The Night-War
Towns and countryside in darkness, repairing bombers for another night raid over Germany, many shot down, others crash-land in sudden explosions of fire, a night-war with no end in sight, young men far from home, and a fragment...
To live in Yorkshire in the 1940s was extraordinary - dangerous, exciting, unpredictable - like nothing before or since in this country, with thousands of young men, many foreigners, busy about the business of living and dying in the Night-War. I was shocked to discover the scale and ferocity of what went on, at home as well as over enemy territory...
Chapter 1
Bomber Boys
And boys they were, boys and young men, in their thousands, with barely a few hours training doing something never done before - taking huge new aircraft loaded with explosives into the night skies to find their way across sea and land to Germany, and then find their way back in the darkness - hopefully. Night after night, across blacked-out countryside to enemy territory, barely any navigational aids initially, through rain, wind and sub-zero temperatures, to be met by searchlights, flak and enemy fighters. The casualty rate of aircrew and aircraft was appalling, not just once, but for years. As a final horror, the lucky survivors might crash-land their damaged planes on the return.
The aircraft were new, of a complexity and size never used before, flying them such distances and at night had never been done before, the tactics and the sheer number of planes flying through the darkness together - often over a thousand - had never been done before. This went on year after year. On every night's operation each man knew that even if he survived some of his friends would surely be killed. From teenage aircrew to ground commanders some not much older, they conducted the night bombing campaign of the Second World War, which was one hell of a 'first'.
And for many, just hell. It was only young men who could have endured such experiences night after night for five years. With blind courage, and surely with a fatalism as so much that decided if they lived or died was beyond their control. Some survived.
There was no institutional knowledge backing up what these young men were expected to do; some older senior officers may have had flying experience over 20 years earlier in the First World War, but that was very different - biplanes with one or two-man crews, flying short distances at low altitudes, mostly reconaissance missions. Thorough training can give confidence in performing a new task, but aircrew had little training, the roles of navigator, radio operator and bomb aimer had not been properly established. Nothing about their 'working environment' gave strength and confidence to aircrew: temperatures were many degrees subzero, despite bulky clothing which hampered movement in the cramped fuselages (unpressurised so oxygen masks had to be worn; all the bombers were drafty, without effective heating. The early, two-engined bombers were limited in speed and height; newer four-engined bombers flew higher, faster and further but were less manoeuvrable. They all had little effective defence against attack by fighters, and none against flak. Aircrew knew they were sitting ducks, there was little they could do to improve their chances of survival.
The bomber squadrons flew from first day of the Second World War in 1939 until the last day in 1945, over a third of a million sorties, nearly 9,000 aircraft destroyed by enemy defences or lost in accidents, over 50,000 airmen killed, men from the UK and every Empire and Allied country, plus the many taken prisoner of war and/or wounded.
Just the Canadian casualties included 13,589 airmen killed, 1,889 listed as missing, 2,290 taken PoW, 3,054 injured or wounded. They were lost from the 131,000 aircrew Canada contributed to Britain's war effort, and they were all volunteers, not conscripted, young men regarded as the best of that Canadian generation.
Chapter 2
Canada
The many countries of the British Empire joined the 1939-45 war effort in large numbers; there was a deep-seated loyalty to the 'parent' or mother-country that seems surprising today. The so-called Dominions, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, were the biggest contributors to the Allied forces fighting Germany until the United States of America entered the war. Pilots and others who had escaped from Poland, France and other countries over-run by Germany also joined Britain's war effort, serving in Royal Aur Force squadrons.
Canada's involvement was substantial and generous, in money, material and men. The army element started early in the war, with Canadian regiments involved in the British Expeditionary Force and the famous 'small boats' rescue of its survivors from the Dunkirk beaches in May 194o. Canadian regiments were chosen for the ill-fated attempt to capture Dieppe in 1942, where less than half of nearly 5,000 Canadian troops got back to Britain.
The bomber element of Canada's war effort was slower to evolve. Canadian airmen were included in some RAF fighter squadrons from the early days.
There were British air training schools in Canada producing many pilots, but how to use them in the war effort was only worked out with difficulty. The Air Ministry wanted Canadian pilots to continue to be absorbed into the RAF without national distinction; some Canadians in Britain agreed, others didn't. Ottawa's position on how Canadian servicemen should be involved in the air-war seems overly deferential and 'junior partnership' today, but on occasions it took a firm line - only for Canadian officials then to relent when taking their government's messages to Britain after viewing the war damage in London. One wrote in November 1940 of his shock at seeing:
"...entire blocks of flats and other dwellings... smashed to rubble, and the air-raid wardens helped the homeless hundreds in trying to salvage a few pitiful remains or recover the bodies of their loved ones."
A fellow-feeling for the plight of Britain is also evident in another official's reminder to his colleagues that after little over a year of war Britain was almost bankrupt, having to liquidate UK bonds and other holdings overseas. But between British and Canadian there were also cultural differences, in the ingrained attitudes to authority:
"To the traditional English mind, leadership was more a function of style than competence, and men had to be the 'right type'... Canadians preferred the more functional approach of the Americans, who related rank to the job done."
There was an Air Ministry/RAF bias against the more egalitarian, less deferential Canadian servicemen; it didn't help that senior officers tended to refer to Canadians as "colonials" and to the various Commonwealth forces collectively as "coloureds". But beyond the sense of English entitlement, there was a real fear of "splitting the Empire" by giving the Canadians separate roles and structures within the combined war effort.
The cultural divide was there not just in attitudes and manners, but in titles too - the British commander of the Royal Air Force was Sir Charles Portal, in charge of Bomber Command was Sir Arthur Harris, the latter's deputy was Sir Robert Saundby. Although there were many Brits in senior positions who had carried over no civilian titles, there were enough Sirs, Lords and Honourables in the British armed forces in the 1940s to convey a British assumption of superiority which cannot have helped cooperati0n, cohesion and mutual understanding among the Allies. And not just the British love of titles - my uncle Jack in the army, the Royal Scots Greys, was commanded by Sir Ranulph Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes; a pity that the quality of British military material did not match the fine titles and names; the British tanks used in north Africa were vulnerable to German 88mm guns, and my Uncle Jack was killed in his tank in 1942.
The Canadian government felt it should retain some control over its servicemen, and that it had some responsibility for them such as being able to inform their families when injuries or fatalities occurred; after all, it paid their wages, accommodation, the aircraft fuel and explosives, and provided all their equipment. Many of the aircraft, Wellingtons and later Lancasters, were produced in Canada. The Air Ministry agreed to 25 Canadian-staffed squadrons but wanted no higher Canadian structure than squadron, with the many more Canadian aircrew available being dispersed throughout the RAF. However, what developed was different.
The Canadian contribution to Britain's war effort was estimated to be $3 billion, plus lives lost and many others wounded, missing or prisoners of war. An official history, The Crucible of War 1939-1945, provides much information on the RCAF, as reviewed and quoted here; see sources at the end of Chapter 11.
Chapter 3
Yorkshire
In North Yorkshire, the Vale of York became the base for the Royal Canadian Air Force, Bomber Command's new 6 Group, when 'Canadianisation' of staffing and organisation of its contribution to the air-war had became inevitable; in effect, Canada had its own, Britain-based, air force and its own command structure within Bomber Command. Bomber Command's RAF 4 Group was already established in Yorkshire, to the south of York.
No. 6 Group officially started in January 1943, with its headquarters previously set up at Allerton Hall near Knaresborough, and operational bases at Linton-on-Ouse, East Moor, Tholthorpe, Disforth, Dalton, Topcliffe, Skipton-on-Swale, Leeming, Croft and Middleton St George; some, such as Tholthorpe, were still being upgraded to take 'heavies', four-engined bombers such as the Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster.
The Vale of York extends northwards into County Durham, where some of the 6 Group bases were located. There were RAF airbases (Dishforth and Linton) but no other bomber group so was available for siting of the new RCAF 6 Group. Being in northern England, it had disadvantages - flying distances to German-held Europe were longer and weather conditions were worse than further south. The Vale is quite a confined area, long north-south but narrow, only about 20 miles across; hills of around 2,000 feet to the east and west were hazardous for aircraft in bad weather and especially for damaged aircraft returning at night, and there were also many training accidents in poor visibility; fogs from the North Sea were common.
Sir Arthur Harris, in charge of Bomber Command, admitted later that the Canadians were "unfortunately placed geographically", with too many bases overlapping in a narrow, difficult area, close to key north-south rail and road links, and close to villages and towns.
When the RCAF 6 Group was created several existing Canadian squadrons were transferred into it. RCAF squadrons added names to their numbers: Squadron 4o5 was known as Vancouver, and there was 4o8 Goose Squadron, 420 Snowy Owl, 424 Tiger, and so on; perhaps a case of Canadian servicemen taking ownership and comfort by adding reminders of their distant homeland.
Canadianisation included recognition of the French Canadians enlisted, and there was the French Canadian Squadron 425, named Alouette (Lark), which my father was assigned to; this was created in June 1942 and included in 6 Group with others in January 1943. Corporal Doucet was groundcrew, based at Dishforth, but later deployed to the Mediterranean theatre of war with 425 and two other squadrons, then returned to Dishforth, East Moor and later Tholthorpe (see Chapters 5 and 6). Already in existence were two so-called Free French squadrons, in 4 Group and based at Elvington; these were aircrew who had escaped from France as it was invaded by German forces in 1940.
The first commander of 6 Group RCAF was G. E. Brookes, a 47 year-old veteran of the First World War, previously in charge of a training command in Canada. He and his HQ staff were said to have brought little flying or organisational experience to the new group; he attended meetings of group commanders with little or nothing prepared in the way of plans and maps, while others arrived with much to propose and contribute; perhaps sensibly, as the new boy, he was in listening and learning mode. But he also had a reputation for holding aircrews on standby (briefed, kitted up, tensed up) for hours in the evenings when very bad weather reports prevented flying, in the hope that conditions would improve at the last minute - so, very keen to impress, but at a cost to aircrews' stamina and morale.
Bomber Command dictated the target, date and scale of bombing operations but left each group to decide the many operational details; in this, Brookes, from his diaries, seems to have engaged little, nor in analysing and learning from results of raids. For example, of a 28/29 August 1943 attack on Nuremberg he noted only "Our lads had a good crack at them last night, and caught a good crack themselves". In fact, 34% of his Wellington aircraft and aircrews were lost on that raid. In December Sir Arthur Harris, newly in charge of Bomber Command, was privately "alarmed at the prospects" of 6 Group under Brookes' command.
In the official history of the RCAF, Brookes was described as having "a singular detachment from the hard realities of the bomber war".
No. 6 Group's performance was worse than other Groups in early 1943. This could be explained by the recent influx of newly graduated aircrew and groundcrew straight from training in Canada, but so many errors were unacceptable, and serious; for example, in January one squadron could not be bombed-up for that night's mission because the armament office couldn't find the bombs; an armourer removed guns from a turret while they were still loaded; incendiary bombs were loaded with the jettison bars armed with the result that when the electrical circuits were closed the incendiaries fell on the runway. While it was accepted that inexperience might explain such mistakes and both servicing and bombing peformances would improve, and losses reduce, with time, Harris called for more analysis. No. 6 Group was compared with 4 Group which was stationed nearby and also flew Wellingtons and Halifaxes; 6 Group's early return rate was worse, mainly due to problems with oxygen supplies, guns, turrets, and icing; it was thought groundcrew maintaining the aircraft had not benefited from their on-base training while with 4 Group before 6 Group was formed. Also, training units in Britain commented that navigators graduating from the British Commonwealth training programme in Canada were slow at map-reading, astro-navigation and chart work, and that new pilots had little understanding of navigation.
"Lower morale" was also posited as a reason for 6 Group's poor performance in 1943. George Brookes blamed the "combing out" of the best crews for deployment to the Mediterranean; this suggests a very wide range of ability or diligence in 6 Group, but that was not explored further.
Local weather conditions, and Bomber Command's determination to fly in all but absolutely impossible weather, may have been more responsible for poor performance and aircraft losses than was accepted at the time. In the Vale of York and the wider area of hills and moorland, weather can be very unpredictable, as two men searching lin later years for a war-time crash site recorded:
"...we left in bright sunshine with the odd spot of rain... the weather turned really foul, the wind became gale force, the snow became a blizzard and visibility was down to 50 yards and below..."
That was in April, not winter.
Concern about the RCAF 6 Group persisted despite some improvements. On the 2/3 August 1943 raid on Hamburg the early return rate was high for Bomber Command at an overall 42%, but for 6 Group it was 59%. And of the 43 RCAF crew that returned early from Hamburg only two had made any attempt to find and bomb an alternative target; as before, the possibility was raised of "a less determined attempt to get over enemy territory than some of the other Groups." However this was also Harris's verdict on all the Groups involved in a 700-strong raid on Hanover in September: "most crews failed to make the slightest attempt to approach the target on the course set down..." In the same month, there were still complaints about "lack of adequately trained personnel... poor servicing of equipment and... faults" in 6 Group.
