Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (23 page)

“More red and green TIs going down”, said Ron. “Bomb doors open”.

“Bomb doors open” I repeated and I heard the rumbling roar as they opened and the wind whistled in the bomb bay.

“I’m running up on a bunch of three”, said Ron. “Can you see them yet?”

I craned my neck close to the window and looked ahead sideways. “Yep, I can just see them.” I said. “OK now, left-left, left-left, steady. We’re running up nicely. Keep weaving a bit, we’ve a minute or so to go yet”. I got the TIs up on the centre line of the graticule and thumbed the release switch. I would press this when the markers reached the cross line. A couple of big white flashes under the cloud up ahead showed that the first two ‘Cookies’ had gone down. I noticed them almost subconsciously.

“A little bit of flak to starboard,” said Ron.

“OK, keep going”, I said. “Right, right a little steady now, steady… BOMB GONE!” and I pressed the tit. There was a thud underneath as the lug sprang back and released the bomb. The camera whirred and the red light on the selector box came on. We had to keep straight and level for 45 seconds to get a photo of our bomb burst in relation to the TIs so as to be able to plot the accuracy later. I scrambled back into my seat and looked down the window chute. The wait seemed endless.

“Bomb doors closed”, said Ron.

The camera green light came on. “Hold it”, I said. There was a great flash under the cloud. “There she goes; OK, lets get the hell out of here” and we turned south-west to get out of the target area. I turned off the bombsight and bomb selector switches and looked aft. Some flak was coming up now and some searchlights were on under the cloud. It must have been pretty thin, but they were quite ineffective. More bomb flashes appeared as the TIs drifted slowly down into the cloud tops. It looked like quite a concentrated effort. Just after turning we saw a kite (possibly a cats-eye fighter, a 190, or a 109) shoot over us in the opposite direction leaving a contrail. He didn’t appear to have seen us but we kept a sharp look out just in case there were any more. Things being quieter now I entered the time, height and heading of when we bombed.

Ron said, “Check the petrol, will you?”

I did so and found that we had about 330 gallons left; a little less than we expected, but OK. At 19.19 I tried to get some LORAN but the signals were very weak and I discarded them. I would try again later. Just then the expected green route markers appeared ahead, so we were OK and pretty well on track. At 19.24 we altered course and we crossed the Dutch coast at 20.22, altering course slightly to the north for Woodbridge and still keeping our height above 23,000ft. We switched on the IFF and ‘identify’ on Channel D, making a VHF broadcast: “Lounger K King identifying, out”. (This was for the Fighter Command plot so that we are not mistaken for an enemy aircraft). I got a string of fixes across the North Sea. The crossing always seemed to me to be one of the longest parts of the trip. The ‘Scu’ cloud that had reappeared over Holland near the coast was about 45/10ths but it dispersed completely before we got to Woodbridge, leaving a clear night. I worked out the ETA coast as 20.49 and Ron increased speed a little. At 20.38 he said he could see lights ahead and when I looked out for a minute or two later I could see the semi-circle of sodium lights which marked the Woodbridge circuit dead ahead. We coasted in at 20.46 and began to lose height slowly, switching on the navigation lights as we did so. We were really moving now, with a ground speed of 260 knots. ETA base was 21.00. I began to relax a little.

Ron changed frequency from Channel D to Channel A (base frequency) to listen out for other aircraft. All the way in from the coast was airfield after airfield, each with its Drem system of lights illuminated and one or two searchlights (called Sandra lights) over the top, forming a sort of canopy. Someone once said that airfields in East Anglia were as thick as fleas on a dog’s back. He was right. We began to look for the base lights and I set up homing co-ordinates on the Gee. At 20.56 we sighted two Sandra lights in an inverted V with a flashing white light in between them (this was the Station identification letters GR in front of Flying Control; all Station idents were lit but ours was the only one in this area to have them flashing). As soon as we saw this, Ron prepared to call up Flying Control and I started packing up my kit. As we did this, two other kites called up almost simultaneously; Chandler and Ginger Wood in J-Johnny and another kite. We came tearing up behind them. As we arrived over the airfield, Chandler called, “J Johnny, funnels” and landed. The other kite called “downwind”. We now called up: “Control from Lounger K-King over”.

