Bombs Gone Read online

  Bombs Gone

  Richard Townsend Bickers

  Copyright © Richard Townsend Bickers 1981

  The right of Richard Townsend Bickers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1981 by Robert Hale Ltd.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Extract from My Enemy Came Nigh by Richard Townsend Bickers

  One

  Fourteen Wellingtons crossed the North Sea to bomb German warships in port that November morning in 1939. Four hours later, while the rest of Britain was enjoying its Sunday lunch (albeit rationed), six of them came back.

  When Ridley had switched off his engines he stayed in his seat for a while, flexing his fingers and stretching his cramped legs. He leaned back and rested his hands, fingers spread, on his knees, as though to let the fatigue and tension flow from his extremities.

  He knew, however, that weariness, anxiety and fear did not dissipate; they accumulated. Experience did not make one impervious. He had learned already that no operation was isolated. Each was the result of certain causes which preceded it, and then it in turn became the cause of the next one. If no man was an island, nor was a sortie against the enemy. He didn’t exactly agree about the former, anyway. Poetic licence. John Donne had never gone to war. In the face of death every man was very much on his own, even when surrounded by comrades in arms. Each had to face death in his own way and conceal his feelings. He hoped none of the others could read his mind: he tried hard to be his own island.

  He glanced out of the open window on his left and saw three of his crew, the two air-gunners and the wireless-operator, standing on the tarmac beyond the port wingtip, lighting cigarettes; waiting for him.

  The voice of the second pilot, who doubled as observer (as navigators were called before 1942), echoed through the fuselage. He was standing on the ladder with his shoulders through the hatch.

  “Are you all right, Derek?”

  Ridley turned the other way and called the bulkhead. “Coming, Ronnie.” He unfastened his straps and clambered along the aircraft, lugging his parachute, his flying-helmet in the other hand.

  The Wimpey reeked, as always, of canvas dope and paint. Of hot metal and rubber shock-cords and mountings. Of petrol and hot oil. The strongest stench came from the cordite fumes which lingered. Both gunners had used most of their ammunition. The fuselage and wings were pocked with bullet-holes and the geodetic framework showed where several square feet of canvas had been torn off. They had flown home at 500ft to keep below the cloud base. If they had been forced for any reason to fly at 10,000ft or so it would have been bitterly cold with the air rushing through all those holes. The wind had blown through them, making an eerie organ-like noise.

  Ridley had never much liked the flatlands of East Anglia but felt glad to be standing on Norfolk soil again. Even the damp, chilly air was better to breathe than the cordite smoke.

  Ronnie Clive was waiting for him by the foot of the ladder, with their fitter, rigger and sundry other ground crew. The squadron Engineering officer and his flight sergeant were walking towards Ridley’s aircraft from the flight-commander’s. The flight-commander and his crew were already boarding a three-ton lorry for the ride to the Operations Room under Station Headquarters for debriefing.

  The group-captain commanding the station and the two squadron-leaders who commanded the squadrons there were walking from aircraft to aircraft, talking to the crews.

  Each squadron had put up seven aeroplanes. Ridley’s had lost five, the other, three.

  Clive was encumbered with his bag of navigating instruments and charts, his lanky frame stooping slightly, fair hair standing tousled above his head and waving in the breeze like a cock’s comb. He was barely 19, a year younger than Ridley. Ridley wished he knew the recipe for Ronnie’s unfailing cheerfulness. He himself never disguised his mood when he was thoroughly browned-off; as he was now.

  On the second morning of the war the whole service had received a message from the King.

  “The Royal Air Force has behind it a tradition no less inspiring than those of the older services, and in the campaign which we have now been compelled to undertake you will have to assume responsibilities far greater than those which your service had to shoulder in the last war. One of the greatest of them will be the safeguarding of these islands from the menace of the air. I can assure all ranks of the Air Force of my supreme confidence in their skill and courage, and in their ability to meet whatever calls may be made upon them.”

  In Ridley’s view, the call made upon the two squadrons at R.A.F. Saunderton that morning had been plain bloody silly.

  The two pilots fell into step side by side: Ridley almost as tall as Clive but heavier and brown-haired.

  Clive suggested, “How about going to the flicks this evening?”

  “How about a pub-crawl and dinner in Norwich, then back to the mess for a real party? I don’t feel like a gangster movie or watching cowboys: I’ve had enough blood and thunder for one day.”

  “OK. I think the exchequer can stand that, seeing it’s only two weeks since last payday.”

  They joined the other three. The wireless-operator, Cpl Pyne, dropped his cigarette butt and trod on it. He was stocky and looked like a bear in his Irvine jacket and fleece-lined leather trousers. “Cor, it was parky, sir, wannit, with all those holes?” He flapped his arms.

  “I thought your hot blood kept you warm,” Ridley told him.

  The corporal laughed and the two air-gunners scoffed at him. Wireless-operators used to be called “jeeps”. The term “wop” was now being used more. Ridley thought it suited his operator well; and in no derogatory sense. Vittorio Pyne, known to his friends as Vic, had an Italian mother whose parents owned a small restaurant in Soho. His father had been a waiter there; and now, with his Italian wife, owned a cafe in Greek St. Their son looked more Mediterranean than British, with dark hair and eyes that had earned him a deserved reputation as a Casanova. At 25 he was much the oldest of them.