New Year 1944 was 6 Group's first birthday, grown from eight to 13 squadrons. Although losses were still higher than most bomber groups, the difference was narrowing. Maintenance and servicing of aircraft had improved. By the early months of 1944, 6 Group had become less of a concern to Harris and the Air Ministry; although losses were still high they were no longer the worst in Bomber Command and part-explained by the number of Halifax IIs and Vs (inferior versions of this heavy bomber) in the group. In fact, "experienced Canadian Halifax squadrons had fared better than the No. 4 Group average, and the Lancaster [RCAF] squadrons were doing better than" those in 3 Group despite the longer distances to target and often worse weather in the Vale of York.
Having made these achievements in little more than a year, with a new bomber group in a new location and inexperienced personnel, Air Vice-Marshal Brookes was exhausted; he returned home to Canada and retired the following November. He was replaced in February 1944 by another veteran of the First World War, C. M. McEwen, then station commander at Linton-on-Ouse. McEwen prioritised improvements in training, in defensive tactics by training with British fighters, in navigation and in discipline. By September 1944, RCAF 6 Group had as good an operational record as any.
The RAF and Air Ministry implemented agreements only slowly with regard to the contributions Canada was making to the war effort. This was not entirely due to bureaucratic obstruction; there was a genuine reluctance to breaking up established teams in air and groundcrew, and some Canadians preferred to remain in mixed-nationality RAF units.
In September 1941 there were 4,500 Canadian aircrew in Britain but less than 500 in RCAF squadrons. Formation of the 25 RCAF squadrons agreed by the Air Ministry was slow, with 'excess' pilots and others remaining dispersed through RAF units, but eventually by 1944 there were 54 RCAF squadrons. There remained many Canadians still in the RAF, and RCAF squadrons included a small number of other nationalities; flight engineers in RCAF squadrons were British.
Gradually more women had roles in 6 Group; by May 1945 there were 567 female officers and 372 other ranks at the Allerton Park HQ alone, and others at the squadron bases in admin and groundcrew roles. By April 1943 women were permitted to serve as wireless operators, parachute riggers, meteorologists, instrument mechanics and to interpret reconnaissance and bombing photographs.
Women were not permitted to take on combat roles, but many carried out the vital job of flying aircraft to and from operational and training bases. Being expected to fly (usually unaccompanied) many types of aircraft at short notice, albeit short distances usually in daylight, they must have been very capable pilots who, but for the conventions or prejudices of the time, could have been involved operationally.
A navigator with 425 Alouette Squadron recalled, many years later in a commemorative newsletter, going on a bombing raid to Turin in November 1942 (prior to the creation of 6 Group). The crew was apprehensive about flying over the Alps with a bonb-laden, fuelled-up aircraft, but reached the target where flak was heavy. Crossing back over the Alps, the aircraft started to vibrate, the cabin lights went out, and it became hard to control. On reduced revs they eventually reached Dishforth, but the Air Traffic Control signalled red - not to land, to 'go around'. The pilot told the crew to bail out which they refused to do, and he approached to land the ailing aircraft only to get another red/go around from the ATC. He ignored this and landed successfully. The Bomber Command War Diaries record four raids on Turin in November 1942; the list of the squadrons and groups involved is not complete, and those named do not include 425 Squadron or 6 Group RCAF. The Diaries are reviewed and quoted in this article, with critique and discussion in later chapters.
A Bomber Command squadron included between 20 and 30 aircraft, organised into two or three 'flights'; numbers changed during the course of the war. Wellington two-engine medium bombers had crews of five or six; Halifax four-engined bombers had crews of seven, with numbers and in-flight roles changing during the war. Therefore, a squadron might have around 200 aircrew personnel.
Flak was the name given to anti-aircraft fire from ground-based artillery, also called ack-ack. Germany developed formidable artillery for this purpose, some of it rail-based for movement to defend different targets; it was used in dense systems allied with searchlights. Much of Bomber Command losses of aircraft and crew were caused by flak:
"The most alarming factor of the German defences was undoubtedly the searchlights. They had master beams, radar controlled, during the preliminary search ...once caught, every searchlight within range would fix you and wriggle and squirm as you might, you couldn't shake them off. Then the guns joined in and filled the apex of the cone with bursts: it was a terrifying thing... the sequel was a small flame, burning bright as the aircraft fell towards the ground... Everyone dreaded being coned... the only sensible thing to do was to head away... by the shortest route..."
Chapter 4
A Fragment...
The fragment is of my father. His four years' service in the RCAF in Yorkshire during the Second Word War was a fragment of his life, and a fragment is what I know of him. He was 22 when enlisting in the RCAF, in Montreal, in July 1940; he had married the previous February.
Over half a century later I asked my father why he'd enlisted; he said he was out of work, there were no jobs in the impoverished, francophone part of Montreal.
British Commonwealth Air Training Units in Canada (also in Australia) started in 1940/41; the initial stage was to stream candidates for aircrew or groundcrew, and then to specialisations such as navigation, wireless operator and, of course, pilot. There was one training unit in Montreal which he may well have attended before deployment to Britain. I have not discovered when he (with others) arrived in the UK, nor specifically in Yorkshire, but he was there by 1942.
For a young man from a poor family, with no prospect of work or travel, there may well have been a sense of adventure and purpose in being shipped, with other young men, to Britain, and a wage being paid, some of which he could have sent back to his wife; they had no children together until post-war.
For all the novelty of travel, companionship and a paid job, the man who would become my francophone father arrived into a world which was not only foreign in language, behaviour and surroundings, but also one of darkness, fear and uncertainty, for everyone. First of all they arrived at Liverpool or Greenock - blitzed harbours and buildings with windows boarded, blacked-out or taped, sandbags everywhere, streets deserted. Then by train and bus through countryside with none of the usual bustle and traffic of ordinary peace-time life. The blackout regulations meant that streets and buildings were in near-total darkness at night, air raid sirens sounded regularly prompting a rush to shelters, the atmosphere was tense, uncertain - a German invasion had been feared in 1940, children from cities were evacuated to the countryside (in 1939, and again later), one massive defeat had already been suffered at Dunkirk, and by 1941/42 there had been little sign that the Allies could defeat German forces.
Ordinary life had stopped: there were few men around, almost everything was rationed, queues of women waited outside shops, and there was the constant scramble of a country ill-prepared for war having to create new military bases, produce weaponry and accommodate thousands of servicemen including many from other countries. In its many parts, putting Britain on a war footing was the largest civil engineering project the country had ever known. In the southern and eastern England many new airstrips had been created on farmland, followed elsewhere by more airstrips and their many associated buildings, hangers, fuel stores, bomb dumps, all accompanied by the movement and housing of thousands of personnel.
The organisation and logistics of this country fighting a major war, for which it had been unprepared, were enormous, an on-going process, and had changed life considerably.
For young Canadians arriving in Britain suddenly war was not something happening far away. It was a constant presence in Yorkshire, as in many parts of the country hosting airfields. War was an inescapable presence, from the density of airfields - there were eight airfields within ten miles of Linton - to their constant activity day and night. One resident remembered that "... the sky over Wetherby was black with aircraft on their outward journey". Some crashed soon after take-off, in darkness and often in bad weather, such as a Halifax bomber from 426 RCAF squadron whose engines cut out and, fully loaded, fell onto farmland beside the main A1 road and exploded.
The sound of bombers returning disturbed many nights, and people learnt to detect the different sound of some limping home damaged, flying low in the darkness, with one or more failed engines, or short of fuel, with exhausted and sometimes injured crews. Not all of them made it, such as a Stirling heavy bomber which crashed into a street in Tockwith village, hitting 17 houses, bouncing along the rooftops until it broke up, its burning fuel setting many of them alight. Many other examples of how war came as bolts from the blue, or from the night sky, to suddenly bring death and destruction to civilian life in Yorkshire, countryside and town, are given in specialist local publications. One of the many was on 22 October 1943, when a Halifax from 427 Lion Squadron returning from a raid on Kassel lost power from one engine, then a second engine, lost height and crashed into a wood by the railway line at Newton Kyne, exploding on impact; a local woman wrote:
"It was a terrible sight with ammunition going off all the time... all the men of the village ran to the spot, alas no one could get near. All the crew perished in the flames..."
Training flights could disturb the daylight hours, and also carried a risk; a mixed RAF and RCAF crew in training encountered a fire in the port-outer engine of their Halifax bomber at only 1,000 feet (too low to bale out), and crashed onto a golf course; the crew, all killed, were aged 18 to 24 years;. Years later a local doctor wrote about this:
"as a boy I can well remember the plane with four engines coming low over our garden, and I noticed there were flames coming from one of the engines. I called my mother... it disappeared over the trees. A few seconds later there was a flash... a loud boom and a tremor of the ground."
There were also deadly 'intruders' - German fighters attacking the Yorkshire airbases during the day, and attacking British aircraft returning at night from bombing operations, often aircraft which were struggling home damaged and with exhausted or injured crews. One intruder machine-gunned the York-London train on the main line running alongside an airbase. Three German aircraft attacked Linton in May 1941, killing the newly arrived station commander, 12 other personnel and injuring 13 more. Another German intruder the previous month had shot down two Blenheims just airborne, another on the runway; later (and surprisingly?) a training flight was sent up and that aircraft, a Defiant, was shot down over Thorp Arch. Two months later, a German night-fighter crashed into a Wellington bomber, killing the crew of both aircraft. Three commanding officers of 424 Tiger Squadron at Skipton were killed in a nine-month period. Driffield was out of action for nearly six months in 1940 due to German intruder raids in which 12 personnel and a civilian were killed, ten Whitley bombers and many buildings destroyed. There were many more intruder incidents. The Yorkshire airbases were close to, and named after, villages and towns - even when local people did not become casualties, ordinary life day-to-day was surely much affected by terrifying events like these so close by.
In addition to the operational and training airfields there were decoy airbases to try to draw off intruders, and an emergency landing base at Carnaby used by both 4 Group and 6 Group.
York city was blitzed by German bombers ten times between 1940 and 1942, with the railway station destroyed, a church gutted and much housing destroyed; in one raid 151 people were killed, mostly civilians, including six German aircrew. Hull was also bombed. Harrogate escaped serious German attention, being bombed only once, near the Majestic Hotel, with damage to nearby houses and buildings.
And yet, for all this, they were young men abroad, there was an excitement. Off-duty they escaped from their airbases to nearby pubs, and often to York where Betty's was a favourite; they called it 'The Dive', a bar in the basement below Betty's tearooms. Canadians and other servicemen scratched their names into the big mirror behind the bar. For some of the aircrew, burnt or shot to pieces over Germany, that was all would remain of them.
Or they went to Harrogate 20 miles to the west, a spa town made popular in Victorian times with many fine buildings, grand hotels with dining rooms and bars. One of the few things my father said to me, with a wistful smile on his face, was "oh, I remember Harrogate..."
With the uncertainty of war, young men away from home must have revelled in the camaraderie and release from the stresses and exhaustion of sending bombers night after night towards Germany, knowing many would not return, friends' faces missing at breakfast next morning.
Harrogate General Hospital (since demolished) on Knaresborough Road was where many of the injured air and groundcrew were taken; extra buildings were put up to care for them. Those who died, in hospital, on the airfields or surrounding countryside, were buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetary at Stonefall, Harrogate. Of the 998 airmen buried there, two-thirds were Canadians. From the Commission's website:
"The digging of the graves, which in 1944 was more than forty a week on occasions, fell to Mr Linfoot, Cemetery Superintendent from Harrogate Borough Council, who struggled to find the labour for this task due to most able-bodied men serving in the armed forces.... members of the Royal Canadian Air Force made up around two thirds of the casualties at Stonefall... Alongside the Canadians a significant number of 6 Group personnel were from the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force as well as RAF as is reflected in the casualties at the site."
Betty's cafe in St Helen's Square, York, is still there. When I last visited the mirror with Canadian and other aircrews' names was mounted on a wall in a basement lobby; it had been fractured into several pieces by an incendiary bomb falling nearby. This is from a memoir and war-time diary by one of the servicemen who frequented Betty's Bar:
"A day and evening in York was a real pleasure and break from our flying Duties. Betty’s Bar seems to be an unofficial Headquarters for Air Crew. It was a Meeting Place and to remain a short time one is bound to meet old friends from other Squadrons... Sadly, the news is very bad as we hear of Heavy Losses throughout the Group. The Squadrons in early 1944 apparently are taking a terrific beating in the Battle of Berlin. – We don’t indulge in much discussion on Losses only a remark Now & Then. ‘Bill has gone for a Burton on Mannheim’, – ‘John crashed into a hill on return from Le Mans’ and so on. The names spoken are many. – Can one finish a tour of ops?”
Chapter 5
To the Mediterranean
Soon after 6 Group was created, three of the RCAF squadrons (nos. 420, 424 and 425 - in which my father was a fitter in the groundcrew) were formed into Wing 331 and sent, in May 1943, to Tunisia. This was to support the planned Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy. The intended three month deployment extended to six months, which incidentally saved these squadrons from the heavy Bomber Command losses incurred over the Ruhr from May to July 1943 and the so-called Battle of Berlin from November.
