I watched the dim outline of the airfield controller’s caravan: from this position I could see a steady red light, holding me until the airspace was clear. I waited, waited, the engines turning, the plane rattling and shuddering. My hand on the throttles was blurred by the vibration. I tried to stay calm. The light went to green at last. Our watchers at the side waved cheerfully.
I released the brakes, opened the throttles, adjusted the pitch and we began to move down the runway, slowly at first, so slowly, feeling every bump in the hastily laid concrete, the wings rocking, then a gradual increase in speed, the instruments showing we were going faster than it seemed. At flying speed, with the tail already free of the ground, I pulled back on the stick and the Wellington began its long, shallow climb into the evening sky.
As we ascended slowly through the calm air. circling over the familiar fields to gain a little height before setting off across the sea, I looked down at the quiet meadows and untidy rows of trees, their long shadows striking eastwards. I saw the steeples of churches, clusters of village houses, irrationally curving roads, hazy smoke from chimneys. Lincoln cathedral loomed up a fewmiles away to the south-east, the tall spire black against the blue of the evening sky. There were other aircraft in sight: Wellingtons from our own station, below and around us, but also far away, miles off, more tiny black dots lifting away from their own airfields, circling for height around the wide assembly point, seeking the others, aiming to form a broad and self-defensive stream for the long flight across the North Sea.
At last the radio signal came from the ground controller, his final clearance to start the raid. We turned one last time to the east, climbing steadily, away from the brilliant setting sun and towards the gathering dusk. The gunners let off a few trial rounds, their tracers glinting sharply down towards the sea. At five thousand feet the interior of the plane started to feel cold -for a few minutes we were actually more comfortable than we had been on the ground, before the sub-zero freeze of high altitude gripped us. At seven thousand feet I ordered the crew to put on their oxygen masks.
The evening was a deception of calm and beauty, with the steadily darkening sky above us, a plateau of grey clouds below us with a few more white cumulus billowing up, lit by the lowering sun. Germany lay ahead. We flew for an hour, slowly gaining height.
Ted Burrage suddenly came on the intercom. He was on the front guns.
‘Enemy aircraft below us, JL! Three o’clock. Approaching fast!’
‘How far below?’
‘A long way.’
‘Can you get a line on them?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Hold your fire for a moment . . . they might not have seen us!’
Then I saw the aircraft myself. They were at least two or three thousand feet beneath us, crossing our track, south to north. All were clearly visible against the grey plain of clouds below, lit by the last glow of evening light. The leading aircraft was twin-engined. It looked to me like a Messerschmitt Me-110, a guess that was almost instantly confirmed by others in the crew as they also spotted it. Behind it were four single-engined fighters, Me-109s, flying much faster, rapidly overhauling it. I could see Ted swinging his turret round in the nose of the Wellington, bringing his guns to bear, but within seconds it was obvious that none of the Luftwaffe planes was interested in us.
The fighters were diving on the Me-110. I saw tracer or cannon fire flickering across the short space between them. They hit the plane on their first run. One of the Me-110’s tanks exploded with a spectacular burst of flame, throwing the aircraft on to its back. Immediately, the Me-109s swung away, turning sharply to each side of the stricken plane. There was a second explosion and this time part of the wing fell away. The plane had lost flying speed and was diving, upside-down, towards the sea. It plummeted into the cloudbase. All I could see of it for another second was an orange diffusion of flame, but then that too disappeared.
The Me-109s continued their sweeping turns, diving down towards the cover of the clouds, heading back to the south, the way they had come. They took no notice of us.
‘Bloody hell!" Ted said. Then he said again, ‘Bloody hell!’
‘What was all that about?’
For a moment the intercom was full of voices. Sam Levy and Kris Galasckja had not been able to see what was going on. Lofty, Colin and Ted were describing what we’d seen. I was trying to yell at them to stay on watch. When we were over the North Sea we were never far from enemy aircraft.
As if to underline the point I saw more German aircraft coming towards us. This time they were travelling east to west and were about a mile away from us on the left.
I shouted to the gunners to be ready. ‘More bandits! About nine o’clock!’
‘Got them, JL!’ Ted shouted. ‘They’re the same ones!’
‘Couldn’t be. The 109s buggered off as soon as they’d hit the 110.’
‘No, I think Ted’s right!’ It was Lofty, who had come into the cockpit beside me, standing up, peering through the canopy over my shoulder.
I took another look. Once again, the aircraft were silhouetted against the grey cloudbase; once again an Me-110 was flying fast and low against the surface of the clouds, with a small section of single-engined fighters behind him, in hot pursuit.
‘What the devil are the Jerries up to?’
‘Don’t fire,’ I ordered the gunners. ‘They’re not interested in us. Don’t change things.’
I saw the 109s turning in for an attack, in two groups of two, one following the other. They peeled off in a sharp turn, flew broadside at the 110, their tracer glittering like jewels, curling around the Me-110. The pilot dived sharply, banked away, reversed the bank, swooped down. The 109s recovered from their attacking pass and swept around for another try. Now the 110 was in a steep dive towards the clouds. Tracer curled towards it.
I could hardly see because our flight was taking us beyond the battle. Lofty moved down the fuselage, went to one of the side windows.
‘I still can’t see anything, JL!’ he reported.
‘Kris?’ I shouted. ‘Are you watching back there?’
‘You bet. Rear gunner has the best seat. Germans attacking Germans. Good stuff!’
‘Did they shoot him down?’
‘Nah . . . they miss. Then they turn away. The 110 was in the cloud and I think it went on.’
Lofty returned to the cockpit and was standing behind me again, crouching forward.
‘Do you get it, skip?’ he said. ‘What were they doing?’
‘Haven’t the faintest. We were sitting ducks, but they went after one of their own. Or two of their own.’
Sam Lew came on. ‘Do you want a position fix, JL?’
‘Yeah, where are we?’
"A couple of hundred miles from the German coast and about two hundred and sixty from Denmark.’
‘Why Denmark?"
‘That was the direction the second lot came from.’
‘They could have come from Germany, though.’
‘Either way, they would have been at the limit of their range. That’s why they didn’t hang around out here. The 109s would be watching their fuel.’