, was based there. He was told by a Flight Commander that 101 was a ‘special’ squadron, where only the best pilots were sent.

By the time Rusty arrived at Ludford Magna he discovered that Paul had become yet another casualty of the Battle of Berlin. On the night of 26 November, one of his first ops, he had been sent to bomb the Big City and never came back. ‘It was a real shock, an eye-opener, an awakening; a realisation of what it all meant. I felt a sense of real sadness and I knew then that things weren’t going to be as easy as they seemed to be in training.’

In November 1943 Reg Payne, a young wireless operator, had crewed up with two Pilot Officers, Michael Beetham (later Sir Michael Beetham, Marshal of the RAF and the Chief of Air Staff in ultimate command of the legendary Vulcan 607 bombing of Port Stanley runway during the Falklands War) and Frank Swinyard, and been posted to 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. Shortly after he arrived, he was told that his mother had sent a telegram asking him to come home. His brother had been shot down. His new Wing Commander initially refused him permission to do so. He feared that Reg’s parents, after losing one RAF son, would make him promise not to fly; they did not want a new crew of such promise to be broken up.

His boss relented when Reg promised that he would return regardless of his parents’ pleas. ‘As it was, my mum and dad didn’t try to dissuade me. They just said, “Reg, whatever you do, just be careful.”’ A few months later they discovered that his brother was alive and being held in a prisoner-of-war camp; he was one of the lucky ones. ‘We were always losing crews. There was a Canadian crew in our hut and they all got the chop. They used to have loads of cookies, cakes and biscuits sent to them from Canada. They would leave boxes open and say to us, “Just help yourselves to anything you want.” One morning they didn’t come back and we were left with all the cookies. A crew came and took all their personal stuff away. They didn’t exist any more.’²³

The introduction to squadron life was less sobering for others, but still disconcerting. On the advice of the Squadron Adjutant, Andy Wejcman had changed his name to Wiseman. His identity disc said he was Church of England. When Andy asked why, he was told that most recruits were C of E; changing the religious denomination to Catholic or Jewish meant stopping the machine that stamped the letters, a process the Women Auxiliary Air Force members found unduly laborious.

‘I can get it changed if you want,’ Andy was told.

‘What’s the difference?’ he replied.

‘You’ll be buried in accordance with Christian rites when your charred remains are found on the continent of Europe.’

Andy didn’t want to be labelled as difficult, and decided it didn’t matter; he would be dead. The denomination remained.

He was posted to 466 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force at RAF Leconfield in Yorkshire – ‘A Polish Jew, flying with the Australian Air Force!’ – as a bomb aimer. ‘I really enjoyed squadron. The camaraderie was lovely and the Australians treated me as an equal. If we argued, my pilot used to say, “Don’t give me any airs just because you went to unifuckingversity!’ But he didn’t mean it seriously.’

When Sam Harris and his crew finally made it to Elsham Wolds on that icy January Sunday they were pointed in the direction of a Nissen hut in the corner of a field. Their living quarters was a room with 14 beds, six of which were surrounded by piles of clothes and books which two NCOs were putting in freshly labelled kitbags.

‘What’s going on?’ Ken asked.

The men stopped what they were doing. ‘We’re the Committee of Adjustment,’ one of them answered. ‘We’re collecting the property of the crew that were here. They’re listed as missing; we look after their belongings in the meantime. If you give us some time we’ll get the hut cleared and you can move in. I hope you have better luck than they did.’

The crew stood silent for a few seconds, watching as the two men cleared away the lives of their predecessors. Ken suggested they head to the mess for a stiffener.

The first crew member to experience the fire and fury of an operational raid was normally the pilot. As part of his training on base he was required to tag along with an experienced crew on a watching brief, a routine known as flying ‘second dickie’. Some did not survive those flights; many a fledgeling crew lost their skipper before they had even started a tour.

Ray Francis (front row, far left), end of tour

Ray Francis, a flight engineer with 622 Squadron at Mildenhall in Suffolk, barely slept a wink the night their pilot, an Aussie named Ray Trenouth, went on his first op as second dickie. His crew just lay on their bunks praying for his return. Eight hours later, to their great relief, he walked back into the married quarter which was their home on base. He said nothing, kicked off his boots, sat on his bed, pushed his cap to the back of his head, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. His silence was more than the others could bear.

‘What was it like, Ray?’

He blew out a cloud of smoke and chuckled. ‘Just wait until you blighters go!’

Ray Francis had joined up after seeing his home city of Birmingham suffer under the weight of the Luftwaffe bombing. He wasn’t going to be easily deterred. ‘In the early days on the squadron we knew that people were being shot down and killed. But we never talked about it. We never related casualties to deaths. If 20 aircraft went up and two got shot down, you never said to yourself at that time, “That’s 10 per cent gone, so we’ve got to do 30 ops, therefore we’re going to get the chop three times.” We were just keen to get in and take part. You never expected to finish a tour, but then again you always thought it’ll happen to the other fellow and not me. Now that’s a bit daft, isn’t it?’²⁴

Norman ‘Babe’ Westby was the youngest member of Rusty Waughman’s crew. As a bomb aimer his role was to guide the pilot over the target and release the bombs at the right time. He spent most of the op next to or behind the pilot, but moved down into the nose during the bombing run, the point at which the aircraft was running the gauntlet of the enemy’s most focused flak defences. He would lie down and look through the bombsight as shells exploded and shrapnel flew around him, to usher the bomber calmly into position.

