Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (22 page)

Mallender takes up the story again:

I stuck John in the backside with the little tube of morphia that we carried. Even so he managed to remain conscious and helped me to get home until I told him that I could see the Scottish coast. I had managed to crawl up to 5,000ft whilst crossing the sea and thought that it was about time I found out if I was going to be able to land the old lady. I dropped 15° of flap and throttled back the port engine a bit but before I had time to ease back to reduce speed much she shook violently and I noted that we were still flying at 140 knots. All the other aircraft had got safely home so I had the runway to myself. Rather unwisely, I now admit, I put the undercarriage down and the pre-stall shaking began immediately. I put down about 15° of flap (previous experiments had taught me that this seemed logical), I jettisoned the top hatch and powered her over the boundary at something near 140 knots. She stayed down all right but was burning up runway much too fast. I touched the brakes and that did it. She spun round and around like a Dervish, collapsed the under-carriage and finally came to rest in what I thought was a heap of ply, balsa wood and aluminium. I was really quite pleased to see George Curry’s grinning visage looking down through the open hatch. He helped me out and together we lifted from his seat a very comatose, if rather battered, navigator.

‘Johnno’ Gaunt, who was put into an ambulance and taken to a Naval Hospital just north of Aberdeen, concludes:

They sewed me up in the last hours of 1944. Got a bar to the DFC for that escapade; notified by telegram whilst in hospital.
¹⁵⁴

Back to night operations again and on the night of 31 December 1944, seventy-seven Mosquitoes were despatched to Berlin and twelve to Ludwigshafen. One of them was Z-Zebra
¹⁵⁵
of 128 Squadron, which was flown by Flight Lieutenant Leicester G. Smith
RNZAF
, who with his navigator Warrant Officer Bill Lane completed fifty-two operations on the Mosquito B.XVI from October 1944 to April 1945. Twenty of these were to Berlin. Smith recalls:

The big ‘Cookie-carrier’ B.XVI was a wonderful aircraft to fly and although it had a pressurised cabin it was not used on operations in case of internal damage from flak. Take-off time was 16.15 hours. The flight plan kept our aircraft to 10,000ft to 6° East and an indicated airspeed of 215 knots at that height. It was a glorious evening for flying, as so many evenings were and mainly over 7/10ths cloud. The reason given was to miss the cumulonimbus cloud tops. We climbed to operational height and levelled out at 26,000ft. Flak was heavy between Lübeck and Hamburg (commonly called the Gap). Shrapnel was whistling around everywhere but our sympathy went out to one Mosquito crew who was coned by at least twenty searchlights. Flak was bursting all around them, at least 2,000ft above and below. I was about 2 miles north of this aircraft and he flew straight through it all. It was an unforgettable sight. Otherwise we had a comfortable run to the Big City. Over Berlin all was quiet as the target indicators, reds and green, went down. A warning was issued that fighters were in the area but none were seen. Bill reported contrails 2-3,000ft above. We put our ‘Cookie’ down on schedule, took the photo and had a relatively quiet flight back to England. We were coned by many searchlights over the Woodbridge area (must have been an army exercise), landing at Wyton from an operation of 5 hours airborne.

One of the 692 Squadron crews who were laid on, unexpectedly, for the operation to the ‘Big City’was Pilot Officer Ron H.M ‘Percy’Vere and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant (later Squadron Leader) John F.P. Archbold, who remembers that:

The crew conference was at midday and navigation briefing at 13.15 so there was just time for a meal before getting ready. Our aircraft was K-King (MM224), Burbidge and Ramage’s kite. Rumour had it that everyone who flew K-King except those two had something happen to them. We hoped that we were the exception! After the meal I went down to the billet to put on my old blue sweater, cheque scarf and flying boots and then biked to the crew room for briefing. Phil Earnshaw was doing the nav. briefing and a hell of a route it was too! Tonight’s op was a maximum effort with twelve kites on the Battle Order. There was something else in the air too. Wadsworth, Burbidge, Crow, Nairn and two others hung about as if waiting for a briefing after we came out. Ron had been out to the kite to ground run it and put in the kit. I didn’t have the time.

