Rollo Kingsford-Smith DSO AM DFC

Extract from the Memoirs of

Rollo Kingsford-Smith written for his family and a few friends.

Permission to reproduce this section of the works has been given by Rollo Kingsford-Smith.

This text is copyrighted to Rollo Kingsford-Smith. Please obtain permission before using this text.

Beating The Odds Over Europe

Air Vice Marshall Wrigley commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters London,  welcomed me and said I was to proceed to a Bomber Command Operational Training Unit and then to a RAAF Bomber Squadron. Not liking my senior officers to be wrong I reminded him I was in fact destined for a General Reconnaissance Squadron. What is more I could see the posting signal on his desk and it said the same thing.
Wrigley agreed with me but said there was a temporary shortage of Flight Commanders in the Australian Bomber Squadrons and I would be attached for Bomber duties until the shortage was overcome and then I could go and fly Sunderlands. Still not very happy with this I asked what aircraft I would be flying and was told ‘Lancasters’. This changed things completely. I had heard rumours about the Lancaster, the newest, fastest and best four engine bomber in the allied forces. I was happy to take the posting. In the end I never left Bomber Command. There was no temporary shortage of Flight Commanders. There was a permanent shortage of Squadron and Flight Commanders and experienced crews.
To my surprise Sam Balmer, whom I had last seen in New Guinea, had also been posted to England and had arrived before me.
With all the waiting around for ships and other travel connections it had taken McCormack and me, going along the standard Australia-UK pipeline nearly three months to travel to England. Balmer had used his rank and connections at senior levels to take short cuts and had reached the Australian No. 467 Lancaster Bomber Squadron at Bottesford and was already Squadron Commander well before we had finished our training.
I gathered that Balmer asked for me which could be the reason why I did not finish up in Coastal Command on flying boats. McCormack was posted to another RAAF Bomber Squadron further north of Bottesford to fly Halifax four engined heavy bombers. They had neither the performance or bomb load of the Lancaster. The engines sometimes iced up in the extreme cold and this happened to McCormack over the Baltic Sea one night returning from an attack on Berlin. All engines cut out one after another and the crew bailed out over the sea.
It was mid winter, when I had calculated I would last about two minutes if I came down in the freezing seas, but McCormack lasted long enough to swim in the pitch dark to a small Danish island off the coast. He tried to hide in a barn with a view to surveying the countryside the next morning and evading capture long enough to find some friendly Danes, who might help him to get to neutral Sweden.
But he was soaking wet in below freezing temperatures. His hands were so cold he was unable to strike a match to light a fire and he realised to save himself from severe frost bite and possibly death from cold he had to give himself up to get warm and dry. So he approached the closest farm house. The farmer was friendly but said there were German collaborators on the island. There was no way he could hide McCormack and he would have to hand Mac over to the Germans. He ended up in Stalag Luft III prison camp in eastern Germany, occupied mainly by the small percentage of bomber aircrew who survived when their aircraft were shot down. In the camp he met brother Peter Kingsford-Smith, whom he had not seen since my wedding, and other old friends. They used to wait around when new prisoners were arriving to jeer if I turned up, but they were disappointed. I did not see either of them again until the war was over.
My posting to Lancasters was another of the lucky breaks that I had in the war.
To get back to our arrival in England. We had a hectic week’s leave in London before training commenced. The city was blacked out. It was full of service men on leave and lots of service women. WRANS in their navy uniforms were the most attractive to me as they were issued with sheer black stockings. The other service women wore unsexy, grey or brown lisle stockings, which made even the prettiest or longest limbs look dull. There was food of a sort to be had and plenty of warm beer, which was fairly innocuous.
I could not help but be highly impressed with the RAF indoctrination and training organisation. The entire training sequence was an efficient production line from one training establishment to another. Steadily becoming more advanced. Training for each aircrew category commenced individually and then progressed to working efficiently as a team in a crew.
Mac and I were posted to No 27 OTU at Litchfield in Staffordshire to undergo a training course in the Wellington aircraft, an outdated bomber. But before starting this we spent a few days at a place called Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire at a beam approach training school flying Oxfords, which I had flown at Bairnsdale. The beam training instructors were smart and wasted no time. We quickly became adept at making up an approach on a radio beam and coming down within a few feet of the runway flying under the hood (so the pilot could not see out at all). After only 10 hours of intensive instruction I could not only make a ‘blind’ approach and actually land without seeing the runway but what was more important I felt confident I could do it on any aircraft and at any location, It was training time well spent.
From the air as well as at ground level England was nothing like Australia. The Midlands in particular was congested with roads, canals, railway lines, towns and villages. Sorting out all the detail, made map reading hard at times but it all was so small I soon did not need a map.
This caught me out about ten years later when flying as a civil pilot from Hatfield in Hertfordsh ire. I was so overconfident I said I did not need a map. I was wrong. My memory let me down and I was soon lost.
Later, on operations and returning to Bottesford or Waddington frequently in shocking weather, the procedure was for the navigator to guide me to the airfield position using “Gee” a wonderful war developed electronic navigation device (well described by other writers). Once over the field I would search for the radio beam, line up onto it and descend, hopefully breaking out of the cloud no closer than 100 feet above the ground and heading down the runway. Only once when I was travelling back to Litchfield from Waddington to a party in my “private” Oxford did I have to make a completely blind landing in fog. The Litchfield tower could not see me and did not know I had landed until I radioed the operator. Although I was on the ground I could not see well enough to find my way to the tarmac to park the aircraft. The ‘Follow Me’ small van with a brightly illuminated ‘follow me’ sign on the roof cautiously came out to look for me on the airfield and guided me across the various runways to my parking spot.
I suppose the most memorable aspect of Stanton Harcourt was the little Norman church in the village with the tombs of the Crusader Parish Knights who had fought the Saracens in the Holy Land. Looking at the tombs which went back almost to the Middle Ages, then jumping forward 900 years or so, to the most modern aviation techniques a kilometre away was a weird experience.
Bucolic is how I would describe the Staffordshire countryside around the Litchfield airfield and we were there in a glorious July and August. There were plenty of bicycles so when we were not training, and if we were not playing squash, we spent our spare time cycling to village pubs or organising swimming races in nearby canals. At each lock in the canal there was a pub and the locks were not too far apart, so the swimming became fairly hilarious at times. After a few drinks on the hot days the Australians found it hard to resist the (filthy) canal water, the locals kindly tolerating our weird behaviour.
After the shortage of equipment and resources I had battled with when I was instructing in Australia, it was an eye opener when training started at the OTU to see the equipment and resources that were available then in England, although by their standards they reckoned they had too many shortages.
Within the first few days of arrival at Litchfield my crew sort of formed itself. Pilots, navigators, radio operators, gunners and bomb aimers milled around in the officers and sergeants messes until they picked other crew members they felt confident to go to war with and by the time I received my first duel instructional flight on the Wellington I had my entire crew except the Flight Engineer and Mid-upper Gunner - both who joined us later on. Any stupidities or slowness on my part could not be hidden. They must have been satisfied with my flying ability as none asked to change crews.
The five whose names are below then entered the most interdependent relationship of their lives. Lasting less than a year our joint survival depended on each one never ever letting the others down.
The crew then comprised Flying Officers Procter and McLeod, and Sergeants Webb and Wright plus myself. We were all Australians. Wright was killed on his first flight as second navigator gaining experience within a few days of joining the squadron and McLeod, who spent some time unfit for flying early in the piece and who did not fmish his tour of operations when I did, was killed soon after I left the Squadron
At Bottesford, Wright was replaced by another Australian, Flying Officer Kobelke (the mad Pole) who came back for a second tour of operations. It was his skill as a navigator, and Darrell Procter’s untiring non stop searching the skies from the rear gun turret, which played a substantial part in our survival. Bruce Webb, the bomb aimer, always kept cool despite the flak and search lights as we ran up to the target. He kept me on track with no deviations until he had the target lined up in his sight, released the bombs, then straight and level until we had photographed our aiming point.
Just about all the other trainees at the OTU were straight out of the flying schools. Thanks to my experience I went through the course fairly easily and it did not take too long to go solo on the Wellington. We quickly got onto long night flights over England simulating bombing raids and exercising the entire crew over searchlights and during dummy fighter attacks from RAF fighter aircraft.
The final training exercise was a six-hour flight over German occupied France to drop propaganda leaflets on the city of Tours. Despite the radio and rear gun turret being unserviceable we returned safely. These leaflet dropping trips had the code name of Nickel and if you failed to return you did not pass the course.
The flying at Litchfield was not all hard training grind. Hanging around on the sunny summer Sunday afternoons I managed to pick up a number of interesting ferry flights in different aircraft, some of which I had never flown before, to different parts of England. It was all a beautiful first impression.
My first and worst experience of cold gut wrenching fear came at Litchfield. And it was all quite futile. Returning to the base by bicycle from the pub one night late, while near a wood, an old Whitley bomber came low overhead with one engine stopped and crashed into the trees about 100 yards away. It was easy to find — petrol was dripping from a fractured tank onto a hot exhaust pipe and I could hear the sizzling for quite a distance. The fuselage was crumpled and twisted and I could not tell in the dark whether or not there were injured crew still in it. As it was likely to burst into flames at any moment I could not go away and leave them (if there was anyone) so I crawled into the aircraft through the rear door. It was a tight fit inside with jagged metal everywhere and I could only crawl forward slowly. Not until I got to the cockpit was I sure there was no one there. They had scampered off before I reached the wreckage.
I slowly worked my way backwards to the door and the noise of the petrol on the hot exhaust seemed to get louder. Then I realised that if the aircraft burned there would be nothing left of me. I was alone. No one knew where I was. It was the thought of dying alone that terrified me. Grace would never know what happened.
The Whitley did not burn. It was still there next day and I told no one of my stupidity the night before.
After Litchfield the crew and I spent a month at Swinderby in Lincoinshire being converted to the Lancaster bomber. Swinderby interested me as it was on the northern end of a long straight road The Fosse Way built by the Romans, 2,000 years before and the only long straight road in the County. When the Romans were moving their troops they liked to go in a straight line.
There was no doubt that the Lancaster was the best four engine heavy bomber in the European war, used either by the British or Americans. It was highly manoeuvrable for such a big aircraft and could carry the largest bomb load and fly higher than any other English heavy bomber. Most important, if handled carefully it could hold height even with two engines out of action on the one side. All of these attributes meant that the Lancaster Squadrons including the Australian 463 and 467 Squadron in 5 Group and 460 Squadron in 1 Group were progressively given the deeper and harder raids into Germany.
