At last, around five o’clock, the men were called. The crews would filter into the briefing room and take their places in the rows of chairs, some talking and joking to take their minds off the night ahead, but the majority gazing quietly at the board at the end of the room, curious about what lay beneath the sheet that covered it. Once the door was closed behind them there would be a roll-call, and then the officer in charge of operations – usually one of the flight commanders, but occasionally the commanding officer (CO) – would pull down the cover to reveal the target map. Across the room men would crane forward to see where the red line of ribbon on the map led to. For the benefit of those at the back, the officer would declare, in a loud, clear voice, ‘Your target for tonight, gentlemen, is Hamburg.’
For many crews there was a sense of at least partial relief on seeing the target. After numerous flights to the Ruhr, where the defences were second only to those at Berlin, it would make a welcome change: the flight to Hamburg was mostly over the North Sea, so there was less chance of being caught by flak on the journeys in and out. On the other hand, in some squadrons Hamburg was as notorious as anything the Ruhr could offer. In 57 Squadron, for example, Hamburg had a particularly bad reputation. They had not attacked the city since March, when the CO, Freddie Hop-croft, and his crew had almost been killed. Ever since then the CO had briefed other targets with the words, ‘Now, boys, the defences are nothing like as good as Hamburg’s, so you should be all right.’ After several months of this the strengths of the Hamburg defences had gained near-mythical status, and to learn that they were flying to the city naturally filled 57 Squadron crews with trepidation. 4
After a general briefing by the CO, describing their route, the time of attack and so on, a variety of other officers would take the stage. The meteorological officer would advise on weather conditions over the target and on the journey in. The armament officer would detail bomb loads, and the signals officer would brief them on what radio countermeasures they would use. Tonight, for the first time, the ground stations would be transmitting average windspeeds (or ‘Zephyrs’, as they were codenamed) to all the crews at regular intervals to help with navigation.
Eventually the intelligence officer took the stage. He commanded the men’s attention far better than the others because he told them where the danger spots would be on the outward flight and why they were going after this particular target. Hamburg, he explained, was not only a major hub of manufacturing, it was also Germany’s main centre of submarine production. If they could knock the city out of the war it would deal a blow not only to the Germans at home but to their effort in the battle of the Atlantic.
That day, however, the intelligence officer had something else to tell them. Once he had finished his normal spiel, he explained the secret behind the brown-paper packages that the crews had seen being loaded into the aircraft earlier. The silvery strips inside the parcels were called Window, he said, and they were a new and simple measure designed to confuse German radar defences.
‘You will already have been told how to drop Window,’ the intelligence officer continued; ‘it has been worked out as carefully as possible to give you maximum protection, but there are two points which I want to emphasize strongly. Firstly, the benefit of Window is a communal one: the Window which protects you is not so much that which you drop yourself as that which is already in the air dropped by an aircraft ahead. To obtain full advantage, it is therefore necessary to fly in a concentrated stream along the ordered route.
‘Secondly, the task of discharging the packets of Window will not be an easy one. You are hampered by your oxygen tube, intercom connections, the darkness and the general difficulties of physical effort at high altitudes. Despite these hardships, it is essential that the correct quantities of Window are discharged at the correct time intervals.’
He went on to explain that Window was considered so important that the Air Ministry was already developing machines to ensure a steady flow from the aircraft. In the meantime, however, it was up to the airmen themselves to maintain a ‘machine-like regularity’ when dropping the bundles down the flare chute.
‘When good concentration is achieved,’ he continued, ‘Window can so devastate an RDF defence system that we ourselves have withheld using it until we could effect improvements in our own defences, and until we could be sure of hitting the enemy harder than he could hit us. The time has now come when, by the aid of Window in conserving your unmatched strength, we shall hit him even harder.’ 5
During briefings the intelligence officer was often a figure of fun. Whenever he claimed that an operation would be a ‘piece of cake’, or that the route out to a target would be free from flak, he was greeted with jeers from the more cynical airmen. Today, however, his speech was greeted by a respectful silence. While some of the old hands privately doubted that a few bundles of silvered paper would protect them from the ferocity of the German defences, most crews seemed to accept the speech at face value. The secrecy that had so far surrounded the new device had obviously impressed them: this was not merely intelligence guesswork but something that had been worked out scientifically. Most of the airmen knew enough about radar to recognize its limitations; that it could be jammed by clouds of foil strips seemed plausible. Only time would tell.
Then the CO took the stage once more and asked if anyone had any questions – but by now they had been well briefed, and few had anything to ask. He told them to synchronize their watches, wished them luck and left the room.
As the men filtered out of the main briefing room there was no time to talk about the unusual speech they had heard, even if it had been seemly to do so. Many had now to go to shorter, specialist briefings, to make sure that all the minutiae of their duties were fixed firmly in their minds. Navigators would be given the exact route to and from the target, along with details of turning points, the winds they were likely to encounter and so on. Wireless operators were told which German frequencies they would be jamming, and reminded to listen out for the ‘Zephyr’ transmissions, while bomb-aimers were informed of what colour target indicators they would see, and which were the right ones to bomb.
It was only when all the crew members came together for their flight meal in the mess, at around seven o’clock, that they were able to discuss the forthcoming operation. By now, though, most were tired of it, and wanted to talk about something else. The only mention of the job that faced them would come in typical RAF gallows humour: they would shake their heads and run a finger across their throats to imply that another crew would be shot down. The anxious questions of new crews would be greeted with callous replies: ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. You’re not going to make it tonight anyway…’ 6As they collected their trays of bacon and eggs, beans, tomatoes and even fruit juice – rare luxuries in British civilian life in 1943 – some would use their sense of impending doom to flirt with the girls behind the counter, and entreat them to give them extra-large helpings. After all, they’d say, this might be their last meal. It wouldn’t do to die on an empty stomach: the least the kitchen staff could do was to fatten them up, like lambs for the slaughter, before they went out into the hellish skies over Germany.
* * *
After their meal, the men made their way to the parachute store to pick up their parachutes and don their flying gear. They would empty their pockets of everything personal – even the stub of a cinema ticket could give away important intelligence if they were captured – then fill them with everything they might need: escape kits, foreign currency, perhaps a penknife for emergencies, and the all-important flying rations to stave off hunger on the way home. The gunners and bomb-aimers looked strangely inflated: wearing several layers of jackets, including an electrically heated one, it was a miracle that they fitted into the confined spaces of the gun turrets.