Both air and groundcrew of the three squadrons were transferred, equipped with Wellington Xs (the latest, improved version of this two-engine medium bomber, manufactured in Canada) plus tropical kit and supplies. Such was the dominance of German military force across Europe that three of the aircraft were attacked and lost (with their aircrews, probably more than 15 men) en route to Tunisia despite taking a circuitous route over the Atlantic. Groundcrew and others sailed from Liverpool on 18 May 1943.
On arrival, there seemed to be a comedy of errors. Mediterranean Air Command had made no preparations and the best sites for airstrips had already been taken by US forces. Three less favourable sites were found; bases (buildings, latrines, roads, landing strips, servicing areas, bomb and fuel dumps, etc) had to be created in high summer temperatures, then a tropical rainstorm waterlogged landing surfaces. A radio message to halt 424 Squadron flying in was lost "due to the poor signals communication" and they landed in heavy mud. Working and living conditions were harsh. The much delayed and much needed showering facility collapsed after half an hour of use.
But overall the three RCAF squadrons were reported to have performed well, in operations quite different to those over northern Europe: instead of high-altitude area bombing, targets were enemy airfields, supply routes and, later, troop concentrations counter-attacking the Allied landing at Salerno. Summer flying conditions helped, as did the thinness of flak and night-fighter opposition (except over the Straits of Messinia and, later in the Italian campaign, over heavily defended targets such as Naples). There were exceptions: on 424 Squadron's first mission, one aircraft dropped its bomb on take-off did not notice and continued, another burst a tire and dropped its bomb and the next two took off not having noticed; four more aircraft were not bombed-up in time - this was blamed on the armourers having only recently arrived and being inexperienced. The next night two aircraft were lost in action. Within a month, 35 aircrew in the Wing had become casualties. Dysentry, diarrhoea and malaria affected many despite inoculations, and food supplies were initially poor.
Groundcrew had the extra essential jobs of removing sand and dust from guns, fuel tanks and bomb bay doors. But maintenance standards were said to be good, and availability of serviced aircraft was high. US commanders praised the Wing's efforts, notably for 424 Squadron's attack on an airfield near Salerno destroying 40 enemy aircraft, and 420's and 425's pounding of enemy forces around Enna. By mid July, 353 sorties on 12 nights had been flown.
However, Allied forces including the RCAF Wing failed to prevent 40,000 German troops and 62,000 Italians escaping from Sicily to bolster enemy forces in Italy; the RCAF Wing 331 lost five aircraft and 25 aircrew in the effort.
Wing 331's three-month deployment was extended and operations supporting the Allied landing in Italy continued. Against a strong German counter-attack towards Salerno, the Wing flew 43 sorties dropping 82 tons of bombs on three German divisions, and similarly against other targets on later nights. RAF commander Sir Charles Portal noted:
"...the exceptionally good work done by the Canadian Wellington Wing in the Mediterranean... the scale of the effort in relation to the size of force has probably been higher than... anywhere in the past and included operations on 78 of 80 nights, with a nightly average of 69 sorties."
Sir Arthur Tedder added that the three RCAF squadrons "...may well have saved the day".
When their deployment ended these squadrons left their aircraft behind and sailed to Liverpool, arriving in snow and rain on 6/7 November 1943. They travelled on to their bases in Yorkshire, took some leave, re-kitted, and re-trained to fly and maintain Halifax IIIs; these aircraft were regarded as much better than other versions of the Halifax four-engined bombers also flown in 6 Group. In December 1943 the groundcrew of 425 Alouette squadron was moved to Tholthorpe to train on the Halifaxes; I have the Movement Order which includes my father, identified as R66733 LAC (Leading Aircraftman) Doucet, J.C.E. (the E. must be a typo - that's his correct service number as on other documents, who was one of the groundcrew, with mainly francophone surnames).
A sortie refers to one operational flight of one aircraft
The RCAF's Mediterranean mid-1943 operations are described here quite fully because it summarises the only detailed account I have found of my father's 425 Squadron 'at work'. It is not included in the Diaries.
The December 1943 Movement Order is unclear, in that it refers to groundcrew being moved from Dishforth to Tholthorpe, and both from and to Linton and East Moor. As I understand it, returning groundcrew (over 300 men) of 425 Squadron arrived initially at Dishforth, Linton and East Moor, and were then transferred to re-form at Tholthorpe.
Chapter 6
Tholthorpe
Ten miles north-west of York, Tholthorpe was a grass-runway airbase at the start of the war, and in only light use initially; it was closed for concreting to cope with winter operations and heavy bombers. Due to the war-time lack of labour and materials this was not completed until June 1943 when it was assigned to 6 Group RCAF and occupied by 434 Bluenose Squadron and 431 Iroquis Squadron, both operating Halifaxes. These two squadrons moved to Croft, and at the start of 1944 Tholthorpe became the base for 425 Alouette Squadron and 42o Snowy Owl Squadron, newly returned from the Mediterranean and re-training for Halifax IIIs.
Tholthorpe became one of the busiest bomber bases in Yorkshire until the end of the war, but like many of the Yorkshire airbases conditions were very basic; over 1,000 personnel were based there, some billeted in the village from which it took its name, many others in hastily constructed concrete-floored, corrugated metal-roofed bunkhouses. One of the storehouses on High Farm was used as a hospital and mortuary. Although runways and the perimeter track were concreted, everywhere else there were duckboards over a sea of mud in the (mostly) rainy weather. During take-off for a raid on Leipzig three Halifaxes bogged down in heavy mud, blocking access to the main runway. This photograph shows a typical accommodation and staff buildings on Yorkshire bomber base.
Villagers and Canadians socialised of course, and Tholthorpe villagers saw the dire effects of war constantly; some young men they knew and had spent time with failed to return from almost every night's bombing raid, and sometimes death and destruction hit the village directly. On one occasion a Halifax soon after take-off crashed into a farmhouse, killing all the crew; a villager who was a child at the time remembered later that:
"We ran to the farm from school at lunchtime. I wish we hadn't. The stench of burning flesh was terrible. Thankfully no civilians were killed."
In January and February 1944, before the two Tholthorpe squadrons became operational, 10% of RCAF Halifax IIs and Vs failed to return from just six heavy raids over Germany, an unacceptable loss rate; the five RCAF squadrons involved were diverted to the lighter duties of minelaying (termed 'Gardening').
The Mediterranean deployment May-November 1943 had spared the two Tholthorpe squadrons the heavy losses sustained by Bomber Command over Germany in 1943, and may also have resulted in them being equipped with the best Halifax variant upon their return; the earlier Halifax IIs and Vs were withdrawn from all further operations over Germany after disastrous losses in the 19/20 February 1944 800-aircraft raid on Leipzig. Out of 255 Halifaxes involved, 34 were lost.
The two RCAF squadrons at Tholthorpe were also lucky to avoid the heavy losses in the 30/31 March 1944 raid over Nuremberg - the worst night of the war for Bomber Command, when 95 aircraft were lost. Only one aircraft from Tholthorpe's squadrons failed to return, a Halifax from 425 Squadron piloted by Flight Lieutenant John Taylor from Winnipeg.
Bomber Command's focus changed from night-bombing of German cities to preparation for the Allied landings in Europe which took place in June 1944, with the Tholthorpe squadrons involved, targeting enemy defences and communications in northern France, and then supporting Allied ground forces there.
No. 425 Alouette Squadron had a good record overall. Flying Wellingtons initially it carried out 28 bombing and 11 minelaying operations, losing eight aircraft in 347 sorties; flying Halifaxes it carried out 162 bombing raids, losing 28 Halifaxes in 2,445 sorties, loss rates of 2.3% and 1.1% respectively. But numbers don't tell the whole, human story, and 'lost' and 'losing' start to sound like euphemisms.
Raids when the war was almost over, on the night of 5/6 March 1945 to assist the Russian advances into Germany incurred heavy losses for the Tholthorpe squadrons before they got anywhere near enemy territory. And what happened indicates the hazardous, unpredictable conditions these young men were exposed to throughout the war years: nine RCAF 6 Group bombers crashed on take-off due to icy conditions, four were from Tholthorpe. Two of 420 Squadron's Halifaxes stalled due to heavy ice build-up on the airframe and engines, similarly one aircraft from 425 Squadron crashed iced-up, and that squadron lost another in collision with an iced-up Halifax from Linton (which lost three aircraft more due to icing). Most of the aircrews were killed, and some civilians.
One of the aircraft (it is unclear which) fell on York, killing six of the seven crew and five civilians; the fuselage fell in Nunthorpe Grove and one of the engines fell on the grammar school. Then, three more Tholthorpe aircraft from this operation were lost over Germany, and two more crash-landed on their return.
The last Tholthorpe bombing operations were on 22 April 1945 (420 Squadron) against Bremen and 25 April (425 Squadron) against gun batteries on the Frisian islands; the Frisian raid was two weeks before the war ended, and seven aircraft were lost (six of them due to collisions), 28 Canadian and 13 British men killed.
After the German surrender on 8 May, 6 Group squadrons and Bomber Command used their heavy bombers to take supplies to Europe and repatriate thousands of PoWs.
With the war in Europe over, both Tholthorpe Canadian squadrons were allocated to operations being prepared to join the war against Japan which was still underway. These squadrons exchanged their Halifaxes for Lancaster Xs and returned to Canada after several refuelling stops, landing at Dartmouth, close to Halifax in Nova Scotia; 425 Alouette Squadron aircraft left Tholthorpe on 20 June. My father, and presumably other groundcrew, was shipped to Halifax, indicating that these squadrons were re-forming for deployment to the Pacific. However, the Japanese surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought a sudden end to war in the Far East on 2 September 1945, and both squadrons were disbanded. Corporal Doucet was demobilised in Moncton, New Brunswick, on 19 September 1945.
Tholthorpe airbase was not incorporated into the post-war RAF and lay derelict until the 1950s when it reverted to agricultural use, the former control tower solitary and decaying among crops in the fields until it was renovated and converted much later into a dwelling.
A memorial to the four RCAF squadrons that had been based at Tholthorpe was erected with a tribute in French and English to the Canadians who had served there; maple and oak trees, symbolising Canadian and British life were planted leading to the airbase. The memorial was unveiled in 1986 by Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, in a reunion which over 350 Canadian ex-airmen of the Tholthorpe squadrons, relatives and friends attended. One person there was the only survivor from one of the four Tholthorpe Halifaxes that crashed on take-off in icy conditions in March 1945, a wireless operator who parachuted at a low height and was badly injured. A villager, who had helped organise the reunion, said this man "...could remember all their names and just talked to them as though they were alive today". He also visited the graves of his crew at Stonefall Cemetary in Harrogate.
It is a quiet and pleasant English country scene now, beside a tree on the village green, in contrast to the noise, fear and desperation that Bomber Command's night-war brought to Yorkshire.
Minelaying, so-called Gardening, was not necessarily the lighter, safer operation that Bomber Command considered it to be, useful to give new pilots experience before bombing raids over Germany or to give exhausted bomber crews a bit of a breather. One flight engineer based at Leeming later described it as:
"...an extremely critical operation, flying at no more than 500 feet above the sea at night. It called for very accurate navigation... [on one operation] six bombers went out - but we were the only crew to get back to Leeming. The rest either crashed or were shot down."
Conflict with Japan continued after victory was achieved in Europe in May 1945. A year previously, in June 1944, the Canadian government had declined to create any more bomber squadrons because of the continuing high casualties, and instead created three transport squadrons, one in Europe (Squadron 437, used in support of the land battle in Europe and then materials-supply, disbanded in July 1946) and two in southeast Asia (squadrons 435 and 436, formed in India in September 1944). Complete crews were shipped from Canada to India, and almost 600 groundcrew were shipped from Britain to Canada then flown to India. To the RCAF squadrons were added four RAF and eight USAF transport squadrons.
From April 1944 southeast Asia was a priority area for transport capacity
to supply the Fourteenth Army's counter-offensive against Japanese forces in Burma. Airlift was essential because of the mountainous terrain and lack of good roads and airbases, and limited timewise by the monsoon. RCAF squadrons 435 and 436 flew American-built DC47 Dakotas, whose flying characteristics were well-suited to the challenges posed by terrain and weather.
At the outset the air chiefs of staff had been very sceptical about the possibility of maintaining logistical support by air alone for a major ground operation over such long distances in very difficult conditions. They were proved wrong. After the surrender of Japan in September 1945, General Slim concluded that the airlift transport squadrons had:
"contributed to a new kind of warfare... We were the first to maintain large formations in action by air supply and to move standard divisions long distances about the fighting front by air... a new technique that combined mechanized and air-transported brigades in the same divisions.... the largest number of transport aircraft we ever had was much less than would elsewhere have been considered the minimum required... the skill, courage and devotion of the airmen... both in the air and on the ground... we learnt to revise accepted theories and, when worth it, to risk cutting our margins."
On his demobilisation my father's name and service number were given as Corporal Joseph Cleophas Jean DOUCET, R-66733. That is the same as on my birth certificate except that the registrar misheard Jean and wrote John. He and my mother signed my birth certificate on 30 April.
My mother's name was given as Florence Agnes Doucet. In November 1944 she had changed her surname to Doucet by deedpoll, presumably after my father told her he was already married. In fact, he would not have gained the necessary permission to marry, nor to remain in Britain, married or not; wartime regulations were strict about this, probably quite a frequent ocurrence, and only officers had any chance of gaining such permission.
