Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: kfsone on June 03, 2001, 10:00:00 PM
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'When the curtain drew back at the briefing there was a roar of laughter instead of the gasp of horror. No one believed that the air force would be so stupid as to send 12 of its newest four-engined bombers all that distance inside Germany in daylight. We sat back and waited calmly for someone to say, "Now the real target is this". Unfortunately it was the real target, a factory near Munich that was a major manufacturer of diesel engines for submarines.
'At that time it was touch and go in the North Atlantic between Britain having enough to eat and not having enough to eat. The crews were determined that these diesels should not go forth in submarines. The route took us low, at about 100 feet, down the south coast, across the Channel. We were to join 44 Squadron at the south coast, six aircraft from each squadron, and we were to go as a formation of 12 the rest of the way. We saw 44 Squadron slightly ahead of us, but we realised that they were drifting to port and we continued in the direction we should have been going.
'Our six aircraft pressed on very, very low across the Channel so that we were underneath the radar. I could see the sandbanks of France coming up ahead of us. We had no opposition at all crossing the defended coast and proceeded south of Paris where I saw the second enemy aircraft I saw during the whole war. It was probably a courier, a Heinkel 111. It approached and, recognising us, did a 90-degree bank turn back towards Paris. We continued flying at 100 feet.
'Occasionally you would see some Frenchmen take a second look and wave their berets or their shovels. A bunch of German soldiers doing PT in their singlets broke hurriedly for their shelters as we roared over. The next opposition was a German officer on one of the steamers on Lake Constanz firing a revolver at us. I could see him quite clearly, defending the ladies with his Luger against 48 Browning machine guns.
'Our route took us from the north end of Lake Constanz across another lake, where we turned north towards the target. We hadn't see a thing on the way of the German Air Force. We were belting at full throttle at about 100 feet towards the targets. I dropped the bombs along the side wall. We flashed across the target and down the other side to about 50 feet, because flak was quite heavy. As we went away I could see light flak shells overtaking us, green balls flowing away on our right and hitting the gound ahead of us. Leaving the target I looked down at our leader's aircraft and saw that there was a little wisp of steam trailing back from it. The white steam turned to black smoke, with fire in the wing. I was slightly above him. In the top of the Lancaster there was a little wooden hatch for getting out if you had to land at sea. I realised that this wooden hatch had burned away and I could look down into the fuselage. It looked like a blow lamp with the petrol swilling around the wings and the centre section, igniting the fuselage and the slipstream blowing it down. Just like a blow lamp.
'He dropped back and I asked our gunner to keep an eye on him. Suddenly he said, "Oh God, Skip, he's gone. He looks like a chrysanthemum of fire."
'One other of our aircraft caught fire just short of the target, but kept on, dropped the bombs, and then crashed. The raid was suicidal. Four from 97 Squadron got back, but only one from 44. Five out of twelve.'
-- Rod Rodley, Bomber Command pilot
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Brilliant!
Reminds me of 'Enemy Coast Ahead' by Guy Gibson, VC who was the S/L og No. 617 Sqn (Dambusters) - very similar. I would recommend you buy the book. If you cant find it, I'll send it to ya.
Mail me at bb@amigabeats.dk