The crew quickly got the hang of the Lancaster as it was easy to fly. A lot of training time was spent on ‘cork screwing’, an evasive tactic which made it hard for German fighters to line up to fire on the bomber. After a while I came to the conclusion it was over rated, disorientating the Lancaster gunners and making the navigators task most difficult. An aircraft ‘cork screwing’ also lost a thousand feet or two of altitude at a time when it paid to be as high as possible.
We carried out evasion exercises at Swinderby. They were most educational to me. Taken out in a closed van to a remote spot and dropped, you had to assume you were in Germany and find your way back to base without being seen by anyone, farm workers or people in vehicles as you crossed over roads. It was completely up to oneself to get the maximum benefit from these exercises and I crawled along a lot of ditches, hid behind hedges and waited behind bushes until I could dash across roads. I found it was not easy to travel this way across country but with luck it could be done.
At Swinderby the crew added two ‘poms’, our Mid-upper Gunner and Flight Engineer, ‘Junior” Fairbum, the youngest and scruffiest of us all. The mid-upper was changed several times but ‘Junior’ stayed with the crew right through and still writes to me. The mid upper gunner who joined part of the way through the tour was a quiet Welshman “Dai” Rees.
There were more concentrated exercises of air to air fighting and search light evasion. Six months after leaving Bairnsdale and saying good bye to Grace and Sue I joined No 467 Lancaster Squadron in 5 Group at Bottesford, a fairly rough wartime station in the little County of Rutland, which, I think, has now disappeared. It was in Bomber Command Country just south of Lincolnshire. Sam Balmer was already there as Squadron Commander, morale was high and so were the losses.
Sometime during my training I made contact with the Nicholls. Grace and Nicky, who had befriended Peter, offering warm hospitality at their home near London whenever he had a spell. They were equally kind to me although Nicky was a menace with too generous a hand when pouring a drink.
By the time I arrived at Bottesford, Bomber Command was becoming an efficient soundly structured organisation capable of inflicting heavy and almost continuous damage to the enemy despite the weather. It had not been so in the first few years of the war with inadequate leadership, equipment and poor aircrew skills. Crews could seldom find the target in the dark and bombed ineffectively, when they did. If they flew in daylight their limited, light calibre defensive armament made them easy prey for the better armed German fighters.
The Command comprised about seven Groups each commanded by an Air Vice-Marshal. Each Group was divided into Bases and Bases into several Stations housing one or two heavy bomber squadrons. With luck each squadron had about twenty heavy bombers, Stirling, Halifaxes or Lancasters. The Lancasters were the newest and were used the most.
One group, No 8, was the Pathfinder Group. It was commanded by a brilliant Australian pilot and navigator (and eccentric) Donald Bennett. I believe he was promoted from Flight Lieutenant to Wing Commander, jumping one rank, then to Air Vice Marshal jumping another two ranks. I knew his name because his text book on Air Navigation was the best I had ever studied.
8 Group had the best electronic equipment and only experienced crews were posted to Pathfinder Squadrons. Their job was to find the target in the dark and the blackout and then “mark” it with a variety of Target Indicators (TI’s) — brightly burning pyrotechnics of different colours, too intense for the ground fire-fighters to extinguish. The main force then bombed the TI’s. If accurate bombing blew the TI’s away they had to be replaced by standby Pathfinder aircraft.
Sometimes, when the target was obscured by low cloud the Pathfinders dropped “sky markers” which were flares hanging from parachutes.
These techniques required very accurate timing over the target by both the Pathfinders and Main Force. This added another critical element to the navigation demanded of all crews.
No 5 Group, and I hope I am being objective in saying this, was the best of all the Groups. It was led by Air Vice Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane, rather unimpressive looking, but a brilliant and innovative commander. A perfectionist, he continued through 1944 to make his Group a highly accurate strike force.
He established the system of “Master Bombers” or “Controllers”, who flew in the target area for the duration of the attack controlling the effectiveness of the marking and bombing, halting it whenever the bombs were falling astray. As electronic warfare progressed with each side either jamming or homing into the others transmissions, he formed the Group’s own Mosquito Pathfinder Squadron for precision attacks on small targets in occupied countries, mainly France, where it was essential that civilian casualties and damage were the absolutely minimum and preferably nil. The target area was illuminated by flares dropped by a second squadron of Lancasters and the Mosquito pilots aimed their TI’s visually usually diving from about 3 or 4,000 feet (900 to I ,200m) dropping them at the lowest possible height and pulling out of the dive at an even lower height.
With this technique individual targets such as buildings, gun batteries, railway junction’s etc. in the middle of a town could be accurately marked and obliterated.
Although I was appointed a Flight Commander in the Squadron immediately on arrival due to my rank, Commanding B Flight, I was still a ‘sprog’ as far as bomber operations was concerned. It would not have been fair to myself or my crew to take them on my very first flight against the highly efficient German night fighters, search lights and anti-aircraft guns. So I made two familiarisation flights over Germany as passenger with Flying Officer Bill Forbes, a young man with a lot of experience over Germany.
Forbes was a good Lancaster captain and a fine leader. Later when Wing Commander Donaldson, my replacement as Squadron Commander of 463 Squadron was shot down on his first flight, Forbes, then a flying instructor was brought back, made Wing Commander, and took over the Squadron which he lead successfully until early 1945 when he and all his crew were killed in action.
The first familiarisation flight I made with Bill was to Kassel, a very well defended city. It was a clear night and we could see the searchlights, the intense flak, the photo flash flares and the explosions on the ground and the exploding bombers a long way away as we flew toward the target in clear sky. It was a cauldron of hell, magnificent, awesome and we had to fly into and through it. It scared all the self-confidence out of me. I remembered how to pray. We attacked our target and returned but 4.4% of the force did not come back and the Squadron lost one aircraft with four of the crew being killed and the other three being taken prisoner.
Bad weather over Germany held up operations for nearly two weeks and it was a fortnight later when I flew again with Bill Forbes, this time to Hanover, another well defended city. I was now more used to the enemy defences and I could take in more of the events going on around us.
My first flight in command took us back again to Kassel. It was now clear there was a lot to be done if we were to find our way across Germany to the target, attack it accurately and survive to fly another day. Successfully striking the target depended upon the skill of the entire crew and their discipline, and of course the weather, and the skill of the Pathfinder Force who marked the target for us. But survival was largely a matter of luck, skill and constant vigilance every second the aircraft was airborne.
I was lucky I was more experienced than other squadron pilots and this was of real value particularly in our battle with bad weather. My time as an instructor had convinced me of the value of discipline in the air and constant crew training so we went to war with better chances than most.
The first experiences of combat in this branch of the Air Force was very much different from say the Army or the Navy where the young soldier or sailor usually had the guidance and instructions or leadership from older and more experienced senior non-commissioned or commissioned officers alongside him when first under fire. Not so in Bomber Command. Each crewmember had his baptism of fire on his own, he had to make his own decisions and make them quickly. The aircraft captain was there - on the end of an intercommunication link - but he was isolated at the front end of the aircraft and could not personally supervise the actions of his crew. So each member learnt the hard way and the penalties in air warfare for mistakes or slackness were unforgiving and the results usually quick and fatal.
The Kassel trip was uneventful. On that trip we experienced the beginning of the shocking weather that settled over Europe and England in1943/44. Due to the clouds we did not see so many fire works over the target but engine and propeller icing gave us problems on the way and the bad weather at Bottesford on return was a challenge to the navigator and me.
In his book Bomber Command’ by Max Hastings the author, in talking about the 1943/44 winter, quoted
‘tactically because of the longer nights (of the winter) this was the only feasible time for regular deep penetrations. Psychologically and physically it was the worst. Long hours and sub zero temperatures dulled the brain, reflexes were slowed and mistakes were made. Frost bites were common, even among pilots and navigators, with the cabin that cold conditions elsewhere in the aircraft had to be experienced to believe.’
After Kassel began a series of attacks, mainly on armaments industries deep in northern Germany. There was a dreadful monotonous routine about it all. After take off, always overloaded, there was the heart in mouth the first ten to twenty seconds, until we had the wheels up and sufficient speed to cope with an engine failure. Such failures in this initial period gave the pilot no alternative but to crash straight-ahead, and with full fuel and bomb load the explosion left no survivors.
As we climbed over the North Sea the gunners check fired their guns and getting closer to the enemy coast the bomb aimer started dumping out ‘window’ the aluminium foil that made it harder for the German coastal radar to tell how many aircraft were approaching. Nevertheless you knew that they had you on their screen and were then alerting the massive German air defence system.
As we crossed the enemy coast, most frequently in Holland or Belgium, the heavy gun batteries would open fire, a salvo usually coming from four to five guns at once. Looking out of the corner of my eye I could see the quick flash from the ground as the battery fired and this time the close range radar gave them their target’s, height, speed and track and they predicted where the bomber would be when the shells exploded, On the assumption the guns were aimed at me I altered height and speed or course so that in the twenty or so seconds it took for the shells to reach my height I would not be where I was supposed to be. When the salvo burst close in front we would smell the cordite as we flew through the smoke cloud of the burst.
I knew by this time the defences had a fair idea of the size of the bomber force, its direction and its possible destination. The first of the night fighter squadrons would have taken off and would soon be at our cruising height.
The German fighters heavily out-gunned the Lancasters and it was essential we saw them first. Not easy as the Lancaster was a large aircraft with four engines at full power belching flame from their exhausts.
This was when Darrell Procter earned his keep. He had removed the Perspex from the rear of his turret to improve his ability to see any approaching fighter coming out of the dark. The frigid winter night air whirled through his turret as he ceaselessly rotated it from side to side and concentrated on searching. He wore electrically heated flying overalls and gloves powered from the aircrafts main power system but he was still freezing.
After we passed through the first night fighter control region we expected they would be landing, refuelling and re-arming to be in the air again to strike us on our way home.
We usually knew what to expect over the target. The intelligence briefings were good and of course the effectiveness of the German searchlights and anti-aircraft fire depended on the weather but when it was bad it made it hard for us to find the target indicators dropped by the Pathfinders and it was equally difficult for the search lights. The weather made little difference to the German fighters, which were directed onto us by ground radar and used their own airborne radar for the final attack.
After a couple of trips I developed my own techniques for flying over Germany and largely ignored the technique of continuous weaving or rocking the aircraft from side to side which was taught so that the rear gunner could see downwards more effectively. Some pilots weaved slightly and other in a more aggressive fashion and going into a cork screw at the first sign of fighters.
I found that by flying the Lancaster straight and level, only occasionally weaving, I could gradually nurse the heavily laden aircraft onto its most efficient flying attitude - I called it getting onto the step (an old speedboat term). This was a very critical angle where the maximum lift was achieved with the minimum of drag and with this technique I was usually 1,000 to 2,000 feet (300 to 600m) higher than the rest of the force and about
3,000 feet (l,000m) above the lowest. On the bombing run over the target I had, of course, to descend to the prescribed height for effective bombing.