  Leading Aircraftman Redfern, who manned the front turret, a sturdy, red-wristed youngster from Somerset with a round, full-blooded face, said, “Reckon moy blood damn near froze when those destroyers started shooting: where did the Intelligence officer get the idea they don’t carry flak, only heavy machineguns, then? That’s what I want to know, zurr.”

  “So do I,” Ridley replied.

  The rear gunner, A/CI Noakes, was a little man, the right size for squeezing into a tail turret. A sharp-featured Welshman from Ebbw Vale, almost as dark as Pyne, hirsute and besotted with rugby football which he played with vicious dash for the station and sometimes for Bomber Command. He declared that his main reason for joining the R.A.F. as an apprentice at 16 had been because he could play rugger much more often than in civvy street, look you. His comment now was, “Nice side-stepping, sir. Dhu! If you hadn’t taken such violent evasive action, those bloody pom-poms would have got us before we could bomb. Sold them a good dummy, you did. I thought for a moment they were going to part my ’air for me, so I did.”

  “Nice shooting, chaps.” Ridley had already commended his gunners when the battle was over, but thought they deserved to hear it again. The combined fire of the 14 Wellingtons in close formation had shot down four Messerschmitt 109s and two 110s, and he had seen tracer from their own front guns hitting two of
these. Noakes had claimed to have hit two also, and Clive, who had been standing with his head in the astrodome watching and giving Ridley a description of the attacks from astern to guide his evasive action, had confirmed this.

  They all halted at the approach of the group-captain and their C.O.

  The “station-master”, in R.A.F. parlance, was a Friar Tuck figure who had left South Africa in 1917 to volunteer for the Royal Flying Corps and stayed to make a career in the R.A.F. His boxer dog was never far from him and had a respectable number of flying hours; non-operational, to the group-captain’s regret. He would have liked to take him on the two reconnaissances which were his contribution, to date, to this new war.

  “Everyone’s all right, I see,” he said with a smile.

  Perspicacious type, thought Ridley. Four of the survivors from other aircraft had been taken off in an ambulance and three were still being scraped out of the turrets in which they had been pulped by Messerschmitts’ cannon.

  He said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Well done, all of you. First-class job. You may not think so at the moment, but it was a worthwhile operation. The A.O.C’s been very complimentary. And the C-in-C.”

  No one felt like offering any comment.

  The squadron-leader said, “The signal reported the ‘Furchtbar’ and one destroyer damaged and a tug left sinking. Is that what you saw, Derek?”

  It was the formation-leader who had sent the signal; a flight-commander on the other squadron. Furchtbar was a pocket battleship and some of the 500lb bombs had bounced off her like peas off a drum.

  “That’s right, sir. And six Jerry fighters down and at least two damaged ... one a probable, I’d say.”

  “Well done, gunners,” the squadron-commander said. The gunners shrugged and Noakes said, “There were so many of them, we couldn’t hardly miss hitting something, sir.”

  The two senior officers smiled and the group-captain said jovially, “We’ll have to open a station line-book. That quotation would make a good first entry.”

  Noakes flushed. “I wasn’t trying to shoot a line, sir.”

  “Of course not, Noakes,” the squadron-leader reassured him. “Rather the opposite, in fact. What one might call a modest disclaimer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Redfern was grinning broadly. Pyne wore a smirk at the rear gunner’s expense. The older officers were always tricky: their style of humour wasn’t easy for the erks to cotton on to.

  “See you all in the Ops Room.”

  Ridley’s crew climbed aboard one of the two three-tonners, all that were needed to convey the returned airmen. There had been four to take them out to their aircraft at 9 a.m.

  *

  After two months of war, Ridley acknowledged two facts of his precarious existence. He was even more tired than he was frightened; and he was astonished to find himself still alive.

  When he had completed his flying training and been posted to Wellingtons, eight months earlier, he had been half-hoping that there would be a war. The reality had not turned out to be quite as he had expected.

  Ridley was neither a fool nor had he an urge to destroy. No sensible 19-year-old, as he was at the time, wanted his country embroiled in war. But, in common with most of his compatriots of military age, he was fed up with Hitler’s threats, bullying and the invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Germany was obviously itching to conquer Poland next. That would be the last straw, but it would give Britain — and her allies, notably France — the excuse to put an end to Nazi greed and barbarity. Therefore war, to that extent, was desirable. Ridley’s feelings in 1939 were those of the majority of Britons: if it has got to happen, let’s get on with it and finish it once and for all.

  When he had applied for a short service commission during his last term at school, it was not because he wanted to kill anyone or had a special desire for the military life. He had joined the R.A.F. because he wanted to learn to fly; the pay was far more than he could expect to earn in any other job; working in an office would be abhorrent; and several chaps whom he liked had already joined, so he knew he would find service life congenial.

