Bomber Command (71 page)

AOC
Air Officer Commanding

ASV
Air to Surface Vessel radar

Boozer
Radar warning device against fighters fitted to bombers
CAS
Chief of Air Staff

Circus
(operations) Fighter-escorted daylight bomber sorties by the RAF against short-range French targets, chiefly in 1941, intended to provoke the Luftwaffe to battle
Clarion
American plan to disrupt German communications and morale by wide-ranging bomber attacks in February 1945

Corona
Counterfeit orders to German fighters broadcast by the British 100 Group
Crossbow
Countermeasures against German V-Weapons

DR
Dead Reckoning navigation

Duppel
German word for
Window

ETA
Estimated Time of Arrival

Fishpond
British early-warning radar against fighters, fitted to some bombers in 1944

Flak
Fliegerabwehrkanonen – German anti-aircraft gun
Flensburg
German radar device fitted to night-fighters, homing on British bombers’
Monica
transmissions

Freya
German early-warning radar

Gee
Radio navigational aid introduced in 1942

G-H
Blind bombing device based on ground-station transmissions to aircraft introduced in 1944

Glycol
Aircraft engine coolant

Grand Slam
22,000-lb penetrating bomb

HCU
Heavy Conversion Unit

Himmelbett
German-controlled night-fighting system
H2S
British radar navigation and blind-bombing aid fitted to some bombers from 1943 onwards
²⁷

H2X
American name for H2S

Husky
Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943

IFF
Identification Friend or Foe, electronic device carried by friendly aircraft, transmitting a blip to British radar screens.

Knickebein
German radio-beam navigational system introduced in 1940

Lichtenstein
German night-fighter radar introduced in 1941

Mandrel
British 100 Group swamping of German early-warning radar from 1944 onwards

Monica
British radar early-warning device against fighters fitted to bombers from 1943

Naxos
German night-fighter radar homing on British H2S transmissions

Newhaven
Pathfinder codename for target marking blind by H2S, supported by visual backers-up
Oboe
British blind-bombing device fitted to Pathfinder aircraft, controlled by transmissions from ground stations

OKW
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
– High Command of the German armed forces

OTU
Operational Training Unit

Overlord
The Allied invasion of France, 6 June 1944

Paramatta
Pathfinder codename for target marking by blind-dropped ground-markers (with prefix ‘
Musical
’,
Oboe
-guided)

Pointblank
The June 1943 directive from the Combined Chiefs of Staff for the Combined Bomber Offensive
PRU
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit

Razzle
Air-dropped incendiary device for igniting crops and forests, employed by Bomber Command August–September 1940

RT
Radio Telephone, ie voice communication

SASO
Senior Air Staff Officer

SBA
Standard Blind Approach

Schräge Musik
Upward-firing cannon fitted to some German night-fighters from late 1943 onwards
Sealion
German codename for the invasion of Britain in 1940

SHAEF
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force 1944–5

Tallboy
12,000-lb penetrating bomb developed by Barnes Wallis

Tame Boar
German tactic for guiding night-fighters from orbit around a visual beacon into bomber stream by running-commentary from ground controller
Thunderclap
1944 Allied plan to deliver overwhelming
coup de grâce
to Berlin and or other leading German cities by sustained bomber attack

Tinsel
Technique by which British bomber wireless-operators fed jamming noise on to German night-fighter frequencies
Torch
Allied invasion of French North Africa in 1942

VCAS
Vice-Chief of Air Staff

Wanganui
Pathfinder codename for target marking by blind-dropped sky-markers (with prefix ‘
Musical
’, Oboe-guided)

Wild Boar
Freelance German single-engined fighter guided into bomber stream by ground controller’s running-commentary, July 1943–spring 1944

Window
Tinfoil strips dropped by Allied bombers to fog German radar

W-Mines
Small air-dropped mines for use against locks and river traffic employed briefly by Bomber Command in 1940

W/T
Wireless transmission, ie morse signal rather than voice

Würzburg
German tactical radar for gun-laying, searchlight and night-fighter direction
X-Gerat, Y-Gerat
German beam-guided blind-bombing systems