This procedure seemed to get results as we appeared to have less fighter combats than others. The whole crew suffered with the greater cold at the greater height - one night it was -45C outside and the Lancaster had no insulation only a sheet of light alloy between us and the freezing air. There was cabin heating, which would have raised the temperature by a few degrees. We were in continual draught of freezing air coming mainly from the gun apertures in the front turret channelling the frigid air through the aircraft. Some of the other crew members could move around but I was motionless tied into my seat for seven to nine hours.
Here I should comment on my decision to concentrate on flying as high as possible going to and from the target. As captain it was my responsibility to get the Lancaster to the target, attack accurately and fly the aircraft and crew safely back to base. It was not my role to seek air combats or fly unnecessarily over areas heavily defended with flack or searchlights although this happened often enough. To carry out my job I led, directed and consulted with the crew, each one with separate responsibilities and competent at these. Being under fire on the straight bombing run, once the bomb aimer had the target in sight, was of course, to be expected and survival here was all a matter of luck. Nevertheless each successful mission depended to a great extent on our combined skills and determination.
I strapped myself in as tightly as possible as the Lancaster could take the most violent manoeuvres without coming apart but I could not be really rough with the hand and feet controls if I was slipping around on my seat. When the rear gunner told me a fighter was lining up to fire I would violently roll the aircraft on its side toward the fighter, at the same time pulling off the power completely on the two bottom engines and applying bottom rudder. The Lancaster would just drop out of the sky and usually, but not always, we would loose the fighter. The first time with a full bomb load was scary.
I stopped praying we would survive the barrage of fire around the target. The Deity would be hearing equally strong messages from the ground, praying for our destruction. Maybe they would pray harder than me
— I also had to concentrate on the flying. But I did thank him for my adrenaline rush. Injections of adrenaline were given me as a child for asthma and it was magic. It was even more magical when, under fire, I made it myself. Real OD amounts.
First, lovely warm blood flowed down my arteries into my freezing, aching legs. Then I relaxed and even started to enjoy the excitement. Even better, the adrenaline improved my night vision essential for air combat in the dark. Best of all, it speeded up my brain, the effect of which was to put things into slow motion. When several emergencies happened at once, as they always did, I had time to think before I took appropriate action. Adrenaline really was God’s gift to aircrew, although some others did not seem to benefit as much as I did.
Later on, when I had become more accustomed to being under fire the surge of adrenalin eased off considerably. This was a dangerous time when many experienced pilots were shot down.
After I had been at Bottesford for a few weeks I met Jane. She was a vivacious and petite WAAF Sergeant on the station.  She was fun to be with and I really enjoyed her company. But my marriage vows were not challenged. It seems that war was better than sex or should I say war was stronger than sex. The fear before combat, then the excitement followed by the exhilaration of striking the enemy and surviving and the long periods in intense stress over enemy territory plus flying fatigue put sex right out of my mind and possibly my ability. In my case the fatigue was worse as I also spend long hours at my Flight Commander’s desk. I had 70 - 80 aircrew in my flight and many were being killed. This was something I could not easily cope with and found it hard to relax.
Even when I was promoted to Wing Commander to command No 463 RAAF Lancaster Squadron at Waddington, Jane came too but my sense of duty was still very strong at that time - I was a young career officer - and it prevented me from having a relationship with a service woman much junior to me. Maybe if I had been a junior officer with less responsibility I would have sinned as at that time I genuinely thought it improbable that I would ever see Grace again. But as it happened I came home several years later with a clear conscience.
Grace’s frequent and wonderful letters — over 200 sea mail and aerographs — had a unique part in this. The deliveries were unreliable, sometimes they came in batches, but all but a few reached me. They were full of love and news and hope. Without them I doubt if I could have coped in the difficult months of 1944. The letters contained photos of Sue as she grew from a baby into a beautiful little toddler, sometimes smiling sometimes very serious.
On the 18th November 1943 Bomber Command embarked on what was called The Battle of Berlin. The weather throughout the entire campaign was terrible and the essential targets in the city were well spread out and hard to find. Also the RAF was still a few months away from perfecting its long range bombing effectiveness. Nevertheless Churchill wanted to tell the suffering Londoners that RAF Bomber Command had again struck at the evil heart of the Nazi empire with hundreds of heavy bombers. Hitler was equally determined that the British terror bombers would pay heavily if they tried. Between them thousands of lives were lost.
The battle went on for four months and it was a combination of the Charge of the Light Brigade and the slogging battles in the trenches in WWI except that we had to charge time and time again.
Despite the involvement of so many Australians, The Battle of Berlin seems unrecognised in Australia as a major battle involving many of our men. I believe it was the bloodiest and the costliest four month’s campaign involving Australians in WWII.
The battle quickly intensified and on I 8 22 and 23rd1 November my crew and I made the long flight to the dreaded “Big City”. Long detours were made north over Denmark and The Baltic Sea or south over France to and from Berlin to confuse the German defences and they added considerably to our time in the air. These long operations with the heavy damage to aircraft and losses added to all the other groundwork planning and organising. For five days I scarcely had any sleep.
The technical aspects, the statistics and the success or failure of the campaign has been written about at length and debated by a range of people so I won’t go into these aspects at any length. In any case I was far too busy and too exhausted during the campaign in getting the maximum aircraft to target and ensuring the crews were as well trained and well equipped as possible and staying alive myself, to worry about results of the campaign. They were all irrelevant to my task at the time.
The armchair critics of course, well away from the action, knew best with their frequent criticism of those who ordered the campaign, who were responsible for the strategies and tactics and those engaged in it. These critics deemed it a failure and have given the impression, as I see it, that all concerned do not warrant a mention or praise for what they tried to do. And for their dogged persistence, despite the losses, going back into the fray again and again.
Gallipoli was an outright failure (and it did not have the casualty rate that we suffered) yet the ANZAC’s and their officers are remembered with unlimited praise and National emotion.
It is worth quoting Max Hastings again. He had this to say about the Berlin campaign and the awful 1943/44 European winter.
‘For the crews of the Lancasters, the Battle of Berlin was a nightmare. Northern Germany seldom enjoyed clear weather in winter and that year conditions were exceptionally bad. Night after night Bomber Command took off through the rain, sometimes through the snow, into the upper atmosphere freak winds and sudden icing conditions. Loaded to the aircraft’s limits with bombs and fuels for the 1,150 mile round trip. If there was one time in an operational tour when the crew felt they needed the best the aircraft could offer it was on a sortie to Berlin. Crews could get neither height nor performance with the new all up weights.
The heavily laden bombers were now meeting the German night-fighter force at the summit of its wartime effectiveness and strength.’
On November 11, 1943 467 squadron moved to Waddington, a permanent RAF station since 1918, close to the city of Lincoln. Large solid hangars, but not sufficient to take our aircraft which were dispersed permanently, right around the airfield, well established engineering and maintenance buildings, a splendid, almost lavish, peacetime officers mess and good comfortable NCO’s and other ranks messes. Being a permanent base, it was well provided with married quarters. Pre-war RAF officers and NCO’s did not suffer much hardship.
Until 1943 Waddington had no runways. It had been all over grass, quite suitable for the RAF’s beloved, antiquated biplanes or the small and inadequate two engine monoplane bombers that replaced them at about the beginning of the war. Strong runways were essential for the heavy Lancasters, so all flying units were moved out and flying operations ceased for some time while new runways were constructed.
During this time a handful of elderly administrative officers (they must have been in their late thirties to the early fifties) stayed on to look after the general housekeeping of this place. They had the beautiful, large and comfortable officer’s mess all to themselves and nice nine to five working hours. They thought they were in clover.
Then overnight the tranquil lifestyle was destroyed by the intrusion of large numbers of boisterous air crew, flying around the clock, wanting meals at the most audacious hours, sharing the mess with their betters and what was worse, they were mainly Colonials.
The old chaps thought because they had been there first they had priority to the best chairs, especially those close to the fireplace, so important in the winter, and to the best table in the dining room. I remember, I think, on our second night there, when a group of aircrew came into the mess at about 8pm tired and thirsty and cold after flying all day and the old men would not give up their chairs drawn up around the fire. One of our young men went outside for a minute or two, came back, stood in front of them all, and displayed in his hand a handful of live .303 rounds. All he said was ‘Look! Live bullets!’ then tossed them into the fire. There was a mad scramble and all the chairs were empty.
Unworldly people think that a live round thrown into a fire will explode violently and the bullet whiz out as from the barrel of a gun. All I have ever seen, and on many occasions, is that the brass cartridge case splits down the side, the gas comes out with a little ‘phhhhhht’ and some ash flies up for about 30 cm. Nevertheless it was effective.
It did not take long after that before the real workers assumed their rightful place in what was to be their home, maybe for the remainder of their short lives.

Around about mid November I learned that a new Lancaster Squadron was to be formed and called 463 squadron - I never knew how the out of sequence numbering came about - and I was to be appointed Commanding Officer. I was 24 years and 4 months old.
No. 467 Squadron had three flights each under a Squadron Leader Flight Commander. This was one more than the normal Lancaster Squadron and 463 was to take up one of these flights so that it had a nucleus of trained operational crews right from the beginning and this worked remarkably well.
Early a.m. on November 25, 1943, still tired from the heavy operating and administrative programme of the previous few days, I was still Squadron Leader commanding B flight of 473 Squadron.
By midday I was Wing Commander commanding the new squadron built around C Flight 467 Squadron under the cheerful and indomitable Harry Locke who was a tower of strength. I had a new Adjutant, an ‘elderly’ NZ administrative officer, and experienced Flight Lieutenants from other Squadrons in the group joined us to fill the positions of Navigation, Bombing and Gunnery Leaders and eight or nine Lancasters were handed over to us. I had an office, some orderly room staff and an obliging WAAF sewed my new badges of rank on my sleeves. It was a frantic day but it all worked due to the excellent RAF organisation at Station and 5 Group Headquarters level, the superb morale, ability and the discipline of my Squadron personnel.
The early afternoon, still on the same day, we learned the Group was to fly that night and 463 Squadron, about twelve hours after its birth, put seven operational aircraft on the line, crewed and ready to fly again to Berlin. Fortunately for the crews and I suppose unfortunately for the record book,, the operation was cancelled due to weather. But was a magnificent Australian/English effort achieved only by superhuman effort and determination. They were great men and women.