  A posting to Wellingtons had seemed like a stroke of luck. Of the five types in Bomber Command, this was the newest. It had first been delivered in October 1938: two months after the Hampden and more than a year since the Battle, Blenheim and Whitley came into service. It was not, unfortunately, the fastest. With its top speed of 235 m.p.h., it was slower than all except the Battle. But, with its geodetic construction of diamond-meshed metal basketwork, it was reputed to be the toughest aircraft in the world: even though that almost indestructible frame was covered with canvas, not a stressed metal skin like its sisters.

  Sisters? The convention of affectionately referring to an aeroplane as “she” hardly applied to the Wellington. Or to any of the other R.A.F. bombers. They were all notably masculine-looking, even the neat Hampden with its dragonfly shape. Besides, it was already familiarly called the “Wimpey” after Popeye’s cartoon friend, J. Wellington Wimpey.

  The Wimpey had not a vestige of feminine charm about it. The Wimpey was a downright bruiser, with its brawny build and square-jawed look when seen head-on.

  Its punch, however, and regrettably, was much more effective than its guard. It could carry up to 4,500lb of bomb-load. But for defence the Mk I and IA carried only four .303 Browning guns, two each in nose and tall turrets. Some of the latter mark also had one more gun in a ventral barbette; but none of those had reached this squadron.

  The R.A.F., before the war and during its early months, was slow to provide its bomber pilots with the meticulously trained and expert crews and the scientific aids that would increase their chances of survival and their accuracy. Wartime hastened expansion, and improvements in both training and equipment.

  The squadron commander made the first of these handicaps plain from the start. “You won’t be crewed-up with a regular crew until you’ve been on the squadron a lot longer.”

  What he could have said was that only six of his 24 pilots had any semblance of a permanent crew.

  Ridley’s flight-commander was more specific. “Most of our observers are second pilots who may or may not have done the long navigation course. They have to keep up their flying as well, so we shift them around. Full-time observers are coming through, but it’s a slow process.”

  “What about air-gunners and wireless-operators?” Ridley had asked.

  In January that year, full-time air-gunners had been introduced; but it had also been decreed that they must qualify as wireless-operators. Hitherto, air gunnery had been a secondary function of volunteer ground crew who could pass the aircrew medical test. Most of them were fitters, riggers and armourers. These wore a brass winged-bullet on their sleeves and were paid an extra sixpence a day. The embroidered chest-adorning brevet was not introduced until December 1939. Air gunnery was therefore a casual business and squadrons were responsible for training their own gunners: shooting at towed drogues. The new policy was to send them to both wireless school and a proper gunnery school.

  So the flight commander’s reply was: “We’re told we’re getting six of the new wop/AGs soon, but at the moment we’ve only got the usual trained wops, with a spot of gunnery practice picked up here in their spare time, and part-time AGs, and they crew up with anybody, according to whether they can be spared from their ground trades on any particular day.”

  As a preparation for going to war, this was not impressive. Pilot Officer Ridley wondered what had happened to the sense of urgency that had gripped the whole country only six months before he finished his training, at the time of the Munich conference crisis. Recruiting then had leaped up in both the regular and auxiliary forces. He had been aware of the vibrant air of purpose that had stimulated the entire nation.

  Now, with war even more closely imminent, it seemed that he was about to make his final preparations for it with a scratch crew of semi-amateurs. Hardly encouraging.

  But he had, withi
n a few weeks, found himself happy enough. It was a fine summer. The coast was only a few miles away and the squadron owned a couple of sailing dinghies. The squadron also ran a cricket team which played on Saturday afternoons against local villages and on Wednesdays against other service units. The officers’ mess summer ball brought a flock of pretty girls. There were tennis parties and swimming parties and beach picnics. Peacetime life was so enjoyable that it was easy to banish any worry about inadequate preparation for war to the back of one’s mind. Anyway, as the lowest form of commissioned life, he was not paid, or expected, to worry about matters best left to his superiors.

  When the armed forces were ordered to stand-to on 31st August, the black-out was introduced to R.A.F. stations. From 1st September, when the Germans marched into Poland, both fighter and bomber squadrons began a daily readiness at first light. Ridley was not the only one to be jerked into a dramatic realisation that life until then had been rather too casual.

  During the past two months the attitude had been deadly serious, but organisation had not caught up with the times. Briefings before a sortie were not the formal gatherings they later became, with 50 or even 100 men packed onto benches to listen to a succession of specialists each presenting the details of his own discipline. In those early days the comparatively small number of crews detailed for any operation used to gather around a table in the Operations Room while the station-commander, their squadron-commander and an Intelligence officer described the target and suggested a route. A Meteorological officer, usually still civilian, would give a weather forecast. And that was about all. What was more, neither the general information nor that about the weather was very accurate; the means of obtaining them were still crude and inadequate.

  That lunchtime, the crews who had returned crowded about the large table gulping cups of tea while the senior officers listened and the Intelligence officer, a middle-aged flight-lieutenant on the Reserve who had flown 108 m.p.h. Virginia heavy bombers and 88 m.p.h. Felixstowe flying boats in the 1920s, and for the past ten years had been working in an estate agency, put his questions.