How much contact my mother and he had after the presumed 'I'm married already' conversation in November 1944, I do not know. But enough for him to be at the registry office, with both parents giving the Doucet surname in the following April. And what contact between them before he returned to Canada in September? He was discharged from the RCAF in Moncton, New Brunswick, on 19 September 1945, with the Defence Medal, Canadian Volunteers Service Medal with Clasp and War Medal 1939-45; these are quite standard issue, I think, though the 'clasp' sometimes indicates a more individual achievement. I don't think he was awarded that for clasping my mother and fathering me.
Post-war there was much unemployment in Canada, as there had been pre-war, and this was increased by the rapid closing of war industries. Like many, my father struggled to find work at first. He became known as Cliff or Clifford, and was so named in his 2012 obituary. I wonder if this anglicising of his name started in 1940s Yorkshire, adapting for my mother and local people.
Chapter 7
Home Crashes
The two authoritative accounts of Bomber Command and the RCAF to which this article refers give much detail and commentary on bombing operations, their organisation, performance and losses, and their impact on enemy territory, but far less on Bomber Command's effect on home territory - what it was like for both service personnel and civilians in Britain living on or close to the many airbases. So-called 'home crashes' - flying accidents, both operational and in training - had a major impact on people living in Yorkshire during the war years.
The many airbases of 6 Group north of York, and 4 Group to the south, were close to each other and close towns and villages from which the bases took their names. Operational aircraft crashing on take-off and landing, and training flights crashing, had an inescapable effect on local communities - in addition to periodic German bombing or intruder fighters shooting up the airbases. British bombers crashing, exploding, catching fire, hitting buildings and endangering local people as well as servicmen were the reality of daily life in Yorkshire. Home crashes were numerous, a regular event for nearby communities - they accounted for about 15% of all losses of Bomber Command aircraft and aircrew, including nearly 3,000 RCAF airmen dying in crashes 'at home'.
A few of the home crashes of operational flights recollected by local civilians:
"Two Halifaxes collided in mid-air and spiralled into the ground near Selby. Among the 14 aircrew killed were a wing commander and a squadron leader... Five aircrew and three women civilians died when a twin-engined Wellington from East Moor crashed and demolished two houses in Huntington old village ...five more airmen were killed after their plane came down near Wetherby and the bombs on board exploded."
One man recalled this at East Moor:
"... a four-engined Halifax was taking off when it veered off the runway and came straight towards me... I started to run and when I looked back I saw the plane hit a tree. The rear gun turret and tailplane were sliced off... the rest of the bomber smashed into the guardroom, which became a ball of fire. I shall never forget the screams. Three men died in the aircraft and two in the guardroom... I watched the rescue services get the rear gunner out of his turret. He was still alive."
In 1990 Canadian servicemen returned to East Moor for a reunion and memorial dedicated to all who had served there. Later, one man was seen standing by the main runway; the local man who as a boy had witnessed the Halifax crashing approached this lone figure:
"I went across to him, and he asked if I remembered an aircraft crashing into the guardroom in 1945. I took him to the spot in my car. He started to cry. He told me he was the rear gunner. He had spent the last 40 years, including some time in a mental hospital, wondering how he got out alive."
There are similar stories relating to almost all the Bomber Command bases in Yorkshire, some remembered in detail, others simply in numbers, such as the 34 aircraft returning from bombing Berlin on 16/17 December 1943 which crashed trying find their base and land in low cloud; that was more than the number, 25, of bombers shot down over Berlin in that raid; we don't know the circumstances of that one night's home crashes, how many crew, civilians and houses were destroyed, just the number of aircraft, 34.
Training flights were also responsible for many home crashes, some which it's hard not to think were avoidable. Each bomber group had designated training bases; in 6 Group these were Topcliffe, Wombleton, Disforth and Dalton; nearby in 4 Group Marston Moor, Rufforth, Riccall and Acaster Malbis were training bases; they were termed 'heavy conversion units' - bringing together seven personnel to form the aircrew of a four-engined bomber which they would train to fly. The heavy bombers were difficult to fly, particularly on take-off and landing; flying and landing had to be practised with one or more of the engines 'feathered' to simulate what might happen operationally. Accidents were common, and some HCUs lost (meaning were killed or severely injured) around 25% of trainees before they graduated. Many of the trainees were in their late teens and saw their friends meet an early end in flying accidents before becoming operational. In Bomber Command as a whole 5,327 men were killed and 3,113 injured on training flights during the war years.
Instructors on training flights were usually experienced pilots who had survived to reach their 30-operation maximum. But it wasn't a safe semi-retirement duty for them, as the aircraft used were old, having been used on many operations, and sometimes under-maintained. One instructor explained:
"This was not so much the fault of the ground crew as the fact that all the Halifaxes had done several tours of ops and were really clapped out... it was necessary to start at one end of a long line of Halifaxes and do pre-flight checks to try to find one that was 'acceptable'. None were ever fully serviceable and anyone who wanted to fly by the book would never have flown at all".
Many of the training exercises were cross-country navigations, so reliant on accurate met. reports, as were operational flights, and reports of many operational and training crashes indicate that poor met. reports were contributory factors.
The Diaries and Crucible of War focus on bombing operations and their losses, not on home crashes and losses. But because training accidents occurred over home territory these have been recorded extensively by local people, both during the war and in the years afterwards, with memorials at some of the crash sites. For example, two Wellingtons on 2/3 Sepember 1942...
"...were on a night cross country exercise... due to bad weather they drifted off course. Instead of passing over Harrogate they drifted into the Pennines. It could have been that the aircraft was trying to pin-point its position on the dreadful night with heavy rain and strong winds as well as a very low cloud base... the Wellington hit Blake Hill... caught fire with ammunition exploding, there was only one survivor... The second aircraft Z8808 suffered a similar fate over the Yorkshire Dales... flew into high ground... they all survived."
Several training accidents from another specialist local publication:
"Bombers on daylight training flights from Riccall and Rufforth were involved in a mid-air collision over Copmanthorpe near York, in August 1943. Both crews were killed...
Eight civilians died, including three children, when a Halifax on a training flight in May, 1944, struck the spire of St James's Church, Selby, and fell on some nearby houses. The plane's crew of seven, five of whom were Australian, also perished...
The Heavy Conversion Unit at Riccall, near Selby, experienced 1o crashes in one month during September, 1943."
From many descriptions of training crashes, it seems training aircraft were fully loaded with ammunition (and bombs?) - presumably so the bomber would handle as it would operationally. If this is correct, one wonders why the same weight of non-explosive material wasn't loaded, to reduce casualties of any crash.
The port city of Hull was bombed several times. A local man has researched all the crashes of aircraft on Hull during the war - all of them were British or Allied aircraft on training flights, some causing widespread devastation, as shown below in the case of a RCAF pilot on navigation training in heavy thunderstorms and low cloud just one week after joining his squadron, 21 July 1945.
At Newark on Trent there is a cemetary containing the remains of "some fifty Polish airmen who died whilst being based at RAF Newton, they were simply in the process of learning to fly..."
Training accidents continued throughout the war years, and in some cases it appears that the competence of ground control was responsible. For example, on 15 January 1945, at Topcliffe, crew training in a Halifax undertook the basic exercise of repeated take-offs, flying circuits of the airfield and landing; in addition to the usual seven-man crew another pilot and flight engineer were on board. During the first run the aircraft swung to starboard, as four- engined bombers tended to; the pilot managed to correct this and the aircraft made the circuit and touched down. As power was applied for the second take-off the aircraft again swung to starboard but before it was corrected the starboard main wheel went off the runway; the port tyre burst and the aircraft ground-looped causing the port undercarriage to collapse. This was the pilot's first 20 minutes' solo flying at night in the Halifax; all nine aircrew were new to the Halifax. The crew were not medically examined and two hours later they were ordered to repeat the exercise in another Halifax; the starboard outer engine failed, and the inexperienced pilot failed to get the aircraft to climb to avoid rising ground around the airfield. The Halifax struck the ground in a snow-covered field near Felixkirk village, bounced across a lane and into woodland where it broke up; eight of the airmen died in the crash, and local people dragged clear the ninth man, seriously injured, but snow delayed getting him to hospital where he died on admission. Crash investigators concluded a major factor was the crew having not been medically examined to check they were fit to fly the second exercise that night.
The seven man crew were all RCAF; the two additional men on board were RAF Volunteer Reserve. This photograph shows six of the young men who died in this training crash.
Another publication noted that the:
"hills and valleys of the North Yorkshire moors made a sinister contribution to the coffers of the Third Reich. The traumas of crashes which happened at or so near to home bases ... affected the whole comminity... Fatalities were mounting in the communities everywhere yet even after the final victory... there will still casualties as crews continued training".
One such post-war training crash, and devastation of a Yorkshire village, was on 9 October 1945, when a Stirling bomber with its pilot on his last training exercise lost height and crashed into Tockwith. The village street, houses and gardens were littered with wreckage, 17 houses were damaged and many set alight by burning fuel; all the aircrew were killed and, miraculously, only one villager. "The village was in shock... as a small boy [I] walked down the street to see the devastation, houses flattened..." one local man recalled later. Short Stirlings had been withdrawn two years previously from bombing operations over Germany because of their inadequacies and consequent losses; they were about to be withdrawn from all RAF service, replaced by the Avro York - why on earth were lives being risked and lost training to fly one five months post-war? But it was not the last training crash: a 6 Group Lancaster from Leeming with a trainee crew crashed on 5 November 1945 near Ilkeley; four of the eight crew survived.
As well as the 10,360 fatal casualties (and 1,265 injured) on 6 Group's bombing operations against Germany, there were also 2,961 RCAF airmen killed in 'flying accidents' in Britain, 1,453 injured, plus 181 groundcrew killed with 216 injured.
Details of individual incidents come from local publications - see sources concluding Chapter 11 - by veterans and Yorkshire people some of whom lived through the war and experienced events first-hand, and from various commemorative associations. The latter seem to have ceased now, and the RCAF veterans have passed away. Their colleagues who died, in local crashes, as young men in the 1940s are buried at Stonefall Cemetary, Harrogate. It's worth saying again: the many thousands more who died over Germany are scattered God only knows where.
Chapter 8
Groundcrew
My father was groundcrew in the RCAF, one of the many men responsible for servicing and repairing, fuelling, arming and bomb-loading the aircraft that would take off often in very poor weather and darkness. Almost all of them were doing this difficult, vital work for the first time; few if any of the groundcrew were trained, experienced technicians, and four-engined bombers were just coming into service, new to everyone, then with a succession of new radio, radar, navigation and bomb-aiming devices to be added.
For groundcrew in Bomber Command there was nothing stable or settled upon which to confidently build experience and expertise, squadrons were shuffled between bases in the early years of the war, change-over from two to four-engined bombers was a major process, different types of four-engined bombers were quite different to service and repair, as were new improved versions of the same type, even the change from Merlin engines to the more powerful Hercules radial engine in a Halifax bomber required different knowledge and procedures. Like the aircrew, they were learning a vital, complex job whilst in the process of fighting a war. Some may have had more natural aptitude and skills than others, but that was about it.
Maintenance standards were a constant concern throughout the war; personnel were seldom given the thorough training and supervision needed, and seldom working under the guidance of older men who were experts in the many trades and skills involved or even experienced themselves; it was nothing like an apprenticeship. On occasions when a new base commander cracked down on maintenance, standards improved. 'Serviceability' of aircraft - getting them repaired and quickly ready to fly again - was vital to the bomber effort. Groundcrew worked often in the open air and in all weathers. Though not in as much danger as aircrew, it could still be dangerous work; in RCAF 6 Group, 181 groundcrew were killed and 216 injured during the war.
The work of groundcrew on a Bomber Command base was described thus:
"Many of the ground trades really worked hard and had a hell of a life on a bomber station. The fitters and riggers repaired aircraft and engines night and day in all kinds of weather. They worked out in the open or under a bit of canvas shelter. The armourers hauled and loaded bombs, changed bomb loads, fused and defused bombs, rain or shine, at all hours of the day... The fuel trucks... loaded the specified amount of fuel to get the plane to the target and back. There never was very much to spare... While all this was going on members of the ground crew who looked after an aircraft had to check it thoroughly. Engines would be run up and tested; radio men, radar men and instrument men would call at each aircraft and check various pieces of equipment and instruments. The camera would be checked and loaded wth film. Ammunition would be put in the turrets. The many thousands of rounds for the tail turret were carried in canisters near the bomb bay and ammo tracks... ran along the fuselage to the tail turret."
Aircrew who had experienced problems would then make test flights to check repairs or adjustments had been made, and return for more attention if needed. Aircrew would draw clothing, attend the pre-op briefing (target and route, met. officer's wind and weather forecasts, intelligence officer's briefing re enemy defences, radio, radar, navigation, decoy and bomb-aiming procedures...). Flying might then be delayed by a change in the weather at the base or forecast over the route or target, or cancelled altogether.