It was not a job for the faint-hearted. In Norman’s opinion, it guaranteed him the best view of the unfolding drama: the searchlights scouring the sky and the fires burning on the ground; the kaleidoscopic ‘target indicators’ released by the Pathfinders to mark his aiming point – or, when visibility was poor, the skymarkers, coloured flares attached to parachutes. And to round off the show, as he thought of it, were the ‘fireworks’. ‘Isn’t it pretty?!’ he would cry, surveying the flak-blasted stage. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?!’

‘For Christ’s sake, Norman, shut up!’ the rest of the crew would chorus. They just wanted to hear that the bombs were gone and they could head for safety.

When another crew went missing, ‘It wasn’t worth thinking about,’ Rusty Waughman says. ‘We would raise a toast to them: “Here’s to so-and-so, he’s dead, and here’s to the next one to die.” Or: “Death put his bony hand on your shoulder and said – Live, chum, I’m coming.” We were young and naive. We didn’t have the mental capacity to truly understand the reality. The chaps who suffered most were the highly educated ones, who understood what was happening and knew they were likely to die.

‘If the other crews in your hut didn’t return, then the Committee of Adjustment arrived to remove all their personal belongings. One minute they were, the next minute they weren’t, and then a new crew arrived to replace them. People just disappeared. You didn’t see dead bodies, even though thousands of my colleagues died. People simply weren’t there any more.’

Alan Payne remained an irrepressible optimist. He always thought there was ‘a gap in the flak’ where he and his crew would find safety under the heaviest fire. Roger Coverley was a fatalist. ‘I knew I was going to get the chop because all my mates around me were getting it. So many aircraft were being lost that it felt inevitable. But it did not affect me. I thought, whatever happens, happens. No one shed any tears about it. We laughed at it really. We thought, let’s get on with it and then have a drink.’

Drink was not discouraged. Even Bomber Harris believed his men needed a release. ‘I have always considered that the strain imposed by sustained bomber operations requires that aircrew personal should enjoy the maximum amount of freedom from restraint, and should be relieved, as far as can be done without loss of efficiency, of routine station duties.’ He added: ‘The last thing I would wish to do would be to impose on aircrew personnel an irksome regime of inspections, parades and spit and polish.’²⁵

The focal points of the men’s life became the pub and the mess. Any entertainment was welcomed which might take their minds off what lay ahead, whether it was the cinema or just a good sing-song in the mess.

Sam Harris and his crew were regular visitors to the Oswald pub in Scunthorpe on their free evenings. It had a gramophone; the barmaid would put on Bing Crosby singing ‘Cow Cow Boogie’, and on Saturdays there was a large back room where ‘some of the aircrew would go on stage and do their party piece, usually when the night was well advanced and a quantity of beer had been consumed. A favourite was a Flight Sergeant from 576 Squadron who was in charge of “discipline”; he sang a rude song about a woodpecker. It was always greeted with applause and the crowd joined in the chorus.’

Not everyone could use these diversions to escape the feeling of impending doom. Chick Chandler’s pre-war job – manufacturing parts for anti-aircraft guns – was a protected occupation, but everyone he knew had joined up and he didn’t want to be left out. ‘I can’t say I really enjoyed life in Bomber Command. It was always in the back of your mind that tomorrow might be the day that you might die. Even when you were going out, there was always the thought that it might be the last time: that this would be your last pint, or this might be your last dance. I wanted to join up and be part of the war effort, but the reality wasn’t quite as I imagined. Nobody told me they shot back!’

The other release was female company. The objects of their desire were the girls in the local town who might have an eye for a young man in uniform. There were also the WAAFS, members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force who worked alongside the men on base, doing clerical jobs in operations and control rooms and working in technical, electrical and mechanical roles to free the men for flying duties.

Norman ‘Babe’ Westby had been a virgin when he joined Rusty Waughman’s crew. ‘Taffy, our mischievous wireless operator, took it upon himself to introduce him to the ways of the flesh. He knew of a full-bosomed woman in Grimsby called “Luscious Lil” with a penchant for revealing outfits, who’d be the ideal target for Norman’s first operational sortie with the opposite sex.’ He organised a pub crawl. ‘By the end, Norman was rubbing his hands with excitement. The sight of her black stockings with the thin black lines at the back made it almost impossible to bear. Needless to say, the evening concluded satisfactorily as far as most parties were concerned, and Taffy took great pride in his achievement of turning a boy into a man.’

The married men worried about those they had left behind, and might leave behind permanently. When they were bombed out of their home in Portsmouth, Ron Auckland’s family moved to Porchester. Another family who had also suffered the same fate lived two doors away, and Ron became friendly with Sheila, a friend of their daughter. ‘As soon as I saw her, I knew she was the girl for me.’

She was equally smitten. ‘I felt safe with him.’