The route out was via Cromer, over the North Sea, with a turn towards Heligoland, then north of Lübeck before turning SE to Berlin. The return route was south of Magdeburg, through the gap between Osnabrück and Münster before turning west for the English Coast. This was a route I did not like. We were going in north of Hamburg and the gunners there were pretty hot. They got bags of practice anyway so I hoped it was 10/10ths there. We plotted tracks, working out courses and times and recording them in the log, sorting out maps and charts. Then, after about three quarters of an hour we checked our work against the Master Log for any errors (on either side) and then sat back and waited for the main briefing to begin.

In came the Met man. He started drawing in his cloudscapes on his briefing board. It didn’t look too good to me: 8/10ths Stratocumulus over the sea, clearing over the Third Reich. It looked as if we could be shot at! The drivers airframe [pilots] drifted in and sat down with their navs and the CO, Wing Commander ‘Joe’ Northrop
DSO DFC AFC
followed them. We got on with the main briefing. It was 14.15. First, Flying Control, Squadron Leader ‘Lemnos’ Hemming, a pioneer in photographic reconnaissance in 1940 with Sidney Cotton. We knew him as ‘Popeye’ because he wore an eyepatch. He told us the runway would be the long one; no obstructions. There were no other comments. Then Met gave his story. “Target will be clear; no cloud from the time you cross the coast in till you come out again. Base would be clear for the return. Forecast winds are up in the seventies and eighties.” My guess was that they may well be a little stronger than he told us. Now Intelligence: “Usual place chaps; you’ve all been there before, so I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Target height, 17,000ft.” The CO, in his slow methodical way told us the tactics and the type of the TIs to be dropped. We were to bomb the highest concentration of Red TIs, or failing that, the highest concentration of Greens, or on good DR. Finally the CO detailed take-off times for each aircraft. Ours was

16.08 and the full number of aircraft would set course at 16.17.

Well, it all seemed pretty straightforward so far. I caught Percy’s eye and grinned. He was a bit cheesed off because his wife had come down for the New Year’s Eve party and we were only put on this trip at the last minute. I could see us belting back tonight! Well, that was the end of the briefing. It was now about 14.45 and we all trooped out to the crew room where old Chiefy Tite had organised tea and sandwiches for us. Having munched these we went to the locker room and collected Mae Wests and navigation bag, signed for the escape kit pack and straggled out to the crew buses waiting to take us out to our aircraft. Our dispersals were at the east end of the airfield, south of the main runway. The bus duly deposited us at K-King. First thing to do was to stow the Window bundles in the nose while the skipper went to sign the F700; then cram the nav bag in on top. After this I had to check that the DR compass master unit was serviceable, that the oxygen cocks were turned on and the camera magazine was fitted; all this is in the rear hatch. Next I had to see that the navigation lights were working and that the safety pins had been taken out of the ‘Cookie’; an awkward job. You had to use a torch and peer through a small circular hole at the lug. All done; time for a last smoke.

Percy was round the back having his operational pee, which he never missed. The usual curious hush had settled on the aerodrome just before the kites started up. There just wasn’t a sound. A train whistled in the distance and then the silence descended again. I looked at my watch: 20 minutes to take off. Time to get in. I took a last drag at my cigarette. Ron was getting himself strapped in. It took him some time to do this. And I put on my parachute harness after slipping a piece of gum into my mouth and got in myself. “Have a good trip, Sir” said the rigger, as he stowed the ladder and shut the door. Good lads, our ground crews. Bill Brodie the duty CO came round to each kite in turn to see if everything was OK. We gave him a thumbs-up and he went to the next kite. We were eighth off, so it was about time we started-up. The first kite had already started-up so Ron ran up the engines and I checked the Gee and Loran to see if they were working. All were OK and I switched them off until we were airborne. The first kite taxied out in the dusk of this December afternoon. After a while we waddled forward, checked the brakes and moved slowly out on to the perimeter track and on in the queue to the take off point. A last check: petrol on outers, pitot head heater on, nav lights and oxygen on, radiator shutters open. We got a flashing green Aldis from the ACP’s caravan and taxied on to the runway. We could see the tail light of the kite in front climbing away. Ron taxied forward a little to straighten the tail wheel and then said, “OK, boy, here we go.” And we were off.