On some occasions late in the war, when Fighter Command could provide cover and eneny defences were lower, squadrons conducted more than one operation in a day. In October 1944 Duisberg was attacked twice within 14 hours, with 6 Group involved; aircraft from the morning's operation got back to their bases at midday, and groundcrew "for the second time that day they had to load hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel, oil and coolant, several million litres of oxygen, and millions of rounds of ammunition" and check and repair the many electronic, radar and radio aids for navigation, bomb-aiming and jamming or evading the enemy's detection and defensive measures, for that night's second attack on Duisberg. One small part of the two operations was to "destroy steel works", and all the rest (of 2,013 sorties) was intended to "destroy dispersed intact areas... aiming the bombs at any built-up area, no matter what it was" - as described by a gunner from 429 Squadron.
One incident at Tholthorpe indicates the dangers not just in the air over Germany but also at home, on the base, and the teamwork of all involved. On the night of 27/28 June 1944, all aircraft of 425 Alouette Squadron had returned safely from a raid except one which approached on three engines; on landing it veered into a parked Halifax which was full of fuel and explosive. Both aircraft burst into flames; the base commander Dwight Ross and one of the groundcrew, Corporal Marquet, managed to pull the pilot, Sergeant Lavoie, out of the wreckage. Then the 500-pound bombs in the parked Halifax exploded, further engulfing the planes; the rear gunner, Sergeant Rochon, was trapped in the raging fire - Ross, Marquet and bomb aimer Joseph St Germain were hacking away the turret to free him when another bomb exploded, then petrol was seen pouring towards nearby parked aircraft which other groundcrew rushed to move away. St Germain was removed from the rear turret in time. All were seriously injured; Commodore Ross had severe injuries requiring amputation of one arm.
It would be easy to think of groundcrew and what they did as less important than the aircrew but they were complementary and essential to each other. Aircrew certainly seem to have recognised that. A poem penned in appreciation by RCAF aircrew described The Fitters Lot:
"Lashed by gales sweeping the bomber field
Perched atop ladders gripping cold steel
The erks labour on - so much to do
Grease stained battledress, field service caps askew
Chapped lips and sore, windblasted cheeks
Noses, petrified, dripping red beaks
Cold fingers dropping the oil slick tools
Ice on the hardstand formed into pools
Grimy fingers protrude through holed woollen gloves
Reach for the cowling covers, and the bolts above
Stripped threads, blood and scuffed knuckles abound
Hungry and tired - these men on the ground
Red tarnished brass, bloodshot eyes, frozen feet
Yesterday the wold was lashed by North Sea sleet
So many u/s aircraft after each flight
So many are needed for the raid tonight."
Aircrew and groundcrew, they were all young men doing something they'd never done before, and under extreme pressure. When an aircraft failed to return, for the groundcrew that was 'their' plane lost and their colleagues killed. When an aircraft turned back early due to some fault in its equipment, there were questions of - was it poor maintenance, or inherently unreliable equipment (as with some new navigational and radar aids) - or an aircrew-morale problem? (the latter is discussed in more detail in Chapter 11).
One of the groundcrew at Linton, an engine fitter, recalled witnessing the trauma of aircrew on the base. One of the bombers he had serviced taxied ready for take-off, then stopped:
"I went out to see what the trouble was. I found the pilot slumped over the controls sobbing and crying. The crew just looked vacant. They had had enough... It was a grim time for us all... "
Vickers Wellingtons were in service before the outbreak of war, as were Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and Handley Page Hampdens, and mainstays of Bomber Command during the early years of the war. The first Wellingtons were unreliable and they went through many updates; there were also adaptations for roles such as Coastal Command. Wellingtons were in service throughout the war, unlike Whitleys and Hampdens.
Four-engined heavy bombers, with greater bomb-load, longer range, higher altitude, started in development in the late 193os. The first, the Short Stirling, proved unsatisfactory, in its limited bombload and altitude capability; it was particularly difficult to handle on take-off and landing. The Handley-Page Halifax went into service in late 1940, with several updates produced to correct deficiences; there was dissatisfaction with the Halifax II despite which it was produced and used in large numbers. It came into service in 1942 and was flown from February 1944 onwards; similarly the Halifax V was regarded as deficient. The Halifax III was the best of these variants, and flown in 420 and 425 squadrons. The Avro Lancaster, with superior bombload, altitude and flying characteristics, came into service in 1942 but initially was available in smaller numbers than the Halifax; an improved version of it was produced in larger numbers; 425 Squadron was transferring to Lancasters at the time the war in Europe ended in May 1945.
The heavy bombers were put into service as soon as they were available, such was the operational need for them. Crews were flying untested, unproven aircraft of a size, power and carrying capacity previously unknown.
The Allies were reliant on British heavy bombers because they could carry larger bombs (up to 8,000-pounds, later increased to 12,000-pounds - approx 6 tons or 5,500 kg) and bigger overall bombloads than American bombers.
Harris complained frequently about the slow production and delivery of new bombers, and then quickly about the limitations or inadequacies of each type. It is unclear what was the process by which the specification for each new type was decided; were the aircrew flying bombers and groundcrew trying to keep them seviceable consulted? Such questions arise, but the Diaries and Crucible of War provide little such information. This is an interesting area for investigation; for example, Air Ministry specifications limited heavy bomber wingspans to 30 metres which may have affected the take-off and landing stability of heavy bombers, especially the Stirling; the Lancaster, a 'better' aircraft, exceeded that wingspan; but aircrews did not prefer the Lancaster in one respect at least - it had much smaller escape hatches than the Halifax it replaced, an important consideration for aircrew in bulky clothing having to hastily exit a 'downed' bomber. Nor is much reported on how production priorities were decided between types of bomber (why were the inferior Halifax IIs and Vs produced in such numbers?), or between bombers, fighters and all the other war material needed.
Of all the aircraft produced, only the Spitfire and Mosquito stand out as being 'ahead of the game' when introduced; other aircraft such as the Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster were improved upon version by version (with some new versions seemingly not being improvements at all). One reference in the Diaries notes a staff officer complaining that the Americans could:
"develop, produce, and operate more progressive defence armament in six months than we can do in two years".
No satisfactory downward-viewing rear turret (to counter attacks from behind and below) was produced, likewise a 'belly gun' for the Halifax, likewise changing from the 0.303 calibre of gunnery in British bombers to 0.5-inch (German JU88 night-fighters had armour which the lighter guage could not penetrate, as well having as the heavier calibre guns with which to attack British aircraft). Only in 1944 did work start on the Lancaster IV equipped with six 0.5 inch guns, but it seems that until then Bomber Command had given little thought to defending its bombers; fighter escorts were not used until later in 1944, after the Operation Overlord Allied landings in Normandy when bombers were making the shorter daylight runs in support of ground troops. Until then, British bombers were pretty much sitting ducks for German night-fighters and flak, high loss rates apparently accepted and compensated for by simply putting many more aircraft into the sky. However, every heavy bomber lost was seven crew lost as well.
To read of the repeated re-organisations and transfers of personnel especially early in the war, and the inadequacies of long-awaited new bombers, and inferior armour and defensive firepower of British bombers, their vulnerabilities which were never removed, and constantly changing tactics, and the navigational and targeting errors (even late in the war, only 20% of bombs on night operations fell within three miles of the target, in the best of conditions) - to read of this and more, as in Chapters 9 and 10, is shocking. But that reaction overlooks the fact that night bombing had never been carried out on this scale before; they were learning 'on the job' how to do it, and with few exceptions they were young men with little training or even work-experience, not battle-hardened, and not practiced professionals in what they were risking their lives attempting.
In reading detailed accounts of Bomber Command's operations, where critical reactions do remain for me is regarding senior officers' poor planning, anticipation and lack of adaptability; at worst, examples of 'that didn't work, let's do it again and hope for a different outcome'. Each time, it was more aircrew lives lost. Not all those lives need have been lost to achieve the intended result, and in fact the intended result was not achieved, as the next two chapters describe.
Chapter 9
The Bombing
Before 1943 the results of British night bombing efforts had been poor, hampered by inadequate aircraft, poor navigation and bomb aiming skills and equipment, confused by a strategy calling for precision targeting of German military facilities but which defaulted in practice, through inefficiency, to random 'area bombing' mainly of cities.
Reports from the Air Ministry and other senior sources at the time referred to casual attitudes and lack of skill among aircrew and groundcrew, but it is difficult to understand why the importance of navigation and bomb-aiming were not appreciated at an early stage by the Air Ministry and at senior RAF levels, and better training and equipment not devised from the start. In 1940 the Luftwaffe was able to cause substantial damage to Coventry, London, industrial centres and port cities, but three years later many RAF and RCAF bombing raids on Germany still failed to even find their targets, or bombed without accuracy, and suffered significant losses of aircraft and crew.
During 1943 Bomber Command dispensed with the second pilot (causing some alarm; this must have increased stress on pilots flying eight or nine hour missions in darkness and bad weather); this was done to allow more specialisation in the roles of navigation, wireless/radar operator and bomb-aiming. Mistakes still occurred, so it was decided that the final run to the target must be a timed approach on a set speed and course from a fixed reference point. Less happened in practice than had been decreed in theory; despite navigation aids, much depended on pre-flight meteorological predictions of wind speeds (at various altitudes) and the navigator's assessment of actual wind speed in flight, at which it seems very few were proficient.
Gradually, results did improve somewhat and losses were reduced, as many radar and radio advances were made by Bomber Command in the effort to improve navigation and bomb-aiming, better training was given in these areas, better aircraft came into service and tactics were adopted of 'concentration' (massing hundreds of bombers into one 'stream' so that German defences might be overwhelmed and areas swamped with explosive without precision needed), or multiple bomber streams, or shorter bomber streams stacked vertically to reduced the danger-time over the target, or diversion raids on other targets far apart. New tactics such as Pathfinder advance sorties to mark targets were also developed.
Likewise in Germany there were new developments to counter Bomber Command operations. Flak, searchlights, radar innovations and night-fighters were controlled from ground stations in a very thorough, systematic operation requiring many personnel; night-fighters were tightly controlled, allocated one bomber to target, and restricted to a 'box' (defined area). Germany stuck rigidly to this effective system, even when Bomber Command's new tactics and improving equipment started to achieve some highly destructive raids, such as against Essen and Hamburg (the 27/28 July bombing was termed Die Katatstrophie).
National characteristics were in play: in Germany the rigidly controlled
Himmelbett system was adhered to even after Bomber Command tactics such as bomber streams and diversions started to nullify it. In contrast, before Harris took over, English amateurishness and an individualistic approach had meant that Bomber Command allocated aircraft and set up staff structures but then left the groups to find their own ways of operating; likewise the bomber groups left squadrons to get on with it, and initially squadrons had left individual aircrews to find their own ways to and back from the target in Germany and just do their best with bomb aiming. It seems as if no-one really knew what they were doing, and in a sense this was true - it was all new.
Eventually German forces reduced their reliance on the rigid, resource-heavy defensive system, and allowed their night-fighters a much freer hand to find and destroy bombers. An effective tactic was developed of inserting night-fighters into the bomber stream well before it reached the target, and also into the stream of surviving bombers returning home. Realising that Britain's four-engined bombers' most vulnerable area was the underside, cannon facing at an upward angle were fitted to German night-fighters so they could approach from below and attack unseen; gunners in the bombers' rear turrets were unable to see downwards. Bomber Command was unaware of this German tactic until one returning crew reported it in January 1943; no satisfactory modification of Bomber Command aircraft to counter this tactic had been found by the end of the war.
Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe were in a war of attrition, a deadly competition where each attempted to reduce its own losses and increase its opponents' losses, by any and many means: better equipment and innovations, better performance of the men involved, better tactics, collecting enemy information while maintaining secrecy about its own, and diversions, evasions, distractions.
In 1943 losses on both sides were heavy: RCAF 6 Group's were the worst of Bomber Command, at a monthly high of 7.1% of aircraft lost during the first half of the year; a 5% loss rate continung for long was regarded as the limit beyond which a squadron or group became unsustainable. In Germany about 145 night-fighters and 500 day-fighters were lost (about 30% of capacity) and the pool of experienced fighter crews much reduced - a "disastrous rate of attrition". In December 1943, 1 Jagdkorps (1st Fighter Corps) lost 24 aircrew, in January 59, in February 53, then 87 in March 1944. Production of replacement fighters was slow, with bomber aircraft for the Russian campaign prioritised, and perversely the fighters that were produced were mostly types that had become obsolete; this mirrored the situation in Britain, where production of the inadequate Halifax II and V continued despite calls for the better Halifax III and Lancaster. In Germany, it was also loss of the most experienced pilots that caused concern. Whereas bomber crews in Britain were rested after 30 missions (if they survived that long), German night-fighter pilots flew until they died; the five best pilots - experten - had individual bomber-kill scores ranging from 45 to 83 - shockingly large numbers of British bombers destroyed, and each one with seven men on board. But these five experten all died in action between 21 January and 14 March 1944. They were replaced by new pilots, but training was abbreviated, despite night-fighting being a highly specialised skill.
One German pilot, a veteran at 27 years of age with a claimed 83 British aircraft shot down, was described in December 1943 as "pale and haggard, and, like most young pilots, suffering from nervous strain", needing "strong sleeping pills to get any sleep at all, and even then he wakes up every half an hour". He was killed in action the following month.