On November 26 the Berlin raid was called on again. 463 sent twelve aircraft and we lost our first aircraft with seven all killed in action. My crew was on leave so I did not-fly. (The entire crew was due for leave but I had no chance of getting away.)
December weather continued to be terrible. Operations were ordered, the aircraft bombed and fuelled and the crews selected only to be cancelled time and time again. Cold fronts thick with low cloud, high winds and snow were either over most of Germany or expected over England when we were due to return. We would have struck whatever target in all but the worst weather over Germany. But more important was the weather expected over England at the time we would be returning, low in fuel. Somewhere or other we had to find an airfield where the Waddington force could land. We were therefore more affected by bad weather on return than over Germany and accurate weather forecasting for our return was essential. We could land our two squadrons at Waddington remarkably quickly even in marginal conditions, due to our training and some slick work from the tower. There would be an aircraft touching down at the end of the strip before the one in front had cleared the runway and the one behind committed its approach and close to the runway. Sydney Airport Traffic Controllers would have all gone on strike. Ours were dedicated young WAAF. Their voices were wonderful to hear when we made our first call after we got back over the English coast. If the clouds were right down to the ground at Waddington, which closed it for operations, we had to have enough fuel to be diverted to wherever there was fair weather, be it Cornwall in the west or Scotland in the north. If the entire country was expected to be closed in, then we did not fly.
Accordingly the squadron attacked the enemy only four times in December and we had our second loss of all seven crewmembers being killed. The loss was bad enough but only one in the month seemed rather too good to last and it did not.
On 23rd December I realised it was time I set an example and took off on my first operational sortie since becoming Squadron Commander. It was to Berlin and it was a shameful episode for me and my crew.
About an hour out, when we were over France at about 20,000 feet (6,000m) and the outside temperature below -40 degrees C, Procter told me the electrics to the rear turret and his electrically heated boots and gloves were not working. He was being buffeted by the icy winds and the electrical heating was essential if he was to stay there for the seven to eight hour trip.
I would not have minded if the turret or guns had failed as long as he stayed there and maintained his vigilant watch. We flew on for about another ten minutes while I discussed the difficult matter with him over the intercom, and the various options available. We had only two if we were to continue. Either he abandoned the turret leaving us with no chance at all if we were attacked or he stayed there and would have been very severely frost bitten with almost certain loss of fingers and toes. Also, after a few hours, his efficiency would be highly suspect. Neither was acceptable so very reluctantly I turned and came back. I was not prepared to sacrifice a wonderful gunner who had kept us alive so far and who planned post war to be a dentist, or risk my aircraft and greatly increase the risk of being shot down with an ineffective gunner trying to do his duty by staying in the turret.
‘Boomerangs’ Ie: returning to base before the target has been attacked, sometimes on a flimsy excuse, were not uncommon in some squadrons but were fairly rare in 467 and 463 squadrons. Also, sometimes Captains dumped a part of their bomb load due to engine failure or part failure and carried on. Tired crews whose morale was slipping may dump some bombs so they had a light and manoeuvrable aircraft as they flew deeper into Germany. But a “Boomerang” was a stigma whether it was justified or not and if it happened again I usually found that there was a problem in the crew. It took me a week before I could safely lift my head again.
In January 1944 the weather was still bad but we attacked Berlin six times. We went once to the Naval Shipyards at Stettin in Poland when I nearly collided with a single seater ME1O9 Fighter right over the target. It was in brilliant light from searchlights and flares and the German pilot was looking down, not towards me - he was as scared as we were of the flak - and he did not even see the Lancaster just over his head. The squadron also went to Magdaberg and Brunswick. In addition to Stettin the crew and 1 went to Brunswick twice.
As squadron CO I was expected to give priority to my wide range of ground duties and I was not expected to fly too often. On the other hand, to maintain the squadron’s very high morale, despite our losses, it was essential I should be in the air as often as possible, particularly on the more difficult missions. I compromised — I flew and somehow or other the administration was looked after.
The high morale of Australian and our English aircrew in 463 and 467 Squadrons is worth a further mention as it stayed firm even when our losses were appalling and the relentless demands on the tired aircrew lasted far too long.
It was largely a self-imposed individual quality. Bomber operations were, for example, not like the Army. When that Force was in combat the men were normally under the control of their officers or senior NCOs and usually aware their unit commander was with them and leading them. Night bomber crews were on their own when they fought the enemy and the weather.
Nevertheless, my leadership responsibilities remained heavy on my mind. As well as flying as often as possible, mentioned above, I used other stratagems. I had noticed that some COs picked the best aircraft in the squadron as their own and of course it received special attention from the ground staff. This seemed to me to be unfair to other crews who had to face the same enemy, so the RK-S crew had no aircraft allotted to them. We took whatever spare aircraft the Flight Commanders made available, usually a Lancaster belonging to a crew on leave or sick. I quickly realised that not all Lancasters flew alike.
I believed in discipline on the ground and imposed a bit more than some squadron members liked. But survival in the air required the highest standard of self control and it was obvious that some of my young men were sloppy in this regard, so I decided they should start to get used to a tighter hand whenever they were on duty. This made me a right bastard in some quarters, but I preferred they complain about me instead of their aircraft or their operational duties.
On return from one of the Berlin flights Kobelke had a lucky escape. We needed several alterations of course and were at about 24,000 feet (7,500m), when he gave me a new course to steer, which seemed wrong. I always kept a mental picture of the tracks we were to fly so I queried it. He straightaway, without any explanation, gave me another widely different heading drastically incorrect. On my asking what on earth was he on about, he became belligerent and said he would come up and fight me. Then nothing. This was not the normal Kobelke — a disciplined, highly experienced navigator and a never flustered old warrior. I sent Junior, the flight engineer, back to the navigators station, which required him first to unplug his main oxygen supply and intercom leads and plug into a portable oxygen bottle. He found Kobelke unconscious across his maps and his oxygen lead disconnected, possibly during some violent evasive action just before. Sudden deprivation of oxygen at our altitude deranges the victim for a very short period, followed by unconsciousness and then death! The engineer got there just in time and reconnected Kobelke’s oxygen and although he was not with us until we were at about 10,000 feet (3,000m) over England he came good in time to operate his Gee Nav Aid and put us over Waddington in low cloud and poor visibility.
Later he had no recollection of any part of the incident.
Kobelke was a tower of strength when we flew and a good influence on the ground. He would have been a close post war friend but was killed in an Air Force crash in Australia in 1948.
In January 463 Squadron lost eight aircraft with fifty three of the dedicated young aircrew being killed in action. Two survivors became prisoners of war which was about the usual survival rate. In addition one gunner died when his oxygen system failed above 20,000 feet.
This loss so early in the piece of nearly one third of my proud squadron, including twenty eight in one terrible night, devastated me. I worked longer hours than ever on tactics, training, battling for replacement crews and better aircraft. If I was not in my office, the operations room, crew room or the tower, or flying on operations or training I was keeping sane by drinking solidly. I wrote personal letters of condolence to the next of kin of each squadron member who was lost, trying to say something about each man, Even when I knew the men the letters were difficult, but much harder when they were lost within a day or so of reporting for duty.
The drinking (draught beer only — spirits were nearly unprocurable), the company in the bar and forgetting about the war was important therapy.
It was my experience that teetotallers, who were often alone when not flying, did not always handle the stress of operations very well.
On the night 30/31 January we lost four crews out of a small force of fourteen sent to Berlin. This was the heaviest loss in 5 group that night. We were the only and the first squadron with a new airborne radar to detect enemy aircraft approaching us. It was supposed to be superior to earlier equipment but I could only assume the Germans were aware of our transmitting frequencies and either jammed it or homed in on it with their own airborne detection equipment in their night fighters or both. Electronic warfare - the battle of the ‘Boffins’ - was already well established at that time and both sides were starting to chase each other up and down the radio frequencies.
In the midst of that terrible month I was able to sack the Adjutant. I don’t know what he thought he had to do, but he did nothing, and all the petty and serious administration and personnel problems fell on to my shoulders.
When things could not have been worse, I heard of an administrative officer, a flight lieutenant, who had just arrived in London. No one knew what to do with him. In fact no one seemed to want him as he did not fit the usual pattern of an Air Force Officer. He was a quiet and gentle sort of person.
He was Bill Hodge, now a Flight Lieutenant. When I had previously worked with him he had been Orderly Room Warrant Officer Hodge at Richmond Air Base Headquarters in NSW and I was Station Operations Officer. I knew that behind that gentle exterior there was a man of remarkable strength, ability and loyalty. I grabbed him and he saved my sanity and possibly saved my life because his presence enabled me to concentrate on operations.
Hodge took all administrative problems plus others on to his shoulders. He was approachable and I think all the Aircrew loved him. He died a few years ago, but when, out of the blue I mentioned his name at the 1997 463/467 reunion fifty two years after the war, there was spontaneous applause from everyone present.
With Hodge installed I now had a remarkably good squadron. Under the conditions we were operating a tremendous amount depended firstly on the Flight Commanders, Squadron Leaders Locke, Bill Brill and later Vowels, the Adjutant, the Crew Leaders for navigation, bombing, gunnery, engineering and wireless, and our wonderful ground staff who slaved outdoors in the worst weather to ensure we had the best possible aircraft.
The high morale and dedication of the air crew who had to go out and fight night after night, was of course a reflection of their own personalities and background. Nevertheless it was helped by the leadership and support that we were able to provide. 467 alongside was equally well led and good. With the high loss rate, the freezing cold and the stress of finding our base in bad weather and landing after a seven to nine hour flight it was no wonder that morale was a problem amongst some of the exhausted crews in the weaker squadrons. Martin Middlebrook, another English writer, commented on this matter in his book ‘The Berlin Raids’. After mentioning the Pathfinder force who ‘feeling themselves a selected elite held well’ he then added ‘the small number of Australian Squadrons - three out of the four
- were flying Lancasters - were also steady’. Praise from this quarter was praise indeed. Many misinformed English people did not really warm to Australian aircrew’s hi-jinks when not on duty.
My enduring memory of most of my aircrew is of young men who, between fighting and dying, lived wildly, played exuberantly and loved sometimes imprudently. Robert Louis Stevenson described them to a T.
“Let a young man voyage, speculate, see all that he can do, do all that he may; his soul has as many lives as a cat; he will live in all weathers, and never be a halfpenny the worse. It is as natural and as right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles as it is for old men to turn grey, or mothers to love their offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than their lives.”
Fortunately at that time we still had a shortage of serviceable aircraft, which meant a slight surplus of crews, but even six operations a month, which most of them flew, gave the squadron crews over a 25% to 35% chance of being shot down in that month. And six operations left another twenty four still left to be flown before the first tour of duty was completed. No wonder the survival rate that winter was less than one in twenty.