Acknowledgements

I have received generous help in the writing of this book from a great range of people directly and indirectly concerned with the Royal Air Force. Among them I must mention Group-Captain E. B. Haslam, until 1978 head of the Air Historical Branch of the Ministry of Defence, and his colleague Mr Humphrey Wynn; S/Ldr ‘Jacko’ Jackson and the RAF’s Battle of Britain Flight, who flew me in one of the few remaining airworthy Lancaster bombers, and enabled me to get the feel of the aircraft from every turret and crew position; Freddy Lambert of the Public Record Office, who was tireless in answering my endless demands; Dr John Tanner and his staff at the RAF Museum, who enabled me to explore the Wellington and the Mosquito.

The Daily Telegraph
, the Pathfinder Association journal
The Marker
, the Air Gunners’ Association journal
Turret
, the Australian Pathfinders’
Marker
, the RAF Association’s
Air Mail
, the Goldfish Club newsletter and the RAF POW Association newsletter
Kriegie
published the appeals which enabled me to contact more than three hundred survivors of Bomber Command, over a hundred from the squadrons which I had chosen for special study.

Mrs Joan Hornsey and her daughter Mrs Carol Wain allowed me to read and to quote extensively from the late Denis Hornsey’s remarkable unpublished manuscript on his service in Bomber Command,
Here Today, Bomb Tomorrow
.

This book would never have been written without the inspiration of my publisher James Wade in New York, and the support of my editor at Michael Joseph in London, Alan Samson. David Irving is one of the most controversial of contemporary historians, but he is also one of the most generous, and allowed me to borrow for many months his extensive files on the bomber war. Andrea Whittaker helped me with the German translations.

I am indebted to the following for permission to quote from published works and private letters: Lord Salisbury for the letter of the 4th Marquess of Salisbury reproduced on page 172; the Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare for his letter to Sir Archibald Sinclair on page 125; the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, for extracts from Webster and Frankland’s
The Strategic Bomber Offensive against Germany
; the Keeper of the Public Record Office for documents and correspondence from the AIR files; the University of Chicago Press for extracts from Craven and Cate’s
The Army Air Forces in World War II
; Messrs. Hutchinson for the extracts from General Raymond E. Lee’s
The London Observer
; Oxford University Press, for permission to quote from ‘Aristocrats’ from
The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas
, edited by Desmond Graham; A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd, for permission to quote from
Men at Arms
by Evelyn Waugh; Faber & Faber Ltd, for permission to quote from ‘Lincolnshire Bomber Station’ by Henry Treece; Denis Richards and William Heinemann Ltd, for the extract from
Portal of Hungerford
; and Chatto and Windus Ltd and Richard Eberhart, for permission to quote from ‘The Fury of Aerial Bombardment’. I am also indebted to Flight International (London), for allowing me to reproduce the line drawing of a Lancaster on page 158; and to Air-Commodore John Voyce, for permission to reproduce the illustration of a ‘Stand Down’ night in 1944.

I would also like to thank: the Air Ministry; Michael Bowyer; Chaz Bowyer; George Carter; Keith Creswell; G/Capt. L. C. Deane; G/Capt. J. R. Goodman; the Imperial War Museum and especially their photographic library; H. M. Irwin, RN retd; Tom Jones; A. Killingley; the London Library and its indefatigable librarians; Doug McKinnon; K. J. Reinhold, editor of the
Darmstadter Echo
; Alun Richards; Captain Stephen Roskill, RN retd; T. A. Stern; W. G. Uprichard; Air-Commodore John Voyce; and John Winton.

And now for the principal witnesses of the story of Bomber Command who have assisted me in the past two years; I have omitted ranks below that of Wing-Commander, and a plethora of decorations which would otherwise overwhelm these pages.

The Air Ministry, Bomber Command and Group headquarters

Air Vice-Marshal E. B. Addison; Ronald Barton; Air Vice-Marshal D. C. T. Bennett; Air Vice-Marshal S. O. Bufton; the late Air Chief Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane; Canon John Collins; Marshal of the RAF Lord Elworthy; Wing-Commander F. A. B. Fawsett; Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Harris; Air Commodore W. I. C. Inness; John Lawrence; Fred Lloyd; Miss Barbara Morton; Sir Barnes Wallis; Miss Peggy Wherry; Lord Zuckerman.