As weather worsened in autumn 1943 and Bomber Command's forces needed to recover from their losses over Germany, squadrons were diverted to 'Gardening' operations which gave new and underperforming crews relatively safe flying and navigating experience (although on one such 'safer' operation, 10% of Bomber Command aircraft failed to return; 6 Group's loss rate was a better but still unsustainable 8%). Bombing sorties were also conducted over Italy.
Under Harris's direction bombing operations were resumed over Germany in November 1943, with 32 major raids in what became known as the Battle of Berlin. Other major cities were also targeted in 16 of these operations, but all were deep penetration operations. This meant long flights at night in wintry weather against heavily defended targets and also contending with German night-fighters re-organised to attack bombers on both the outward and return flights as well as over the targets. Because of the long distances more fuel had to be carried, which reduced bombload, and the targets were beyond the reach of electronic aids which had helped reduce losses on shorter operations; as experienced crews were lost they were replaced by inexperienced, recently trained crews.
Results of this 1943/44 winter bombing campaign were varied, from disastrous for Germany, to disastrous for Bomber Command. On 18/19 November 1943 when 750 bombers attacked Berlin cloud and fog kept enemy night-fighters on the ground so bomber losses were low but did not prevent concentrated and accurate bombing. Several military factories were hit as well as housing, and Josef Goebbels was shocked at the damage:
"Blazing fires everywhere... Transportation conditions are ... quite hopeless... Devastation is ... appalling in the government sector as well as Western and northern suburbs... Hell itself seems to have broken loose over us... the English fly in bad weather..,. all the way to Berlin; but the German pursuit planes can't rise from the ground..."
However, Bomber Command was suffering the inadequacies of many of its available bombers. Stirlings from 3 Group were withdrawn from the winter campaign at an early stage because their poor altitude resulted in high losses and compromised the rest of the bomber stream, and because of their limited bombload. In February 1944 when 34 Halifax IIs and Vs were shot down over Leipzig; the Diaries comment:
"Because of their extraordinary and unsupportable losses over the past few weeks, that was the last occasion when Harris would send Halifax IIs and Vs on deep penetrations into Germany."
Removing the Stirlings and Halifax IIs and Vs reduced Harris's heavy bomber capacity by one-third.
The last of Harris's winter raids, on 30/31 March 1944, targeted Nuremberg. Flying in bright moonlight and clear night skies, 95 aircraft (of 786 dispatched) were lost, 26 more heavily damaged, and 700 crew were lost. German nightfighters had an easy job, 50 bombers were shot down before they reached the target, and more on the return journey. Little damage on the ground was caused, navigation and bomb-aiming being disrupted by high winds (which had not been forecast) and by the night-fighter activity - and probably by the carnage going on around each bomber. Nuremberg, in southern Germany, was another deep penetration target, a long flight there and back over enemy territory and in the most exposing conditions. Added to these factors, crews persisted in keeping their 'Identification Friend or Foe' signals on, which the enemy could track, and also kept on their H2S radar which Bomber Command and the Air Ministry had not realised that the enemy could also track.
On the March 1944 operation over Nuremberg some bomber groups flying mostly Lancasters lost fewer than groups flying Halifaxes, but the two Tholthorpe squadrons flying Halifaxes escaped with only one of 26 bombers shot down because they arrived late over the target by which time "there was no enemy activity whatsoever... we released our load at the approximate point... Heaven only knows where our bombs went."
The 1943/44 winter bombing campaign was Bomber Command's greatest effort:
"never before had Sir Arthur Harris's crews flown so many long, fatiguing operations in such strength, in the worst weather of the year, to what was arguably the most heavily defended city in Germany."
Harris had predicted the Battle of Berlin would cost him 500 aircraft, and that as a result civilian morale would collapse and Germany would lose the war. But what actually happened was that 1,117 bombers were lost, and a further 113 crashed in England; the RCAF 6 Group sent 1,292 sorties, losing 83 (6.93%). And the human cost, less often noted: multiply the aircraft lost by seven for the number of young mern killed (a few may have parachuted and survived to become PoWs).
It was not until German night-fighters and their bases were largely suppressed in late 1944 that the thousand-stream night-bomber attacks could become sustainable loss-wise and that massive US day-time bombing was viable.
With such unsustainable losses of men and machines, often without the intended results on the ground, what saved things for Bomber Command in early 1944 was the shift from an exclusive focus on area bombing of German cities to bombing military and transportation targets in France in preparation for Operation Overlord, the Allied landings in Normandy. Rail and road hubs were targeted to prevent German reinforcements reaching the Normandy beach-head area; this was 6 Group's main new focus, in part because its preponderance of Halifax IIs and Vs, unsuitable for further efforts over Germany, were effective in shorter, shall0w penetration operations and lower altitude bombing where there was little defensive flak and virtually no night-fighter activity. By the middle of June, authorities in Berlin observed that:
"all main lines" [had been broken] "the coastal defences have been cut off from supply bases in the interior... large-scale strategic movement of German troops by rail is practically impossible."
With both day and night operations in support of Operation Overlord, and subsequent army operations in France, Bomber Command's sortie and tonnage-dropped statistics (and 6 Group's) increased greatly, as had the consecutive days and nights of operations. McEwen had also increased 6 Group's flying training hours, which may help explain the very high number of crews attacking the primary target, and the reduction in early returns and accidents. Harris commented later that he did not anticipate that "we should be able to bomb the French railways with anything like the precision that was achieved".
Meanwhile, Harris resumed bombing raids over Germany, with a similar mix of good/bad results and, overall, high rates of lost aircraft and crews; the heavy losses of aircrew meant that "a new crew could arrive at a squadron from a training unit and a flight to Berlin in midwinter could be their first operation" - a desperate situation, in which new, in-at-the-deep-end crews were likely to be among the next batch of casualties.
Even in the last bombing raids of the war, some German night-fighters were active; after a March 1945 raid on oil installations at Kamen, they pursued Halifaxes back to the Yorkshire airbases and attacked the bombers in circuit to land; at least one Halifax was shot down, at Elvington.
At the end of the war in Europe, Bomber Command used its four-engined bombers to take fuel and other supplies to Europe and to transport prisoners of war back to the UK. There were severe fuel shortages in Europe, and the bombers had the fuel capacity to make the outward and return journey without re-fuelling, unlike transport aircraft such as the DC47 Dakotas which were used within Europe to congregate PoWs at the relatively few airstrips long enough and firm enough for the heavy bombers. There were over a milion PoWs scattered throughout the Reich, often far from airfields. By 1 June 1945 Bomber Command, including the RCAF, had flown 75,000 PoWs back to England in Operation Exodus. No. 6 Group then started to disappear.
The group disbanded between mid-May 1945 and June 1946, and eight RCAF squadrons (including 425 Alouette Squadron) were allocated to join the war against Japan and flew new Lancaster Xs to Canada in preparation for this.
One of the key factors in navigating to the target and bomb-aiming was wind strength and direction; it would be interesting to find what attention was paid to this in commentary post-war, and what efforts at improvement during the war; little coverage is given in the Diaries and Crucible of War.
Meteorological officers had the difficult task of predicting conditions many hundreds of miles away where they were unfamiliar with the geography, topography and weather patterns. Wind conditions can change in a few hours, and at different altitudes. For accuracy, bomb-aimers had to estimate actual windspeed at the altitude they were flying, which might not be the altitude planned for; how they were expected to do this seems unclear, and whether any effective aids to improve estimation were devised during the war.
There were many cases of inadequate met. forecasts resulting in ineffective bombing operations and aircraft losses. On 27 March 1942 Wellingtons and Whitleys from Dishforth raiding St Nazaire found 10/10 cloud covering the dockyards and only four of the 63 aircraft released bombs over the presumed target. Returning, the aircraft found the Yorkshire Dales also covered in low cloud. At least one plane, a Whitley with a full bombload because the bomb doors had stuck, and a malfunctioning radio, tried to fly below the cloud cover to establish where they were; as they descended a white mass suddenly appeared in the cloud below, snow-covered cloud-covered moorland, which the plane crashed into; the six crew survived, two of them severely injured. At least two other aircraft crashed on the return.
Navigating through cloud and fog over snow-covered, featureless hills and moorland was hazardous particularly for Yorkshire-based bomber squadrons throughout the war.
However difficult it might be estimating windspeed, weather conditions, visibility and temperatures at X altitude over Berlin in ten hours' time while doing this from Y altitude in Yorkshire, met. reports for local conditions in the next few hours seem to have been wrong, fatally wrong, on some occasions; this recurring failure to predict weather conditions on take-off, i.e. in the coming hour or two, is little explored in the Diaries and Crucible of War. On the 5 March 1945 incident noted in Chapter 6 earlier, when several aircraft from 6 Group crashed soon after take-off due to severe icing:
"...ice was beginning to form on the aircraft, and it was getting thicker all the time. ... in the air for some 50 minutes when it became uncontrollable and lost height... just before it was too low to bale out the mid-upper gunner... got out of the doomed aircraft and was the only survivor."
There had been no met. forecast of ice that night. In all, nine aircraft from 6 Group crashed soon after take-off on that night.
Chapter 10
Harris & Hitler
If ever there was a 'just war' - reluctant, inevitable, against evil forces - it was Britain's in the Second World War, at least at the outset it was.
That is the good side of what was criticised so much as 'appeasement'. It has to be understood in the context of the late 1930s, barely 2o years after what was termed 'the war to end all wars' such were the enormous losses of life suffered between 1914 and 1918.
In just one of many First World War battles there were nearly 60,000 British casualties on the first day and nearly a million before the Battle of the Somme ended 141 days later. In the four years of trench warfare, 880,000 British men were killed, many more injured, crippled, gassed. Monuments in almost every town and village in this country list the fathers, brothers, sons killed from local families; it scarred the survivors of that generation, became a 'never again', and it was the economic hardships of the 1920s/30s that preoccupied politicians' attention rather than thoughts of rearming Britain ready for another war.
For Germany it was different; the horror of its own huge losses was turned into a sense of humiliation and injustice by the severe terms of post-war reparations (the Treaty of Versailles): something to resent, fight back against, a wrong to put right, prompting Germany to re-arm in its own very different version of 'never again'.
Versailles had diminished the geographic size and industrial power of Germany; this was fertile ground for a resurgent, expansive German nationalism. Nazi forces burst out to annex Austria in 1938, regain control of the Saar and Rhineland, then occupy the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, separating off Slovakia and also taking over part of Lithuania in 1939.
France in particular had pushed for punitive post-war reparations, financial as well as taking over German territory. France (with its allies) may have won the war (the First) but it lost the peace, and as a result it later lost the Second World War when Germany invaded in 1940, claiming back what Versailles had taken away, and more.
British and French politicians, scarred by the First World War and with militaries unprepared for war sought to gain agreement from Germany to cease its aggressive expansion, with unconvincing and (privately reluctant) threats of military retaliation. But, despite the Munich Agreement of 1938, German aggressions continued. When in September 1939 Hitler's headlong military expansion turned to Poland, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain again issued an ultimatum ('withdraw or we are at war'), it was ignored, as before, and the Second World War resulted.
Britain then, still unprepared for war, stood against well prepared and modernised German military forces which were already engaged in highly successful military actions.
Chamberlain was vilified for appeasement, his previous reluctance to go to war for a second time with Germany. There were some in Britain who had been urging rearmament in preparation for a possible or likely second war; Germany's increasing military strength through the 1930s had been evident to those who wanted to see it, and its military actions in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 were an unmistakeable sign. In Britain some military preparations, including development of aircraft, had started, but nothing like an all-out effort. Britain (and France) started the Second World War against Germany on 3 September 1939 largely without modernised and effective military forces.
Something better than a simplistic good/bad opinion of Chamberlain and his so-called appeasement is given in the contemporary view of a celebrated British fighter pilot; Paul Richey wrote in 1941:
"Fortunately for the RAF, England and the world, Mr Chamberlain managed to stave off war for a year. That vital year gave the RAF time to re-equip the regular fighter squadrons with Hurricanes and Spitfires armed with eight rapid-firing machine-guns and capable of an average top speed of 350 mph."
He adds that there was a readiness for German attacks early in 1939, before the invasion of Poland and the September declaration of war, which also casts Chamberlain's actions and timing in a different light, as a playing for time rather than appeasement:
"Re-equipment at Tangmere was completed early in 1939. Half the pilots of each squadron now had to be permanently available on the station in case of a German attack. Gone were the carefree days..."
Exactly how prepared Britain was in 1939 would need much more study, but that it was a 'just war' (reluctant, inevitable, against evil forces) seems to me hard to doubt. At least at the outset it was just and justified.
But how do you fight a monster without becoming a monster yourself?
Which brings us to Sir Arthur Harris, known as 'Bomber Harris'. He stated that the aim of Bomber Command:
"...is the obliteration of German cities and their inhabitants... the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised community life throughout Germany... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale... they are not the byproducts of attempts to hit factories... Acreages of housing devastation are infinitely more important."
He was correcting an Air Ministry public statement featuring one raid's destruction in October 1943 of German factories; he insisted that the main aim and achievement was that "Kassell contained over 200,000 Germans, many of whom are now dead and most of the remainder homeless and destitute..." In fact, almost half of Kassell's houses and apartment blocks were damaged or destroyed in that operation; over 100,000 civilians were made homeless, 8,500 killed.