Germans weren’t the only enemy - the English weather was another serious foe, and I had good cause to know this.
According to my diary and logbook, on the 19th January, a day when operations were cancelled early and I had done the same to training so that everyone could have a rest day, I was telephoned. I was still in bed or not yet dressed and was told my aircraft needed a fuel consumption test. ‘Did I want to do it, and when?. As I was the pilot most involved if the fuel consumption was excessive I said, ‘yes and now’. I roused the crew. The next message came from the station armaments officer. He said the section had a very large 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) blast bomb. Double the weight of the normal 4,000 lb blast bomb - ‘the cookie’ that we normally carried. This bomb had not been flown or dropped before and required testing. 

It was a huge metal cylinder, flat at each end and naturally it was necessary to find out if it affected the handling characteristics of the Lancasters, its trajectory when dropped and what happened when it hit the ground. Would I take it on the fuel consumption test and drop it on the squadron bombing range in the Wash — made famous by King John early in 13th century - where the range observers would check its fall and impact.
I was most interested and asked him to have it loaded, telling him I would check the handling, do the drop as requested and then go on with the fuel consumption test.
It did not work out that way. Lincolnshire chancy weather decided it. Clear when we took off but within about ten minutes, when we were approaching the bombing range, the clouds closed right down to the water being dense up to above our bombing height. We still could have dropped the bomb out of the range area, the navigator’s Gee would give me a very accurate position but when I called the range by radio they requested the drop be cancelled as they could not observe the fall.
The armaments officer then requested by radio that the bomb be returned to Waddington as they only had one. Landing with this huge lump of high explosives was going to give the handling characteristics test a different aspect. Noticing the bad weather was racing inland towards the airfield we returned as soon as possible. But it got there first. With no beam approach (it was being serviced as flying had been cancelled) I tried to line up on the main runway in the murk. But when we broke the cloud at about 300 feet (lOOm) up we were pointing across the runway not along it and too low for the sluggish aircraft to be quickly manoeuvred to be lined up. So with full power we carried out overshoot procedure. As it happened we flew right across the control tower very close to their roof. Another attempt with the weather slightly worse also failed. By this time the people in the tower were becoming quite unfriendly, thinking of themselves, not me. They did not seem to like me staggering just above them on full overshoot power. On the third try, which I said to the nervous crew would be the last, we were even lower to the ground before we went around again, disturbing a flock of plovers which sensibly were not flying. They took off and flew up in mass in front of me just at the end of the runway. Full power again, and within seconds the Flight Engineer called out that the coolant temperature of one of the starboard engines was shooting upwards into the ‘Red’. We feathered the propeller and closed down the engine. It was then time to stop fooling around. In the heavy murk I asked Kobelke for a direct course to the ‘Wash’ and to tell me when we were over the centre. Precious or not the bomb was jettisoned and fell unobserved by the watchers in the range huts. They could observe only a few hundred feet in front of them and did not see it hit the water.
Then on three engines I called the tower people who were delighted to know I was not coming back and asked for a diversion. They were ready for me and said that Acklington near Newcastle in the north of England was the closest field still open.
Acklington was a quiet little base. It had a fighter squadron of some kind but I don’t think they had seen much action - the war had passed them by. The CO and Officers were a rather stuffy lot. They were not at all happy to have their peace disturbed by the heavy and dirty Lancaster.
On checking the engine we had nearly cooked we found four grilled plovers completely blocking the coolant radiator. Fairburn pulled them out, we tested the engine and it ran sweetly.
Not until then, when we took off our flying gear did I discover that I, and some of the other officers, were not wearing uniform jackets or ties, only pull-overs. This was not normal but it was a hurried flight when we were off duty and we expected to be in the air only a short time and then back in our quarters.
Going into the Officer’s Mess at Acklington being “improperly dressed”, we did upset the locals.
Next day the weather lifted at Waddington. We returned, checking the fuel consumption on the way, and that night took the same aircraft to Berlin. All of the engines behaved well.
On the 24 January I had my first break from duty since taking over the squadron when I took the Oxford and Kobelke to Leconfield where Lee Forsyth, whom I had last seen at Point Cook years before, and Alan McCormack were based. RAAF 462 and 466 Squadron were there. It was good to see McCormack again and he, Kobelke and I went out that evening and tried the beer in the local pubs. The next day we returned to Waddington.
The Oxford was a manoeuvrable, easy to fly, smallish twin engined training aircraft well equipped with radio, which belonged to the Squadron. I used it as my personal private aircraft. It was a luxury and as it was surplus to training requirements, it was one way Bomber Command could indulge the hard working squadron commanders. I used it whenever possible.
By mid January I had a good understanding of what was involved in commanding a heavy bomber squadron. Now, over fifty years later, I am still amazed at our efficiency and the organisation that we had behind all our activities and the expectations of us by higher authority.
I will start with Bomber Command itself.
Firstly, the fighting never stopped, so Bomber Command could and did call on the squadrons to attack the enemy at any time day or night (always at night after about 1941 and until D-Day in June 1944). The only respite being the weather or the time taken for aircraft and crews to recover when our losses were unusually high.
The Command’s area of operations was huge. Our role was to be ready at minimum notice to attack the enemy in the north in Norway to Italy or the Mediterranean coast of France in the south, or to Poland, Czechoslovakia or Eastern Germany on the other side of Europe. We carried everything from propaganda leaflets to armour piercing, blast and incendiary bombs, anti- shipping, anti-submarine mines and even resistance fighters to drop by parachute. There were two special squadrons whose sole role was to support the resistance movement in Europe. Brother Peter was shot down when he was flying with one of these squadrons.
The targets to be attacked were located and marked by Pathfinder Crews from special Pathfinder Squadrons which I have described earlier. The Pathfinders also provided a wind finding aircraft to fly a complex pattern adjacent to the target area before the main force arrived to determine the exact wind speed and direction at the bombing altitude which was radioed to the main force aircraft to set on their bomb sights. Without an accurate wind it was not possible to bomb accurately.
After each operation those missing or killed or injured, or who had finished their tour of operations, had to be replaced and their replacement crews interviewed and given any necessary final training before they were fit for any operation. Aircraft which did not return or were damaged required replacement or repair and testing before they could be available for the next operation. As Squadron Commander I never knew what resources I had from day to day and how many serviceable aircraft and complete crews I would have to meet demands.
Security about the target to be attacked and the route that we were to take over an enemy territory for our next operation was extremely tight and this data would not be released until briefing time just before take-off. Fuel and bomb loads varied substantially depending on the type of target and distance to be flown and the fuel reserves to be required if we were likely to be diverted on return to another part of England. This information was passed to the Squadrons before the target details were released. Bombing up the aircraft and fuelling them took a lot of time and manpower.
As the winter weather was so chancy, last minute changes in weather forecasts were quite frequent. Weather reconnaissance flights were made over Germany a few hours before we took off to get the latest information on the weather of the target area and out over the Atlantic to give the meteorological staff the very latest information so they could forecast what the weather would be like many hours later when we would be returning to England looking for our airfields.
A change in weather forecast usually meant a change in fuel and bomb loads. Taking off fuel and bombs was arduous and then the loading up had to be repeated. Take off times were therefore often altered at short notice, meaning changes in briefing times and meal times for a couple of hundred air crew.
It would have all been a management and administrative nightmare except for the highly developed systems at Squadron, Base and Group levels perfected by constant practice and adaptations, plus the dedication of everyone concerned.
First thing each morning I usually checked the weather forecast - I needed a rough indication of the likely outcome for the day. On the joyful mornings when we knew that operations were cancelled for the next 24 hours crew training or individual training exercises were laid on. Constant training was essential to refine our bombing, gunnery and navigation skills, to try new tactics and become accustomed to new equipment. To attack successfully and to survive the opposition of the German fighter force and the English weather, required peak performance. My crew and I also needed our share of refresher training and we flew as often as was possible. Otherwise I caught up with mounds of urgent paper work and found the time to keep in touch with the local 5 Group headquarters and other units. After three or four weeks solid pressure day and night without a break although not due for leave, I would do my best to justify a visit and get away in the Squadron’s Oxford.
If Operations were not cancelled we went into top gear. As early as possible Flight Commander’s reported to me their availability of crews and the Engineer Officer would report the number of serviceable aircraft. This sounds easy but if we had been operating the night before it was not. Often the last aircraft had landed sometime between say 3am and dawn. Apart from aircraft and crews lost there were injuries, the odd sickness by crew members and those lucky crews whose tour had expired and no longer required to fly on operations. Aircraft and replacements did not always arrive on time and we were often short of crews or aircraft and when they did turn up, we frequently found that some were not competent or ready for operations immediately and training to bring them up to speed was necessary. If enemy flak had been heavy and accurate there was aircraft damage to repair and there could be badly damaged aircraft, which had landed at the emergency airfields along the English coast on their return flight. Checking up on these, repairing them if possible and returning them to Waddington could take days.
All this was routine. Once Operations for the evening were definitely confirmed unessential communications in and out of the station were shutdown. All private telephone links to the outside world from officer’s messes and public phones were closed. This security was absolutely essential. Both sides had enemy agents on the other side. All our radio communications were monitored by the enemy. Fortunately their reconnaissance aircraft seldom were able to get over our fields in day time. Occasionally the Germans did get advice of the target we were to attack in the coming evening and they concentrated their guns and fighter squadrons accordingly. On one occasion it was a catastrophe for us.
It was essential they were unaware of our bombers destination until the last moment.
Most crews who were listed for Operations checked their aircraft, equipment and guns with a short test flight called an NFT as soon as possible during the day. Their success and their survival in the coming evening would depend on everyone in the crew and everything in the aircraft working at maximum efficiency.
I seldom had time to carry out this NFT but I knew that the crew would check, on the ground, every piece of equipment as far as possible.
Next on the programme was the Flight Planning Conference. Squadron Commanders, the Base Commander and Base Intelligence Officer would meet in Waddington Operations Room and we would have a telephone link up with loud speaker attachments with Group Headquarters and all other Bases operating on the same target that night. The target was announced and all the essential aspects of weather, fuel, bomb load and types, suggested route (never straight into or straight out) to the target, the bombing heights, the strength of the enemy forces would be thoroughly thrashed out and agreed on. Then the intricacies of the target marking by the Pathfinders would be suggested and agreed. What colours would go down on the target, what were the backup if the first ones were inaccurate, whether the marking would be on the target or offset and by how much. And finally the name of the Master Bomber or Controller who would be over the target and controlling the entire operation. If necessary delaying or halting the bombing or instructing the Pathfinders to mark again. There was only a handful of Master Bombers. We knew their names and voices. This was important. The Master Bomber exercised control by radio in clear English - there was no time for any fancy codes that may confuse the enemy - in the high-speed action of the attack this would only confuse us also. By knowing his voice bomber pilots could tell if German ring-ins tried to give false information or instructions. They would be quickly recognised.