3 Group, December 1939

D. Beddow (99 Squadron); E. T. Butcher (37 Sq.); I. P. Grant (9 Sq.); J. R. Greaves (37 Sq.); Frank Hargreaves (51 Sq. weather reconnaissance); H. J. Hemsleyhall (37 Sq.); L. E . Jarman (9 Sq.); Harry Jones (37 Sq.); Wing-Commander J. Lovell (9 Sq.); Air Marshal Sir Hugh Pughe Lloyd (9 Sq.); J. T. Reynolds (9 Sq.); Herbert Ruse (37 Sq.); L. Russell (pupil at North Coates); Eric Scott (115 Sq.).

82 Squadron, 1940–41

Wing-Commander L. V. E. Atkinson; J. W. D. Attenborough; the late Air Chief Marshal The Earl of Bandon; Kenneth Collins; L. C. Davey; J. Harrison-Broadley; T. C. P. Hodges; F. W. S. Keighley; W. J. Q. Magrath; D. W. McFarlane; Wing-Commander John McMichael; F. H. Miller; N. W. Orr; R. J. Rumsey; Air Vice-Marshal Ian Spencer; Air Commodore Philip Sutcliffe; George Whitehead; Mrs E. M. Wilkins.

10 Squadron, 1940–41

F. Ashworth; Bob Dodd; Peter Donaldson; Norman Gregory; Group-Captain Pat Hanafin; Wing-Commander H. J. Heal; J. M. Poole; Group-Captain A. V. Sawyer; A. E. Smith; Air Vice-Marshal W. E. Staton; P. G. Whitby.

50 Squadron, 1942

C. W. Gray; Mrs M. A. Hamilton; Stewart Harris; H. S. Hobday; Gus Macdonald; Air Marshal Sir Harold Martin; J. H. Mitchell; L. O’Brien; Ken Owen; G. A. Philipps; Reg Raynes; S. D. Stubbs; John Taylor.

76 Squadron, 1943

Sidney Ashford; V. G. Bamber; Fred Beadle; Group-Captain Leonard Cheshire; P. C. Chipping; Pamela Finch; Eric Freeman; Group-Captain D. Iveson; C. A. Kirkham; Etienne Maze; R. G. McCadden; B. McNulty; Ferris Newton; Cliff Ramsden; C. Rathmell; S. W. Palmer; E. A. Strange; A. L. Tame; Air Marshal Sir John Whitley

97 Squadron, 1944

Tony Aveline; Mrs Dorothy Bird; A. Boultbee; F. Broughton; Ron Buck; Wing-Commander W. E. Clayfield; Gordon Cooper; J. A. M. Davies; F. W. A. Hendry; Air Chief Marshal Sir Anthony and Lady Heward; R. L. C. Lasham; T. H. Makepeace; J. W. Nedwich; Group-Captain C. B. Owen; Arthur Tindall; P. R. Turner; Jack Watt.

Endnotes

1
. Imperial War Museum
2
. Speer Archives
3
. Royal Air Force: 38,462. (69.2 per cent); Royal Canadian Air Force: 9,919 (17.8 per cent); Royal Australian Air Force: 4,050 (7.3 per cent); Royal New Zealand Air Force: 1,679 (3.0 per cent); other Allied air forces: 1,463 (2.7 per cent).

4
. As an abbreviation readily understood by a lay audience, henceforth I shall refer to Messerschmitt fighters as Me109s and 110s, although their correct designation was BC109 and Bf110.

5
. A Bomber Command Group comprised anything between six squadrons of sixteen aircraft in 1939 and eighteen squadrons of twenty aircraft in 1945.

6
. As Slessor himself conceded with disarming grace in his memoirs thirty years later.

7
. In British bombers throughout the war the senior pilot was captain of the aircraft whatever his rank, unlike the Luftwaffe, where the navigator, who was also a qualified pilot, was captain. British squadrons were invariably commanded by pilots except in 4 Group later in the war, where a number of navigators and even gunners became squadron COs.