I suppose the wireless operator, to use a modern term, could be described as a bit of a loner while on a mission as, for most of the flying time, you are isolated from the intercom system. You would not hear any crew patter; therefore, you would not know of anything going on inside or outside the aircraft, unless you were directly involved.
As far as I was concerned, as the clock reached 20.00 hours, everything had gone well. According to the time, I knew that we would be just to the north-west of the big city and coming up to the target.
I was occupied at this time on the wireless set doing what, if I remember correctly, was codenamed Tinselling. This was to listen out on the receiver, covering frequencies given at briefing, and trying to pick up enemy ground-to-fighter patter. If successful, you would then tune back the transmitter and swamp the frequency with the noise of one of your aircraft’s engines. It was just possible to carry out Tinselling while standing under the astrodome (the distinctive Perspex dome to the rear of the cockpit canopy) and reaching backwards to twiddle the knobs. It was a bit of a stretch, but it allowed me to look out for enemy fighters in the extreme danger area to the rear of the aircraft, thus assisting our gunners.
I was doing this until just seconds before we were attacked. I looked back at the clock and was alarmed to see the time was 20.10 hours. I moved in great haste back into my seat and retuned the receiver to receive the Group Broadcast, which was most important.
This action, only prompted by the time, certainly saved my life because within seconds of getting seated, and before having time to adjust the set, cannon shells were ripping past my right arm and exploding, showering green burning phosphorous everywhere. If I had remained standing under the astrodome I would have been right in the path of them.
The Aural Monica, a tail warning radar device, was bleeping out a warning that aircraft were approaching from behind and below. It is highly likely that both our gunners were firing. The noise was deafening.
I knew our aircraft was severely damaged and immediately switched onto the intercom to hear the skipper giving the order, ‘Bail out. Bail out.’ The navigator, Jock Mosen, and I moved as one man to grab our parachute packs and clip them on.
Following the emergency drill of evacuation, I made to go back down the fuselage in order to jump out of the rear doors after the mid-upper gunner, but upon opening the bulkhead door, at the rear of the cockpit, I was confronted by fierce flames. The whole of the fuselage, between the main spar and just forward of the mid-upper turret, was ablaze. I instantly decided that my only chance was to slam the door shut again. Although by this stage of the war the original steel armour plate had been replaced by plywood, this did provide some psychological comfort and would have acted as some sort of firebreak.
I then turned to follow the bomb aimer, navigator, pilot and engineer out of the emergency escape hatch in the nose.
In the split second that I had the bulkhead door open, I had seen, through the flames, what appeared to be heavy damage to the mid-upper turret. The whole thing was leaning over to starboard. Amazingly, I saw the mid-upper gunner, Bob Brown, climbing out of it.
I could see nothing of what happed to Dick Walton in the rear turret. Sadly, he must have taken the direct stream of fire from a fighter◦– he would have been firing back until the last.
It soon became obvious that the bail-out from the cockpit was not going according to the drill. In retrospect, I think the bomb aimer, Reg Morris, had been badly wounded or even killed laying in his position down in the nose and over the escape hatch. It would have been very difficult for the other crew members to move him from above, especially as by this time the aircraft was in a steep dive. The pilot, Jimmy Tosh, quite correctly had left his seat to await his turn to jump. I could see him and the engineer, David Alletson, waiting to get down into the nose. The navigator, Jock Mosen, would have been further down and out of sight.
I did not feel any urge to join them◦– perhaps I could sense the hopelessness of the situation and I remember, rather stupidly it would seem, having the strong feeling that I should not rightly be there and that I must stand back while they had their chance of escape.
The flames I had encountered in the fuselage must have frightened me conclusively because I did not think of trying to escape that way again. Instead I struggled forward, sat in the pilot’s seat and pulled on the controls, in an effort to get the aircraft out of the dive. I knew immediately that this was useless as the stick just flopped about; the enemy fire must have disabled the mechanism. I then stood up on the pilot’s seat and, with a big effort, tried to slide back the emergency escape hatch, but the cockpit roof was so badly damaged the hatch would not move.
During the time I was doing this◦– it would only be a few seconds◦– I could see that still no one had been able to get out from the cockpit. It must have been at this moment that I thought I was going to die because I became remarkably calm. I shuffled back to my table and pressed the two buttons that would have detonated the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) set to prevent it from falling into enemy hands◦– I should already have done this before starting to bail out.
I didn’t have time to add another fear to my list◦– that of our own bombs exploding. The standard payload was a bomb called the Cookie, which weighed 4,000 pounds, and six or eight 1,000 pounders, and then a lot of incendiary bombs. We hadn’t dropped our load before we were hit; we were just about to go into the target. When the skipper knew that we had been hit pretty badly he would have ordered the bomb aimer to jettison. I have no idea if he did or not because there was too much going on at that point in time. Normally you would know when the bombs are dropped because the aircraft lifts as the weight is lost◦– I hadn’t felt this but we were in a dive and, as I have said, such thoughts never entered my mind; I had far bigger fears to contend with.
I remember the aircraft diving even more steeply and also that I could no longer move at all. I thought of home, my fiancée and my mother. What would people at home say when they heard what had happened to me? I thought, still quite calmly.
The next thing I remember was seeing a huge red flash◦– I didn’t register any noise of an explosion◦– then I blacked out.
I became semi-conscious momentarily and saw a huge piece of aircraft sail by very close, while having a sensation of spinning over and over.
It could have been the jolt of the parachute opening that brought me back to something like consciousness. I knew nothing of pulling the ripcord, although of course I must have done so, unless somehow the D-ring had got caught on a piece of wreckage as the aircraft disintegrated.
I was then dangling on the end of my chute◦– I could not believe I had escaped. I thought how quiet it was; I could hear a dog barking far below and after a few seconds the German all clear siren blowing in the distance. I soon realised that my parachute harness had been ripped off from my left side and that I must be careful not to lean over or I may fall out.
I remember looking down and thinking I was about to fall into a canal◦– it was, in fact, a main road which was wet and illuminated by the moon. I would have been grateful to drop anywhere.
I shall never forget how lucky I was◦– we would have been flying at about 20,000 feet before being attacked, but I reached the ground very quickly after the chute opened. At a guess I would say this happened at little more than 1,000 feet.