Working backwards from time over target, take off times were calculated, bomb and fuel loads were confirmed or altered and Flight Commanders, engineering, the transport section, the control tower and the kitchens all advised.
Navigation leaders and bombing leaders called meetings of their navigators and bomb aimers to hand Out appropriate route maps, target maps details and wind information.
Gunners loaded the ammunition trains of their guns to comply with the mix of ammunition as determined by the Gunnery Leader or to suit their own preferences. It could be ball, armour piercing, incendiary, explosive and of course tracer or usually a mixture of several.
Some aircrew found time to write letters to wives or next of kin. A few did so because of a premonition that they may not return and this was too often true.
I never had time to think about the outcome of a forthcoming operation, let alone write.
Time to eat a substantial meal was essential. The aircrew had been flat out all day and had eight to ten hours demanding, constantly alert, flight time plus ground time ahead. Maybe facing escape from a crashed aircraft. Rare delicacies like bacon and eggs were produced plus precious cans of orange juice to drink on the return flight. High altitude and those terse moments of terror are very dehydrating.
All crews then met in the crew room, each crew with its Captain, where I first briefed them on the target, the tactics and all the essential details that they required. The Intelligence Officer who had all the latest details of the German defences en route and over the target then gave them a briefing. Exact take off times and times over the target, which were staggered over about ten minutes were emphasised. Exact coordination of the main force and the Pathfinder force required good timing. So far crews were still dressed in their normal uniform but after briefing we went straight to our lockers and put on flying overalls. We already were wearing warm underwear in winter and our flying boots. We collected gloves, helmets, parachutes, Mae West inflatable life vest, inflatable dinghy which, for the pilot sat on top of the seat type parachute, our escape kit which contained appropriate used bank notes of the countries over which we were flying, Benzedrine tablets to speed us up if we got on to the ground alive, chocolate and other concentrated energy food, forged German food coupons, silk maps, a compass, photos taken in civilian clothes for forged papers and water purif tablets, also our lucky charms. Then into the bus to the aircraft dispersal area a mile or so away where the aircraft and ground crew were waiting.
My lucky charms, which justified themselves by their excellent results, were an American Dollar Bill and an Australian ten shilling note signed by all my friends in a bar at Bairnsdale in Victoria in 1942. Also an old peaked cap. I carried these on every operation and the two lucky notes have been in my wallet ever since, although fifty six years later they need plastic wrap to hold them together.
Then a word or two with the ground crew, an external check of the aircraft by the Captain and Flight Engineer, and a quick nervous pee, usually on the tail wheel for luck. Watching the time, the engines were started on the dot and we moved out to the runway and our take off roll on a green signal from the traffic controllers van at the end of the runway. Strict radio silence was maintained before take off and until we were in enemy air space.
So much to do. Never the same as before, and maybe six hours or so from notification of the target from Group Head Quarters until several hundred Lancasters from 5 Group Bases were in the air loaded with thousands of tons of bombs and a great mass of detailed work accomplished.
It was good management training for me.
If I was not flying I drove around the dispersal points and spoke to as many crews as possible, watched the take offs, then went to the control tower where I stayed until they were all well on their way. The mess was usually my next stop for a meal and a drink or two and back to the tower to await their return. This was the most stressful part of the entire operations. Waiting and waiting for crews who never returned. It was the very worst part of the war for me. I knew by their fuel load the time they should be landing. If they had not called Waddington we started phoning the emergency landing grounds or the Air Observer Corps, sometimes receiving good news or bad, but mainly nothing. On the odd occasion they had struggled back to England and landed on the emergency fields along the coast but mainly they just vanished. Shot down somewhere and quite often the men and their machines unidentifiable. Aircrew from Waddington still lie in unknown graves all over Europe.
Even when I was flying, as we came within radio range of Waddington I started to tick off the names of the 463 people as they called up for landing instructions. As soon as I was debriefed from the Intelligence Officer after landing I went to the tower and once again waited.
The procedures outlined above describe the order of events when everything went smoothly. But things did not always go smoothly. The changes in weather could delay flight planning or even change the target. Briefings and take off times could be delayed and then sometimes cancelled altogether. After hours of intense pressure and chopping and changing we might take off when I was already tired or because we were running out of time the operation would be cancelled altogether, adding to our frustration but at least giving relief to the enemy.
My logbook and the Squadron history list the various targets my crew and the squadron attacked.
Operations were reduced in February 1944 due to the weather and only five raids were made. Each one to the industrial heart land of Germany. Nevertheless 463 Squadron lost 4 aircraft with 23 killed in action and 5 taken prisoner. We always took off despite the weather, one night at I l.3Opm after all hands had been shovelling snow off the runways during the day. By the time the crews had been driven to their aircraft we had a fill scale blizzard.
When the snow commenced I thought, as it was a fairly regular winter occurrence in Lincolnshire, the RAF would have been well equipped to handle it. I Was wrong. They needed manpower as well as their puny snow ploughs and if there was no flying, the air crew were the most readily available.
Despite the long trips in freezing weather, the German fighter attacks which were wearing us down, and the depressing awful climate all over England, morale remained high. Nevertheless I remember the relief, the reprieve one night when we were strapped in to our places and ready to start our engines to taxi out for take off on another raid to Berlin, the operation was cancelled. Everyone felt the same and there was a wild party in the mess and some keen types, determined we would have some action, exploded thunder flashes and put signal cartridges in the fire. The whole building was rocked with the explosions, green and red smoke poured out of the doors. The alcohol seemed to prevent smoke suffocation, It was the one time I remember the Station Commander and Station Administration Officer, who outranked me, showed their displeasure. As President of the mess I suppose I should have dampened it but my need to celebrate for being saved for another day was as great as all the others.
Early in March we had a welcome change and flew to the south of France to attack and to destroy the factory making aircraft for the Luftwaffe at Marignane on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille. I carried one of the 8,000 lb high capacity bombs I had attempted to test earlier and some smaller bombs. Others carried a mixture, of 1,000 lb general purpose and incendiary bombs. I do not remember seeing any air attacks and only mild anti-aircraft gun fire as we crossed the coast going in and out of France.
Although the south of France was under the control of the Petain-led Vichy Government which was more pro German than the Germans it was heartening seeing all the torches being flashed at us, some signalling Morse code from the courtyards and the gardens of French homes.
It was a long flight and by the time we returned to England, Waddington and all the east of the country was clamped down due to the weather and we were diverted to Predannock in Cornwall where a Polish squadron was located. We were all running short of fuel, and the control tower could not cope with so many aircraft calling at once. It was a shambles but the pilots sorted out landing sequences amongst themselves and we all got down.
My back had been hurting over the previous few months due to being strapped down very tightly onto the dinghy pack. No matter how much I squirmed the metal compressed gas bottle in the pack located itself right under my tail bone and after a few hours it could be agony, particularly in the very cold. Usually as soon as convenient after landing I moved around as much as possible to loosen up and when it was bad, a hot bath or shower before bed.
Although the Marignane flight was the longest so far - over nine hours - and my back was stiff and sore there was no time (or possibly facilities) for a shower or rest at Predannock. The aircraft had to be refuelled and the return to Waddington organised. After two and a half-hours on the ground we took off for home base, the weather having improved, and returned after with another two hour flight.
On return, during the debriefing, “Doc” Hawarth, the MO, spoke to me about my back and said I should have bed rest until it improved.
For the hard worked aircrew to know the CO had gone to bed when we were suffering heavy losses was just not acceptable but as the crew and I were due for a weeks leave - my first since the squadron was formed - the Doc agreed he would be happy if we went away from the Station providing that I did not get into the air for a full week.
So four of us set off for the Lakes District the next day in Procter’s car, a baby Austin. We were cramped but we had frequent refreshment stops so did not mind.
With no time to plan our route we stopped by chance at friendly little pubs with primitive facilities — the coal actually was stored in the only bath in a 24 bedroom pub in Doncaster. Wherever we went the kindness and sheer goodness of the publicans made up for any physical discomfort. In the only elegant place, a near empty resort hotel by Lake Windermere we taught the locals to play Two Up. They caught on quickly and cleaned us out of our spare cash by midnight.
Back on duty on 18 March. A trip to Frankfurt, another to Berlin and then at the end of the month the squadron sent eighteen Lancasters on the botched raid on Nurenburg when Bomber Command was massacred, losing ninety five aircraft, over 12% of the force and 545 men, more than were lost in Fighter Command throughout the whole of the Battle of Britain. 463 lost none. We were lucky or maybe my tactics of flying straight level and gaining height were being accepted by the pilots.
The weather along the route was as forecast and the raid should never have gone ahead. A long straight in track nearly all the way to the target in bright moonlight and clear skies, most bombers leaving four clear vapour trails. Over the target there was thick cloud and the marking and bombing were ineffective.
Gaining an extra 1,000 feet or more above the majority of aircraft we were higher than the vapour trial level and left none. Lancasters were exploding in great balls of red flames all around us. I told the crew not to waste precious seconds looking at them and to search only for enemy fighters coming close enough to engage us. And we had no combats.
In late February, March and early April 1944 Sam Balmer who was still commanding 467 Squadron and I noticed the supply of reinforcement crews was drying up. Yet in the month 463 had lost twenty one aircrew due to enemy action. Another twenty one who had survived to the end of their tour of operations were posted away and still more, seven from one of our best crews, were posted to a Pathfinder Squadron. The loss of these people without adequate replacements was a heavy blow to the Squadron.
Under pressure always to put the maximum number of aircraft into the air, particularly for each German raid, I needed some surplus crews so that badly fatigued people could be given a rest or new crews thoroughly trained before going into battle. With reinforcements drying up I had to detail people for operations who should have stayed on the ground.
It was Balmer’s assessment and mine that this led to increased casualties on what should have been slightly easier operations, and our casualties were higher than being experienced in other Squadrons. At the same time we noticed that nearby RAF Squadrons were not suffering the same air crew shortages as we were. What was worse, their replacement crews included Australians we felt should have been coming to Waddington. Inquiries up the RAF chain of command gave inconclusive and vague answers to our problems.