The next few moments were pretty tense. We had the maximum load of fuel and bomb aboard. You hoped she wouldn’t swing or burst a tyre because you had a rather unpleasant companion about 6 inches underneath where we were sitting. Then the tail came up and we watched the airspeed creep up to 120 knots; full boost and 3,000 revs. The red light at the end of the runway came rushing up and the kite heaved herself off the deck. (You could almost hear her grunt). Then the skipper gave the word to raise the undercarriage. We listened anxiously to the engines. A misfire now would be decidedly unpleasant, but they didn’t miss (we had a damn good groundcrew) and we climbed away to the delay pattern. We passed over Little Staughton, 10 miles from base at 1,500ft before turning back towards base, still climbing, to set course with the others.

We crossed the coast at Cromer and headed for Heligoland. At 17.12 we began climbing to 20,000ft. We were gaining a lot of time. The kite wouldn’t go less than 190 knots at 10,000ft. That was 15 knots too fast and we now had 9 minutes in hand and had to lose some time. We decided to orbit to lose 4 minutes. We got back on course and 10 minutes later started to climb again to 27,000ft. During this time we transferred fuel from 100 gallon drop tanks to the outer tanks. This was done automatically and a red light came on when the drop tanks were empty and you switched off the transfer switch. Slap bang over Heligoland six rocket shells rose up on the starboard beam about 2 miles away and we altered course slightly to the north and pressed on. At 18.05 the Yellow route marker went down dead ahead and fairly close. Good, that meant that we were pretty well leading the stream behind the markers. Gee was no longer available now and I worked feverishly to average a wind velocity to apply to courses ahead. We crossed the German coast 25 miles NW of Brunsbüttel. All cockpit lights were out now; both of us keeping our eyes skinned for flak and searchlights. It was very dark now and the low cloud had completely dispersed. The kite was going like a bomb. Wizard! Aha, there were the first searchlights, ahead and to starboard and there was flak too, 88mm stuff and rockets. You could see the rockets coming up as little red points of light moving very slowly at first. Then they suddenly sped up to your level and burst with an angry red flame. Not near us though. The searchlights were coning over to starboard. They were too far off to see if they’d got someone but it looked like it.

At 18.14 we crossed the Kiel Canal and we were right in the searchlight belt. A master searchlight picked us up and three or four others swung over on to us immediately. The bright red lamp of the ‘Boozer’ came on, indicating that we were being tracked by radar-controlled flak. Ron stuck his head well down in the cockpit and did a corkscrew while I kept watch aft. Wow! Just as well we did, a burst of rockets came up just where we were a few seconds before. No sign of any fighters, touch wood. Hello, someone else was coned to starboard. It looked like a Mossie too. I’ll bet they were twitching like we were a moment ago. We’ve lost the searchlights now, or they lost us. We seemed to be getting past the worst of it and the time was 18.20. Ahead and a little to port went the green route-markers. We seemed to have lost a bit of ground doing avoiding action. We still had to get past Lübeck. At 18.25 the marker leader broadcast a ‘Zephyr’ message: “Wind 345°/90 knots”.

Lübeck was comparatively quiet, thank the Lord. Just past there, on course, someone yelled, “Snappers” (enemy fighters spotted). Another colossal corkscrew and bags of rubbernecking, but we saw nothing. We resumed course and tried to get some LORAN to check position but there were no signals visible, only grass. We expected the red route marker any minute now. When it came I’d switch on the bombsight which must be done at least 15 minutes from the target so that it could warm up. The reds went. It was 18.40 and we’d just crossed over 10/10ths cloud below, which looked like going all the way to the ‘Big Town’. So much for the Met briefing but a bit of luck for us. I switched on the bombsight and got the Window ready to push out through the wooden Window chute down through the small hatch in the floor.

Our ground speed on this leg was about 338 knots (about 390 mph). We began Windowing with 8 minutes to go. The chute was on the floor between your feet and you had to bend almost double to drop the bundles. You could hear a crackle on the R/T as they opened up in the slipstream. Back breaking job, this and it made you sweat like blazes. Just 5 minutes to go. We should see the first TI in a minute. Out went the last Window bundle. I stretched up and had a look out. We were still over 10/10ths cloud. Good. The first TI was slightly over to port. I dived into the bombing position. ‘Dive’ is a misnomer. With all the kit I had on it was more like a wrestling match! I switched on the sighting head and put the final wind velocity on the computer box and waited for the TIs to come into view. All of the nose except for the optically flat, heated bombing window was frosted up so I couldn’t see very far ahead. A couple of minutes to go now.