To achieve these results on a city's houses and their inhabitants, Harris combined bombloads of various blast bombs and incendiaries; high-explosive bombs were dropped first to crater and block roads preventing fire engines and other rescue services, then blast bombs were used to blow the roofs off buildings, then masses of small incendiaries were dropped to set fire to the interiors and further delay/endanger rescue personnel, ambulances, firemen.
It was easier to burn a city, he said, than to blast it to pieces. Such bombloads would have been far less suitable for attacking hardened military facilities.
How did this come about, how did what started as a 'just war' become an explicit policy and relentless practice of indiscriminate killing of civilians? Civilians were not 'collateral damage', they were the primary targets of British bombing efforts from 1942 onwards. Britain's circumstances in 1940/41 may help to explain how this change came about.
The winter of 1940/41 was probably the lowest point in the five years of war for Britain; France had been quickly over-run by German forces and the British Expeditionary Force pushed back to the Channel ports (with about 100,000 men killed, missing or captured, and much armour abandoned); in north Africa German forces were getting the better of the Allies' Eighth Army; Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in December taking the war into the Pacific and south-east Asia; British capital ships had been sunk; the major British base at Singapore had surrendered. Nor had the air war gone well for Britain; the Battle of Britain where fighter forces prevented the Luftwaffe gaining the air dominance that would have been needed for a German invasion of Britain was the one success, but otherwise British forces had struggled in the air.
Bombing efforts had been unimpressive in daylight raids by the one- and two-engined aircraft of the peace-time 1930s RAF. Used in 1940 in vain attempts to stem the German invasion of France, they had been largely ineffective and suffered high losses; squadrons of Fairey Battles and Bristol Blenheim were largely wiped out (with their aircrew, a loss of experienced pilots; being replaced by less experienced recruits meant a drop in overall capability).
In 1940/41 losses were so high in daylight raids when bombers coud not defend themselves that night operations became the norm; these included some of the new, larger bombers that Harris and others in the 1930s had pressed the Air Ministry to develop. Of the first three heavy bombers produced, only the Handley Page Halifax proved effective and remained in service (in updated forms) throughout the war.
In mid-1941 a survey of bombing operations was carried out independently of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry, and its results (the Butt Report) caused a sensation. The headline finding was that only one in four bombers whose crews claimed to have bombed the target actually got within five miles of it, as shown by on-board cameras (and it was usually the best aircrews that had cameras installed, and the one-third of aircrews that did not claim to have reached the target area were excluded).
There was Air Ministry consternation, but the message was clear also on the other side of the results/losses equation. In the four months between 7 July and 10 November 1941 virtually all Bomber Command's front-line capability (aircraft and crew) had been lost: 414 night bombers and 112 day bombers destroyed. Bomber Command operations were halted over winter, at Churchill and the War Cabinet's direction, while a new way forward was sought.
Whether to continue with Bomber Command's efforts was questioned; Britain's resources were stretched; its operations so far had been unproductive, wasteful of resources, and proposals for a massively increased bomber force (4,000 aircraft!) were unrealistic. It was decided to continue, with increased numbers and better aircraft, training, tactics and, hopefully, better results. It seems the main reason for continuing with bombing raids was that this was the only way that Britain was hitting back at Germany at that time. There was also fear that with a future Allied invasion to defeat German forces in Europe, which must come at some point, the land battles would be bogged down, lengthy and very costly, as they had been in the First World War; before then, German military strength and infrastructure must be attacked and reduced. By bombing.
Since precision bombing on night operations had proved so difficult to attain, it would have to be 'area bombing'; this hopefully would be made more effective by more aircraft capable of bigger bombloads so that at least some military facilities and infrastructure would be hit. With enough heavy area bombing for long enough, civilian morale would be so badly affected that German society would collapse (this vague expectation was another harking back to the First World War).
Sir Arthur Harris took charge of Bomber Command in February 1942, to carry out this policy; area-bombing was a War Cabinet and Air Ministry directive, not a policy formulated by him, but he agreed and pursued it relentlessly. He carried out thousand-plane bombing operations during 1942, and a series of mass raids on Germany's Ruhr industrial heartland and against Hamburg in 1943.
This was followed by the 1943/44 winter bombing campaign, which was termed the Battle of Berlin. The heavily defended German capital was the primary target of the winter's 32 bombing attacks but other cities on the north German plain were also targeted, and Nuremberg much further south. Harris predicted that he would lose 500 bombers in the process of destroying Berlin and that as a result Germany would capitulate, ending the war, making the Allied landings (Operation Overlord) planned for the spring of 1944 unnecessary. Bombing Berlin to bits had an emotional appeal, shared by Churchill, but it proved not to be the route to victory and the area-bombing had far too great a cost in Allied lives and aircraft lost.
In the winter bombing campaign of 1943/44 what actually happened was that 1,117 aircraft were lost. The RCAF 6 Group alone sent 1,292 sorties, losing 83 (6.93%) aircraft. And the human cost, less often noted: multiply the aircraft lost by seven, for the lives lost, about 7,800 (a few may have parachuted and survived to become POWs). A Pathfinder group captain said later:
"We did not fail for lack of trying... but there was nothing left in the kitty... The battering we received over the North German Plain cost us more than a thousand aircraft and between seven and eight thousand lives. Berlin wasn't worth it."
In the Diaries, the assessment is that:
"The story of the Battle of Berlin is of a steady deterioration of effectiveness by the bomber force at increasing cost."
The postwar bombing survey concluded that "area attacks... could not have been responsible for more than a very small part of the fall which... actually happened in German production." Area bombing, and none more so than the raids over Berlin, were "a very costly way of achieving the [modest] results they did achieve" and the loss rate had become unsustainable.
That post-war conclusion confirmed what had become clear to the Air Ministry and senior US and UK strategists, and was clear even to Harris after the last major, disastrous night-bombing raid on 30/31 March 1944. With a clear night forecast and full moonlight - which would make the bombers visible and even more vulnerable - many had expected the planned operation to be cancelled, but Harris pressed on in his 'at any cost' manner. This situation was made worse by the choice of the distant southern target of Nuremberg, hence a long, exposed route. Well before the target, high winds pushed the bomber stream close to German beacons and night-fighters destroyed over 50 Halifaxes and Lancasters just on the outward journey. In total, 95 of the 786 bombers were lost and another 26 badly damaged; that was about 7,000 aircrew lives lost - equivalent to an infantry battalion or crew of a large cruiser, as commentary in the Diaries points out. Murderous, of Harris' own young servicemen, as well as of German civilians targeted.
After Nuremberg, even Harris realised belatedly that what was needed was a much stronger fighter force to beat Germany in the air and reduce bomber casualties. Targeting turned away from German cities and towards preparing the way for Operation Overlord. For months Harris's superior, Sir Charles Portal, had been urging him to redirect his forces in preparation for the Normandy landings later in 1944, which Harris had ignored repeatedly. After Nuremberg he received a direct order, and Bomber Command turned to daylight bombing of rail and road links west of Germany and military facilities including enemy fighter bases that would oppose the Allied landings.
After the Normandy landings, with Allied land forces fighting their way towards German borders, Harris was instructed to target oil refineries, factories producing tanks and fighting vehicles, and transportation systems supplying German forces. From autumn 1944, he conducted daytime raids (which could achieve more precision) mainly against German oil refineries.
Weather conditions were as much a hazard by this time as the depleted enemy defences. But, again going against his superior's instructions, Harris also insisted on resuming the bombing of civilian centres, some of which had no industrial or military importance. He argued that Bomber Command had already:
"...virtually destroyed 45 out of the leading 60 German cities... The destruction of [the remaining cities] Magdeburg, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Breslau, Nuremberg, Munich, Coblenz, Karlsruhe and the completion of Berlin and Hanover are required to finish the plan..."
Harris's resumed city/area raids comprised 40% of Bomber Command operations in November and December 1944.
No. 6 Group RCAF was heavily involved in operations against both city and the military-related targets. In some of the city/area raids bomber casualties were high: 31 aircraft were lost on a raid on Hanover on 5/6 January 1945, ten of them from 6 Group including three from 425 Alouette Squadron flying Halifax IIIs. On 17/18 January over Magdeburg 17 Halifaxes were lost and ten over Zeitz - heavy losses of aircrew on what Harris' superiors considered unnecessary operations.
In daytime operations, some RCAF crews saw the results on the ground of their area bombing which had been less obvious in night-time raids, and "couldn't help thinking about the people down there. The centre of town was the aiming point."
Hitler had done the same thing, with the same intention. Early in the war Hitler had bombed civilian targets repeatedly in London durinng the Blitz, and elsewhere in Britain. Ports and industrial areas were also bombed. In 1944 Germany diverted resources from its retreating military forces to develop V1 and V2 rockets to be fired at the civilian population of London. In June 1944 V1 pilotless (and unaimed) missiles caused so much death and destruction in London that by August one and a half million people had fled out of the city. In September the more destructive V2 ballistic missiles started falling on London and continued until March 1945; the last V2 fell on 29 March, a mere five weeks before Germany surrendered. Apart from destruction of buildings and infrastructure, nearly 2,800 people were killed and 6,500 injured by the V1s and V2s. Germany was clearly losing the war by the time they were fired at London; they were not directed at military targets and did nothing to bolster Germany's failing war effort. Murderous. Herbert Morrison, Britain's Minister of State Security, said Hitler had:
"...calculated that after five years of war London could not possibly stand the strain of being shot at continuously 24 hours a day, day after day, week after week, month after month."
Morrison said that in 1940 Hitler thought if only he could knock London out he would win everything, but his 1940 blitzing of London and other cities failed, and:
"In 1944 the object of his flying bomb and other secret weapons is to break our will to win... that the Government would be forced to call off the war."
Both Harris and Hitler were convinced that by targeting and killing enough enemy civilians they could cause a collapse in national morale and win the war. Both were wrong, at huge costs to life, including the many of their own people who they were willing to sacrifice in the process. There is an equivalence between Harris and Hitler in that respect, if in no other.
But, more widely, there are great differences between the two men, and Sir Arthur Harris's conduct of the bomber war has been celebrated more than it has been condemned. At the time, the Archbishop of York said:
"Frequently, a choice has to be made of the two lesser evils, and it is a lesser evil to bomb a war-loving Germany than to sacrifice the lives of our fellow country-men who long for peace and to delay delivery of many now held in slavery."
Also relevant is the Diaries' assessment that, although Germany was nowhere near the civilian collapse and surrender Harris had forecast, the years of Bomber Command's operations served as a 'Second Front' long before the Allied invasion of northwest Europe. British bombing required hundreds of thousands of German workers to repair damage and disperse vital industries, and more to staff the flak defences (an estimated 900,000 men in 1943, over 650,000 in April 1945), plus pilots and resources of the German night-fighter forces; by September 1944 there were over 4,000 heavy flak guns. These major German resources were drawn away from the Russian front to which they would otherwise have contributed and later to the German defences in Europe.
These are all good points, on the credit side.
But to have these benefits for the Allied war effort, need the bomber war have been conducted with such relentless focus on destroying civilians in their homes (rather than Germany's military strength), and with so many aircrew lives lost in the process? There was an obsessive 'at any costs' quality to Sir Arthur Harris's conduct of Bomber Command.
In half-justifications, Harris and others would say 'well the civilians could be workers in war factories, some of them' - ignoring that vital military industries had been dispersed and hidden, which was why they were so hard to find and bomb.
And there is more on the debit side.
Harris's list of the 15 remaining German cities not completely devastated by late 1944, which he insisted must now be area-bombed in the last months of the war that Germany was clearly losing, included Dresden, the bombing of which there was much controversy post-war. Harris was not alone in his determination to destroy such cities, even an historic, largely wood-constructed civilian centre with no military facilities as Dresden was. By February 1945 the Air Ministry, strategists and advisors were almost all turning to bombing operations which the Diaries say "could only be described as a kind of general - even visceral - punishment" (which was already Harris's position - a year earlier, he had spoken of city-bombing intended to "break their hearts"). When Wiesbaden, a spa town of 160,000 with no significant military industry, was heavily bombed on 2/3 February 1945, the official rationale was that it was the only city in that area that had escaped heavy bombing so far and might be used by retreating German troops to shelter "from the rigors [stet] of winter" (ignoring that by then spring was only a month away). So, 500 people there were killed, 30,000 left homeless.
Worse was to follow.
On 13/14 February Dresden was firebombed and its historic centre of wooden houses and narrow streets totally destroyed, to prevent it "hosting German evacuees from the East" fleeing the Russian advance. At the Yalta conference two weeks earlier the Russians had requested the bombing of Berlin and Leipzig to aid their advance, but not Dresden or any of the other cities punishment-bombed in the last one or two months of war.
There was nothing unintentional about the attack on Dresden; the raising of a firestorm was the plan; bombloads were largly incendiaries; at least 25,000 people were killed, a further 35,000 missing; death was by incineration and/or fire-asphyxiation.
Post-war, Harris's deputy said:
"That the bombing of Dresden was a tragedy none can deny...That it was a military necessity... few will believe. It was one of the terrible things that sometimes happen in war-time..."