Balmer could get no sense either, so I obtained forty eight hours special leave on 9th April and went to London via I-lunsdon, as usual in the Squadron Oxford. Then Kath Franklin drove me to her home in Ware. (Kath was Sam’s sister - an Australian Doctor practising in England - and we were old friends). By train from Ware to London, only a short trip, and my diary for 10th April reports ‘Went to Kodak House (the London administrative headquarters for the RAAF). Then came straight back. Saw Geoff Harinell andA. VM Wrigley. Didn’t achieve muchY
What the entry meant was that I saw Air Vice Marshal Wrigley, and Group Captain Hartnell his Senior Air Staff Officer and complained strongly about the worsening situation in the Waddington RAAF Squadrons. Neither Wrigley nor Hartnell would commit themselves to doing anything and I left London bitterly disappointed.
I flew back to Waddington on the 11th April arriving just in time to brief the Squadron and my crew to attack German factories at Aachen. Fortunately it was a short and uneventful trip for us, although other Squadrons lost aircraft. The Squadron flew ten operations in April as D Day (Invasion of Europe Day) was getting closer. Our targets included railway focal points as well as industry. The railway system in France was essential to the Germans for the movement of their armoured divisions to any invasion location. One attack was on the Juvisy railway yards in Paris. We went in fairly low, took our time, and the next day’s photos by the reconnaissance aircraft showed the bombing was the most accurate yet achieved. We lost another two crews that month, from enemy action and another whose tour expired. The shortage was really hurting us.
On 13th April I visited No 5 Group RAF Headquarters about 10 ten miles away to dig deeper into the mystery of our crew shortages and talked to Wing Commander Keith Sinclair, the Staff Officer Operations. Keith was an Australian in the RAF. He later became a good friend and in due course held the position of Editor of the Melbourne Age newspaper.
In confidence Keith showed me a letter from Bomber Command Headquarters enclosing a petulant message from the English Government. It complained about the Australian Government’s new insistence that RAAF Bomber Crews who had served a tour of Operations in England should return to Australia to crew the new four engine American Liberator Bombers the RAAF was then acquiring for operations against the Japanese. The letter stated that Bomber Command had planned to obtain another tour of operations from these people and their return to Australia would therefore cause some shortages. It went on to say that the shortages were to in no way affect RAF Squadrons. These were to be kept to fill strength by being given Australian reinforcements who would have come to 463 and 467 Squadrons.
The letter also pointed out that Australia had agreed Australian crews would spend two years under RAF command and that repatriating some before the two years was breaking the agreement. That the agreement had been signed before Japan attacked us, was ignored. That England had failed us in Singapore and seriously misled us about its military capability before the Japanese attacked, was also ignored.
Having a suspicious mind I suspected the British aircraft industry also may have had a hand in this. I know they were strongly opposed to the Australians using American aircraft and would not have hesitated to pull strings to delay the crewing of the RAAF’s heavy bomber squadrons in the Pacific theatre, until Lancasters could be made available.
There was other correspondence enlarging on the above. My diary entry which as always when dealing with Operational or inter service matters was brief, stated ‘Went to H/Q 5 Group and talked to people and saw some letters and become very mad’
I was furious. With my own Government as well as the English. I could understand Churchill’s motives. He had to deal with the English voters and would do everything possible to minimise English losses even if it meant making the Australians suffer. It was my own Government, which handed over the power of life and death of Australians to another country, that upset me.
Kodak House was not left off the hook and Balmer and I let Wrigley and company know how we felt. Their response was fairly quick and on the 16th April Wrigley, Hartnell and Group Captain Edgar, the Senior Administrative Staff Officer, visited us. They were now taking our appalling situation seriously and things started to move after they returned to London.
Next I received a message that Mr Stanley Bruce, the Australian High Commissioner in London, would be arriving by car on April 20th and requested accommodation that night. He was coming with only a driver to find out for himself what was going on.
The day before his arrival - the l9’ April 1944 - was the day I became a Republican. Actually the word ‘Republican’ did not come into my mind then. What I decided was that Australia should leave the British Empire and cease its subservient role of ‘Dominion’ as soon as the war was over.
This was bought about when the Waddington RAF Station Commander Group Captain David Bonham - Carter, a delightful but eccentric man, approached me most shamefacedly saying ‘Rollo, we would like you to contact your High Commissioner and ask him to cancel his visit’. On asking why, I was told it would be “inconvenient” and his only explanation, which was extremely lame, was that there was no spare accommodation in the Officers Mess for the High Commissioner. At that time I was the Mess President, I knew there was accommodation and Bonham-Carter knew that I knew. So he squirmed when he had to relay such a message to me.
The situation confronting me therefore, was that an ex Australian Prime Minister, the High Commissioner of Australia, England’s first ally in the war and noted Anglophile was to be told it was inconvenient for him to visit two Australian Air Force Squadrons fighting for England and suffering grievous losses.
I could stomach the letter I had seen in 5 Group Headquarters but not this put down of Australia, our representatives in England and my men. I was further annoyed by the knowledge that the Churchill Government was bending over backwards to praise and be nice to the few remnants of European Forces that were in England. These people were brave but weak allies. They were treated this way firstly because they were European and secondly they came from independent sovereign governments. On the other hand Australians were still Colonials.
I have forgotten how I passed Bonham-Carter’s message to the High Commissioner but he came on schedule regardless.
At the time my living quarters were relatively roomy and comfortable. I had the large main bedroom in the second largest house of the pre-war married officers quarters of the station. I met Mr Bruce on his arrival and offered him my room. He asked me where I would sleep and I replied that as the Squadron would be flying that night I would be up for most of the time and I would rest on the very comfortable arm chair in my room.
I had thought of Bruce as rather a stuffy and pompous old chap so I will always remember his response, which was ‘Wing Commander, you need every bit of sleep you can obtain. You’ll take the bed, I’ll have the arm chair.’
In the end this did not come about. The farce was too much for Bonham-Carter to tolerate. Despite whatever instructions he had received to the contrary he was a gentleman and made Bruce welcome and provided him with appropriate accommodation for the night.
I cannot recollect what happened about the crew situation for the next few days as our rate of flying operations was increasing and I had too many other things to worry about. My first break from the non stop activities was early in May by Oxford to Cambridge, when our Navigator Norman Kobelke married an English girl and Darrell Procter, the rear gunner, made a hit with the bridesmaids. Procter had a way with women.
I must add a few lines about David Bonham-Carter. He was an irreverent, lovable and exasperating upper class Englishman from the Bonham-Carter family of politicians. Bonham, as he was known, had been a RAF test pilot, and a good one, many years before. He was now out of condition, stone deaf but still flew, frightening the unfortunates who had to fly with him and horrifying the Control Tower WAAF operators, whom he completely ignored.
He enriched my life with many stories. One was how to go about buying a new Rolls Royce car.
“It’s no good Rollo going into the Rolls salesroom in Berkeley Square (a very superior place) dressed up in your best suit looking like a pox doctor’s clerk (?). You will be ignored by the snobbish salesmen with experienced disdain. Dress in your gardener’s old work clothes. You will immediately be recognised as a rich aristocrat, an excellent prospect, and they (the staff) will be at your feet.”
As I said, Bonham and his family enriched my life.
On May 8th 1 was in London and had lunch with A.V.M. Wrigley who told me that Mr Curtin, our Prime Minister, was on his way to England and would visit Waddington.
The next night I flew to Lille in France to destroy railway yards and a railway junction. This was a continuation of the campaign to destroy transportation systems the Germans would need so desperately when the allied invasion forces landed in France the following month.
It was to be a short flight and I thought it would be simple but I could not have been more wrong. I remember it well because in one gut wrenching moment I was fighting for our lives. Like many air combats it happened in a flash. I was too busy reacting to be scared and as too often, a second blow came right on top of the first.
Although our usual bombing height over Germany was about 20,000 feet this target was in a French city. It was absolutely essential that our bombing be accurate so we went in at 7,000 feet (2,1OOm), fairly low for a heavy bomber force.
To our surprise the city was ringed by anti-aircraft batteries and search lights plus more than the expected number of night fighters in and out of the target.
It was another of those occasions when shells were bursting so close you could smell the cordite. We did not smell the one that hit us.
Just at the moment our bombs were released the flight engineer called out ‘Starboard Outer Engine on fire’. Fire in the air was the happening that I feared the most. A Lancaster burned quickly and after a fire started it could only be a second or two before the fuel tanks exploded and of course if it still had bombs in the bomb bay the aircraft went up with a terrific explosion and none of the crew had time to get out.
I immediately ordered him to feather the engine that was on fire and I closed the throttle. “Feathering” the engine meant operating the switch on the flight engineers panel that quickly feathered the blades of the propeller so that they faced fore and aft, parallel with the slip stream over them and that stopped the engine from rotating. When an engine was on fire and the propeller was rotating it kept its fuel pumps operating and pumping fuel out onto the flames. Stopping the engine was essential. I later found that the engine was not in fact on fire. Shrapnel had burst a pipe in the coolant system and glycol the coolant used in the engine was being pumped into the atmosphere leaving a distinctive clear white trail which reflected all the light from the action in the air and on the ground below us. We could not be missed. About five search lights or may be more, immediately swung on us when we were in the centre of a cone of light. The anti-aircraft guns were next.
Then I noticed that in the excitement there was a communication foul up and the wrong engine was feathered - the starboard inner engine. The damaged starboard outer engine was still windmilling although I had closed the throttle and it was still pumping out the white stream. Stopping the tell tale trail of vapour and getting out of the cone of light were my immediate priorities but we had lost the power from both engines on the starboard side and one was wind milling which added to the drag.
We had to get away from the searchlights and the guns and with only half our normal power and extra drag I could only gain enough speed for the usual violent evasive action by trading away height. We dived. Almost to ground level where the searchlights and flak lost us. At the same time the Engineer got my message and stopped the engine, which was pumping out the vapour and unfeathered the engine stopped by mistake. Un-feathering does not happen quickly, it takes a fair amount of time, (my hon. Editor asked “how long is a “fair amount of time”?” — the answer is “far too long”). As I needed that engine it seemed ages.
As we dropped out of the sky the heavy flak no longer followed us. The light flak gunners, who were no doubt waiting for this opportunity, then started. Fortunately they were to one side of us, requiring a fair amount of defection on their part, and their tracer rounds were well behind us. I could not see it but the rear gunner admired the show.
Eventually we got three engines running which is quite adequate for a Lancaster without its bombs and we returned to base safely. Our total flying time was only 3 hrs 20 mins.
Nevertheless we were lucky to get back because 463 Squadron lost three aircraft out of fourteen dispatched with twenty one air crew killed and our sister Australian Squadron No 467 lost four out of seventeen.
The incident showed how, in a millisecond, a very dangerous activity could be magnified into a horribly dangerous one. With flak it all depended on luck. A few centimetres to one side the shrapnel would have missed. About 30 centimetres to the other it would have been in the fuel tank followed by the fire. About two seconds earlier and into the bomb bay before the bombs were released we could expect the massive blast, the ball of red flame and seven crew members immediately becoming lumps of charred flesh.