Control replied, “Lounger K-King, prepare to land, runway 270, QFE 1029, over”.

We replied, “K-King preparing to land, out”; which meant that we acknowledged permission to land and were listening out. Someone else called up just behind us.

I switched on the downward identification light and opened the radiator shutters. We reduced height to 1,500ft and turned downwind. Ron lowered the undercart, put down some flap and called, “K-King downwind, out”. This was not acknowledged by Control. Instead they called the next aircraft and told it to prepare to land. Now we were turning across wind and one-quarter flap was lowered. Two green lights showed that the undercart was down. The circuit lights were visible over the port wing tip and the funnel lead-in lights appeared, with the Station ident letters GR illuminated on the outer circle at their head. We turned into the funnels at 900ft and called “K-King, funnels, over”.

Control replied, “K-King, land, out”. Had the runway not been clear we would have been told to overshoot and come in again. The runway lights appeared now, narrowing into the distance. Two flashing lights either side of the threshold were the glide path indicators, or GPIs, which showed the correct glide path. Now Ron hunched himself over the stick, put down full flap and concentrated on his landing. We went sliding in at 125 knots. The runway lights came up quickly at the end. We gave the usual heave as Ron checked her and closed the throttles, touching down on the main wheels at about 95 knots and trundling down the runway to the accompaniment of the usual crackles and pops from the exhausts of those wonderful Merlins. We turned left at the end of the runway, pulled up the flaps and called, “King clear” and then taxied back to dispersal with the engines purring away as if they’d only just started up. At dispersal we were waved in by the groundcrew and we stopped and opened the bomb doors. (You got reproachful looks from the groundcrew if you forgot this, for they then had to pump them down by hand; a tedious exercise). Ron pulled the cut-outs and the engines rumbled to a stop. We switched everything off and climbed out stiffly with a mutual grin of congratulation at completing another trip safely. This was our 27th. We collected our kit and stalked over to the waiting crew-bus laden with parachutes and harness, nav bag, camera magazine and the rest and were driven back to the crew room for interrogation.

Back at the crew room we dumped our kit and went in to be interrogated. First, the CO had a word about the trip in general, then Intelligence. They wanted to know in detail about the bombing: how concentrated was it? Was there much opposition? What were the relative positions of the TIs you bombed? Draw a sketch of them as you saw them please, and a host of other details. While this was going on coffee and rum was brought in and the second cigarette lit. Boy, did the first one taste good! Following this the navigators had to hand in their maps, charts and logs and pass on details of radar coverage, Gee jamming, hand over signals flimsies and camera magazine, while the pilots signed the Form 700 and told the engineers about any snags. At last all was done and it was away to the Mess for bacon and eggs and the New Year’s Eve party.
¹⁵⁶

Flying Officer Bill Clayton-Graham DFC. (
via Andy Bird
)

Group Captain Max Aitken DSO DFC, CO Banff Wing. (
G.A.B. Lord
)

FB.XVIII HJ732/G armed with four .303 inch machine guns and the 57mm Molins gun in the nose.

PZ405 NE-A of 143 Squadron with 250lb RPs on rocket rails flown by Squadron Leader Pritchard DFC. (
via Andy Bird
)

143 Squadron FB.VIs led by Wing Commander C.N. Foxley-Norris DSO pulls up over the
Lysaker
at Tetgenaes on 23 March 1945. Two Mosquitoes were shot down. (
via GMS
)

At first RPs with 60lb semi-armour piercing heads of the type used in the Western Desert for tank busting were used on anti-shipping strikes. These did not penetrate shipping and caused little structural damage so they were soon replaced with the solid armour rockets. (
via Andy Bird
)