Notice that he did not state what the military necessity was. And the firebombing of Dresden was planned, devised, it did not just 'happen' as he implies. Churchill supported the plan to firebomb Dresden, though he later expressed concern.
One rationale given for the bombing was to prevent German forces moving from the western battle fronts to face the advancing Russian forces; that seems unlikely, as battle was still fiercely underway in the west - and Allied forces in the west were racing to reach Berlin before the Russians so had an interest in slowing rather than speeding the Russian advance. Anyway, German forces heading east were unlikely to move through the crowded centre of Dresden. It was known beforehand that Dresden (and Leipzig and Chemnitz), all near the eastern border of Germany, were packed with refugees and wounded fleeing the areas recently taken by the advancing Russians; it was these civilians who were targeted and incinerated.
Perhaps, in fighting a monster you do become a monster, and then hide that fact from yourself.
Harris had long adopted a no-limits mentality; in late 1942, after unsustainable losses on night-bombing operations over the industrial Ruhr, he combatted Air Ministry criticism by targetting the ancient Hanseatic port of Lubeck which was an easy target for bombers to find, poorly defended and would burn well, being largely old, timbered houses on narrow streets; over 90% of the destruction was of esidential buildings. Lubeck had little military or industrial importance; Bomber Command losses were remained high.
At base, this war (like all wars?) came down to which side had the most men, and which side was willing to sacrifice the most of its male population.
Further area bombing operations continued in the last two months of the war, with more devastation on the ground. Just one example, Pforzheim, an unimportant town, was described thus: "...destruction on a scale [and] as complete... There was hardly a single building left intact... the tremendous gutting by fires... buildings levelled to the ground... Seven thousand killed, 45,000 homeless..." And with high casulties to Bomber Command aircrew; 6 Group had four costly raids, losing 37 aircraft on the Pforzheim raid and seven on take-off in icy conditions.
One night's briefing of 6 Group squadrons was "Our target today is Hildesheim... The town centre is largely built of half timbered houses and has preserved its medieval character. This should make a good fire." The official Canadian history of 6 Group titles this stage of the air-war Armageddon over Germany.
It is the acting without limit, and therefore without conscience, depriving yourself of choice, that appalls. But I have never been in a war, in any capacity. It would be interesting to know of cases where, in desperate circumstances, people have considered dreadful actions and then not taken them.
How fortunate are those of us born to live our lives in the second half of the 2oth century, and how unfortunate our parents and grandparents to grow up through two world wars, as well as epidemics and economic despression.
War has been much studied, its causes, conduct and consequences. But what happens to us, inside us, when we are 'at war'? How do you fight against a monster without becoming a monster yourself? This Night-War was monstrous and murderous on both sides. There are the Nazi horrors we fought against, but then the horror of what we did too, to them and to ourselves.
Chapter 11
P.S. Morale
"Fear was the eighth passenger" in all heavy bombers, as one RAF veteran observed, but to the Air Ministry and Bomber Command the mental/ psychological/ emotional condition of young men sent to bomb German cities night after night for five years was an afterthought, a postscript; if recognised at all, it was as a disciplinary issue, a character defect for which they had an official term, LMF - "lack of moral fibre".
Another veteran, a rear gunner on a Halifax, said "Sometimes we were on ops two nights or three nights running. Our nerves were on a knife edge all the time... the average life of a rear gunner was four weeks" and he talked about the very heavy losses.
Morale was a recurrent concern of the RAF and Bomber Command in particular, as an explanation for poor performance. But little attention seems to have been paid to what is needed to maintain an effective human fighting force. An example:
"one crew flew three nights in a row... They found themselves on the battle order the fourth day... the crew were extremely tired... the target was Berlin... The pilot told the Flight Commander they were not going... [The Wing Commander remonstrated with them] ... The pilot and two other members of the crew .... indicated at once they would fly the duty as detailed. The other four members refused to go... insisting all they wanted was a night's rest..."
They were immediately placed under arrest, posted away, reduced in rank, had LMF added to their service reords, and were given 180 days' detention.
One of Bomber Command's most celebrated leaders, Leonard Cheshire, wrote:
"I was ruthless with LMF. I had to be. We were airmen, not psychiatrists. Of course we had concern for any individual whose internal tensions meant that he could no longer go on, but there was a worry that one really frightened man could affect others around him."
Cheshire was regarded as unusually sympathetic because he would take a crew member with confidence problems aboard his own aircraft till they sorted things out - but pilots he transferred out immediately. There was a fear among commanders too, it was that LMF might spread and affect - infect - others, and an awareness that what kept aircrew flying night and night was precarious, paper-thin. By November 1943 the success of 6 Group in bombing the primary target was higher on average than 3 and 4 Groups, but the early return rate remained high:
"equipment that had purportedly malfunctioned in the air en route to the target was found to be 'OK on test'... and there were too many borderline cases that stretched the permissible or reasonable limits for returning early".
But, perversely, it might be the disciplinary consequences of exhibiting fear or anxiety that led to it being expressed in these 'going through the motions' ways, less efficient flying and bombing performance and many avoidable 'losses' of aircrew and aircraft.
Halifaxes tended to have a higher number of early returns; the Diaries noted that "The main strain fell on the the men who flew Lancasters and, especially, Halifax IIIs." When German night-fighters attacked, the Lancasters could fly higher and the Halifaxes were attacked first. Attempts to increase Lancasters' bomb tonnage was associated with some jettisoning of bombs over the sea, to increase manoeuvrability. And on reaching the target area there was a tendency to drop bomb loads too early, causing 'creepback' from the intended target as following bombers used those explosions as aiming points and turned earlier than planned to get back to safety.
Early returns tended to increase following operations which had met heavy losses. The Battle of Berlin in winter 1943/44 dented morale as well as inflicting big losses in aircraft and crew. Reports proliferated of "fringe merchants", whose aim was to get away as quickly as possible, caring little where their bombs fell, or who lightened the load and increased speed, height and manoeuvereability by dropping the heaviest bombs in the Channel. "Waverers" was another term figuring in official reports. Aircrew deemed lacking moral fibre were removed from the base, stripped of rank and flying badges, put in groundcrew (which surely did not improve maintenance efficiency) or put into the army or coal mines. This seems a practice as psychologically ignorant and inhumane as were the executions of 'shell-shocked' soldiers in the First World War. And counterproductive - physiologically and psychologically shattered young men kept flying for fear of shame and disgrace, but flying with a sense of fatalism, risking not only their lives but those of their friends and colleagues.
The morale/performance problem tended to fluctuate, for several reasons. As experienced aircrew were depleted with the high rate of losses "new crew could arrive at a squadron from a training unit" and their first operational night flight might be a lengthy deep penetration raid on Berlin in midwinter and foul weather.
But expert commentators in the Diaries take the view that:
"what Bomber Command suffered from in the Battle of Berlin was not a widespread drop in morale but deterioration of efficiency caused by adverse weather, the longer routes... which forcd more fuel to be carried at the expense of bomb tonnage, and steadily increasing casualties which led to an even greater reliance on inexperienced crews.... [And] the electronic aids which had ensured victory in the Battle of the Ruhr were not available over Berlin."
I am not persuaded by what the Diaries say about there being no widespread drop in morale among bomber crews; both things can be true, with the operational factors mentioned above interacting with the aircrews' psychology (fear, fatigue, feelings of having little control over their fate - do any of those things affect how someone performs? Of course they do).
Little attention was paid in the 1940s to effects on motivation and on competence of repeatedly flying bombing raids en masse into Germany. Night bombing was new; flying such distances on bombing raids was new; flying in large formations was new; flying four-engined heavy bombers was new; the teamwork required of the seven crew was new; the navigation and bomb-aiming equipment was new, unreliable and ever-changing. They were often flying types of aircraft known to be deficient and vulnerable, and having to fly them at night in bad weather to targets they could not find. Yet it seems there was no professional curiousity about the impact of experiencing these events, repeatedly, on men's stamina, competence and emotional state, let alone much compassion. Nor does this, the human aspect, get much attention in the Diaries or the Crucible of War written decades later; the former has an index which lists names, places, operations etc but no operational issues such as early returns or personnel issues such as morale and motivation.
If any feeling was widespread it must have been fatalism, powerlessness, flying blind in all senses. It only needs a little imagination to get a feel for what it must have been like to be a young man flying for hours in darkness, freezing cold, unable to move much (or at all, the pilot), often in terrible weather, with sometimes unreliable instruments, heading into an inferno of fire.
At least the RCAF, from 1943, insisted that LMF cases were returned to Canada for physical and mental health examination; there was a greater understanding of "flying stress" (as opposed to the disciplinary character defect LMF), especially where personnel were reaching the latter stages of their operational tour. Long before they got there though, some had been shamed with the LMF label at squadron level.
Officially, only 0.4% of RAF/RCAF personnel were considered even possibly LMF during the year 1943/44, which suggests either there was actually virtually no morale problem, or that the figure is very misleading. Station commanders would have been unlikely to want to be known as the worst LMF-station; the shame factor probably acted as a major deterrent (as it was intended to), meaning many aircrew carried on flying when they were in a very poor physical and psychological condition, and prompted ground control to ignore it as long as possible. If the number was known of those who flew when they weren't really capable, and then crashed or were shot down, the figure would surely be higher.
My father said to me that yes, he was groundcrew, had he been in aircrew he probably wouldn't have survived.
The 6 Group RCAF squadrons dispersed in the months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May 1945, aircrew from some squardons flying their Lancasters to Canada for re-deployment in the Far East (made unncessary by the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945). Canadian groundcrew and admin staff were shipped home in August/ September.
Of course, it was the survivors who returned home, and tried to pick up in a changed world - surely themselves much changed - their young lives interrupted for years. Remaining here were the many Canadians who are buried at Stonefall Cemetary in Harrogate. What also remained were people's memories, affection and respect for the sacrifices the Canadians made, including the thousands more young men with no graves, whose lives ended in the air over Germany or elsewhere. To them all, local people erected memorials at Tholthorpe, East Moor and other RCAF airbases, and at Elvington there is now the Yorkshire Air Museum with an area dedicated to Canadian airforce men and women, with this memorial.
And what of the German people killed in Bomber Command city/area bombing raids? German aircrew shot down or crashing over Britain are recorded on the Yorkshire-aircraft website noted below, but for civilians killed in German cities I have found no numbers or memorials, except this Dresden memorial which says all that needs saying: The Dead Warn Against Another War 13 Febr. 1945
In this article I have dispensed with lengthy RAF & RCAF official titles, referring instead to 'commanders' generically in most cases.
The major sources reviewed in this article are two very detailed and lengthy histories:
The Crucible of War 1939-1945, The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Volume III, Brereton Greenhous, Stephen J Harris, William J Johnston William G P Rawling. Univerity of Toronto Press, 1994, pp1096.
Before the Bomber War, there was the Fighter War, in which Canadian airmen were also involved. After the war, some Canadian servicemen remained in Britain until 1946. These are covered in the official history.
The Bomber Command Diaries, An Operational Reference Book: 1939-1945, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everittt, Penguin, 198, pp804. This gives exhaustive details of every bombing operation, and includes commentary and assessment. The Diaries are based on two standard Air Ministry forms completed for each aircraft on each operational flight, including the aircraft's serial number, crew, bombload, take-off and return times (if it did return), and a resumé of the crews' experience; this produced a unique record of Bomber Command's operations during the Second World War. An appendix provides a summary by squadron; this excludes the Mediterranean operations carried out by three squadrons (including 425) as Wing 331 during 1943.
Both publications calculate numbers of RCAF servicemen and fatalities differently from the numbers given on the Elvington meorial.
Specialist publications quoted from in Chapters 3, 4, 6 and 7 include:
Aircraft Down I, Air Crashes Around Wetherby 1939-1945, Revised Edition, Brian Lunn & Lee Arbon, 1988.
Aircraft Down II, Air Crashes in Wharfedale & Nidderdale, Brian Lunn & Gavin Harland, 1986.
https://tailendcharlietedchurch.wordpress.com/raf-stations/77-squadron-elvington/bettys-bar/
Quoted in Chapter 7 is:
The Stories Behind The Wartime Plane Crashes on Hull, Dennis Chapman, 2020.
Other publications which deserve credit include:
Aerodromes in North Yorkshire and Wartime Memories, David Brown, 1996; this includes a chronological account of the many 'home crashes'.
Touch Down, newsletter of the 6 (RCAF) Group Bomber Command Association, Issue 6, Februry 1994.
The Yorkshire Bomber Story, Chris Brayne, 1992.
Bomber Command Airfields of Yorkshire (ePub), Peter Jacobs, 2017.
Fighter Pilot, Paul Richey, 1941.
Internet sources:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/172760
https://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/yorkshire/yorkshire.html
This website details all the aircraft crashes in Yorkshire before, during and after the Second World War, by month and year, with photographs and annual lists of fatalities. Details of the casualties is given (name, rank etc, where buried if a fatality, age - nearly all were in their 20s); a total is not given for the fatalities. A separate set of data records German aircraft crashing in Yorkshire, giving similar details.
Ian Louis Ross Doucet
1990s, 2023-24