On the 19th May 1944 Australian Prime Minister Curtin accompanied by Wrigley and a few others visited Waddington where the red carpet was rolled out.
Although not a Labour supporter I had voted for Curtin in the 1943 election when, despite the war and being overseas, all Australians in England received ballot papers and had the opportunity to vote. This rather surprised the RAF as the UK optional voting system was a very casual affair.
Seen from afar the political fighting in Australia between the UAP, now the Liberals, and the Country Party, now the National Party, and the attacks on Menzies by his own party convinced me that the conservative parties would be unable to give Australia effective government and their leader, whoever he may be, would be unable to provide real leadership in the stress of war. And events proved that the voters were correct and Curtin became an outstanding war time Prime Minister yet he belonged to a Party which had habitually mistrusted the military and he had been goaled for anti- conscription activities in World War 1.
Curtin responsibilities for the defence of Australia were unbelievable by today’s standards. Although the nation was in great peril almost all our fighting forces were far away under the control of Britain and Churchill was in no hurry to release them. Neither Churchill or his top Military staff could understand Curtin’s preoccupation with the defence of Australia at a time when, in their blinkered minds, he should have been giving priority to global strategy. Artie Fadden the Country Party leader who was Acting Prime Minister before Curtin took over said “he (Curtin) was a man of unusual political courage .... there was no greater figure in Australian public life in my lifetime ... he was clear in mind and expression, firm in principle”
I can not pretend that Curtin hurried to England because of my complaints about our aircrew reinforcements being high-jacked by the UK. It had a lot to do with the overall dissatisfaction by the Australian Government with the conduct of the war by England and with Churchill’s misuse of Australian Army, Navy and Air Force personnel under his government’s control short sightedly placed there by Menzies early in the war.
The Squadron operated the night the Prime Minister visited us so I could not fly. Despite Waddington being at war that night the RAF and RAAF turned on an official mess dinner for him. Regretfully few Squadron people were present but there were plenty of V.I.P’s.
As Mess President I was host with Curtin on my right, Bonham-Carter on my left and Wrigley sitting opposite. During the dinner a messenger came in and gave Bonham-Carter a note. He then scribbled something on the back of his place card and passed it behind my back to the PM who read it and then asked me if he could make a short announcement. I stood up and requested everybody’s attention for the PM who said ‘I am delighted to announce that my host Wing Commander Kingsford-Smith has just been given the immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.’ This was a complete surprise to me and my obvious embarrassment was a topic of comment later on.
To my regret Sam Balmer was not at the dinner. He was killed a week before on a supposed easy operation on which he should not have flown. I had begged him not to fly, as the day before he had been promoted to Group Captain and posted away from the Squadron. To fly when it was not your duty, when you had doubly discharged your duties was challenging fate too much and his aircraft was the only one shot down of the hundred or so the flew on that target. I felt his death more than any others. From 1940 he had taught me so much about flying, he was the perfect wartime pilot although a rascal on the ground. I missed his phone calls in the middle of the night ‘Smithy Jam at such and such a place and I have afew problems, could you come and get me’.
Curtin saw the Squadron take off for the raid and wanted to see them return but Was unable to do so as bad weather closed Waddington and they were diverted to other air fields. He spoke to as many of the troops as possible. His visit was a success.
After he left, our reinforcements began to flow in again.
The tempo of operations increased in May, the Squadron flew thirteen operations attacking the French railway systems, the German Army in France and Belgium. Germany itself was not forgotten. 463 Squadron lost six aircraft in action in May with forty aircrew killed in action. A quarter of our strength. Two who were shot down evaded capture and thanks entirely to the French Underground, finally reached either neutral Switzerland or Spain.
As D Day approached pressures from all quarters increased and I could not have coped with the operational and administrative load if it had not been for the efficiency and hard work of Bill Hodges and the flight commanders. It was obvious that we may soon be flying more short flights, possibly in daylight, of a tactical nature. So I began training exercises for the Squadron in daylight formation bombing and air to air daylight combat manoeuvres. The RKS crew also had their share of flying training and the testing of new equipment.
We kept up the pressure on Germany and made what I considered a clumsy raid on a very well protected site at Duisburg in the Rhur heavy industrial area. Later reports showed that the raid was successful due no doubt to the fact that we milled around for quite a time before satisfactory and complicated sky markers were put down by the Pathfinders. We lost two crews, all killed and I doubted during the operation whether my crew and I would survive that trip. As it was Kobelke’s and Dai Rees’s last trip of their second tour of operations I expected it to be an unlucky trip. But we got back.
Our heavy losses over this period were largely due to the increased effectiveness of the German defences, particularly their night fighters which were superbly armed with at least about ten times the Lancaster’s fire power, much improved tactics and good air borne radar. Our losses went up also as a result of the development and introduction of improved and more accurate bombing procedures in the 5 Group Squadrons. This meant that more bombs fell on the target and less were wasted but it exposed us to enemy fire for longer periods.
Now and then I read newspapers reports of our bombers often being wide of the targets and scattering our bombs everywhere This did not happen over the countries under German military occupation and as an example of our procedures I copy some extracts from a few summaries of reports made by the squadron intelligence officers after the usual meticulous debriefing session we went through as soon possible after landing. These reports werestandard procedure on all operations.
3/4-5-44 German military camp France. ‘The marking was good and the Controller, Wing CDR Cheshire, ordered the force to bomb. 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped accurately, 114 barrack buildings were hit, some ammunition dumps and 37 tanks destroyed.’
11/12-5-44 German military camp Belgium
‘Only 94 air craft had bombed when the Controller ordered the raid abandoned because dust and smoke obscured the target and there was risk to near by civilian population’
19/20-5-44
Railway yards in the centre of Tours France
‘The attack had to be confined to the rail yards and the Master Bomber kept the force waiting after each wave until he was satisfied that no damage was done to the French part of the town’
24/25-5-44
Eindhoven Radio Factory in Holland
‘Because of very bad visibility the Master Bomber ordered the force to return without bombing’. (R K-S Note:
The force would have milled around for quite some time hoping the visibility might improve before the raid was finally cancelled. During this time we were of course exposed to fighter attack.

27/28-5-44 Railway junction Nantes
‘The first 50 bombed so accurately that the Master Bomber ordered the remainder of the force to bring their bombs home.’
In May with my tour of duty coming to an end I expected, if I completed it, to be posted as chief instructor of one of the larger bomber flying training schools nearby. I did not want this. I had done my stint of training. Asking around I heard there was a squadron commander vacancy at Tempsford, half an hours flying away, where two hush hush special duties long range RAF squadrons No’s 138 and 161 were based (see bibliography). Their sole role was to provide support to the resistance fighters waging the underground war against the German armies of occupation all over Europe. Their activities intrigued me. They flew alone wherever needed, dropping by parachute people, arms, ammunition, radios, food whatever. Even landing at times in remote fields to pick up agents. Peter KS had been in 138 Squadron and had been shot down the year before on a mission near Lyon, dropping agents plus containers of supplies.
So I had special interest in Tempsford and flew there to see the station Commander immediately I heard the news, armed with an introduction from 53 Base Commander Air Commodore Hesketh. But I was about an hour too late. The job had been given to another Wing Commander just before I arrived.
In June I heard more and more accounts, about the masses of allied troops, guns and tanks building up in the south of England. It was obvious a very substantial army operation would soon begin but I was too busy with my own war even to think about the Army’s activities let alone fmd out any more details.
On the evening 5th June the Operation Order coming through on our teleprinter began: “Mainforce aircraft from No 53 Base (included
Waddington) will attack.” “Objective to destroy enemy gun positions at 4.SOam 6th June.”
The location given in the operation order was on the Normandy coast and to me it meant that allied forces could be landing there immediately after we had finished with the enemy gun battery. I said, “could be landing” because the weather forecast for the English Channel for the 6th was terrible and it seemed quite unsuitable for the small craft the invasion forces would be using.
For the first time I kept a copy of the Operation Order and a few years ago I gave it to the Australian War Memorial Museum in an endeavour to educate the staff there about the Australian Bomber Squadron roles in the war in Europe. As the Australian Army and Navy were not involved in the D Day invasion it seemed to be generally accepted that there were no Australian Forces involved at all.
I still have another copy of that copy of the D Day order. I now wish I had kept copies of all the others.
We took off at about 2am on June 6th. Had a leisurely flight down England to the south coast and across the Channel to the Normandy coast flying between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. There was low cloud most of the way but it started to break up as we approached France. I still did not know whether the Allied Forces would land but about 5 miles (8kms) out from the coast, when I could just discern the dark grey surface of the sea beneath in the early twilight, the fleet of invasion barges right below opened their throttles for the dash to the beach. It was too dark for me to see the boats but their increased speed made white wakes and these showed up clearly. I knew it was on.
Some of the wakes incidentally were all over the place. There must have been a few collisions down at that level.
Undoubtedly it was the most thrilling and emotional experience for me in all the years of the war. Until that moment Bomber Command had alone been taking the war to the Germans. For all I knew it would continue on and on until my crew and I finally joined the killed-in-action list. A massive army on the continent meant it was not unreasonable to think that the war might finish and I might get to see Grace and Sue again.
The enemy gun battery was at Pointe Du Hoc, a high point surrounded by cliffs overlooking the beach code named ‘Omaha’. In my mind this attack would be about the most important my squadron had ever made and we were all determined it would succeed. The battery was well marked by the Pathfinders and from a relatively low height, about 6,500 feet, we all took our time, each aircraft dropping 13,000 lbs of bombs. The whole Pointe was battered, the battery was completely destroyed including its concrete bunkers. Even a part of the cliff tumbled into the sea.
US soldiers, who about two hours later (had they been on time they would have seen and heard us), scaled the cliff to attack and silence the guns not knowing of our attack, reported the shambles of shattered concrete and steel they saw when the reached the top. Fifty years later photos still show the Pointe pock marked with the large craters.
To my dismay the RAAF history of Australian Bomber Command Squadrons published in the 1990’s states that 463 Squadron missed the target at Pointe Du Hoc. The article was not checked with me before publication or with anyone else who flew that day. It completely ignored the copy of the Operation Order I had given to the War Memorial about two years previously. It seemed that the writer had not done his research and confused Pointe Du Hoc with another gun battery about 60 kms. away, which we were never supposed to attack and we did not. I complained loudly and have since received a personal written apology from the Chief of Air Staff. But the history has not been withdrawn from sale as I requested.
On the first day after the English, Canadian and American Armies had landed, their foothold on French soil w