The Red Line: The Gripping Story of the RAF’s Bloodiest Raid on Hitler’s Germany. John Nichol
conditions. I remember one of the most spectacular: a Canadian pilot flying a Wellington hit the runway hard, the aircraft bounced, he lost control and went straight into the side of the control tower, about 15 feet above the ground. It was still stuck there the next day. Four of the crew and three flying control personnel were killed, including two WAAFs. Only the rear gunner survived.’
The members of a crew risked their lives together, slept together, ate together and socialised together. The ones that gelled quickly were the lucky ones, and forged friendships that would last a lifetime. Those who failed to get along, or whose camaraderie faltered under the strain, often met with fatal consequences. Arguments or disagreements put the aircraft at risk. Total discipline was required on board; it was a fundamental rule of survival, and yet the process of ‘crewing up’ was surprisingly haphazard.
In July 1943 Sam Harris was nursing a pint with Sandy Clarkson, an Edinburgh-born fellow navigator, at The Golden Fleece in Loughborough. It was like the first day of school, but instead of making friends they and their fellow recruits were forming crews. As the afternoon wore on the number of unattached airmen grew fewer; it was time for Sandy and Sam to make a decision.
‘What do you think?’ Sandy asked.
Sam shrugged. ‘Only two pilots left. It’s a toss-up.’
Whilst Sandy’s clannish instincts led him to opt for the Glaswegian of the pair, Sam and a bomb aimer who seemed to be at a loose end approached the remaining pilot, Ken Murray. Ken said that he had a wireless operator ‘around here somewhere’, and had spotted a couple of spare gunners lurking in a corner. A few minutes later the six of them stood at the bar, mugs of beer in their hands, toasting their new partnership.
Both crews were sent to Castle Donington. On 28 July, an eye-popping summer’s day, Sam climbed aboard a Wellington, S-Sugar, a real bomber, for the first time. They were only practising circuits and landings, but Ken proved so capable that when they landed their instructor told him he could fly solo.
Sam sat behind his curtain, working on his charts, listening to Ken going through the checks and drills before they took off once more. Then he heard Ken’s voice on the radio. ‘This is S for Sugar. Aircraft in front has just gone in. Taking off …’ Sam wondered what the hell he meant. He got up from his navigator’s desk as they rumbled into the air and looked over the flight engineer’s shoulder. The Wellington ahead of them had buried its nose in a tree. It looked like a nasty one.
As he watched, there was a vast explosion. The stricken bomber was engulfed in flame and choking black smoke billowed into the sky around them. Sam knew immediately that Sandy – his best friend for the past two years – and everyone else on board were dead. No one spoke. Air Traffic Control gave the order for Ken to land, and he circled the airfield, passing on the details of what he could see to the ground. The shattered bomber was still burning fiercely. Sam turned away.
Rusty Waughman’s crew came together in a similarly haphazard fashion.
Idris ‘Taffy’ Arndell, a wireless operator, and his friend, Colin ‘Ginger’ Farrant, had fixed to meet two local girls in Loughborough the night they were supposed to find a crew. Knowing they would be expected to have a drink or two with their new mates, they decided to hide in the pub toilets until the selection process was over; they didn’t want to miss their double date. Making for the exit as soon as they thought they were in the clear, they bumped into two pilots, one of whom was Rusty Waughman.
‘Are you two crewed up?’ Rusty’s companion asked.
‘Yes,’ they lied.
‘We don’t believe you, and we’re both short of a wireless operator. We’ll toss for it.’
Rusty lost, and the other pilot chose Ginger; he appeared the more intelligent and dependable of the two, or as intelligent and dependable as you can appear when you’ve been caught hiding in a pub toilet. They were posted shortly after to XII Squadron at Wickenby and went missing on their first operation – a long haul to Stettin on the night of 5 January. It later emerged that Ginger had lied about his age; he was only 17 when he joined up.
Of the 55,573 men of Bomber Command who died during the Second World War, 5,723 were killed in training, and a further 3,113 were seriously injured. Like much bad news, these losses were downplayed at the time, in line with Charles Portal’s decree that ‘Statistical information regarding the chances of survival of aircrew should be confined to the smallest number of people; this information could be distorted and dangerous to morale.’21
The casualties also included men who had completed the full 30 mission tours and were then posted for six months as OTU instructors. It was often as hazardous to sit beside a nervous young pilot in a bomber he had never flown before as it was to be at the controls of a Lancaster in the night skies above Berlin.
Roger Coverley was a pilot with 76 Squadron at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor in March 1944, after completing 30 ops with 78 Squadron. He had been a pilot instructor on Halifaxes in the interim. ‘I didn’t enjoy it. It was boring and much too dangerous because you’re teaching young kids how to fly. I was sitting in the right-hand seat, unable to get at the controls if anything went wrong. I had some very close shaves. I couldn’t wait to get back on operations.’22
Members of Rusty Waughman’s 101 Squadron kit up prior to take off
Sam Harris and his crew travelled by train to Elsham Wolds, home of 576 Squadron, in early January 1944. They pulled up at a small rural station and Sam leaned out of the window to ask the lone porter on the platform if it was Elsham. He nodded and they lugged their bulging kitbags off the train.
As they looked around, wondering what to do next, the porter approached them. ‘Are you boys after the airfield?’
Sam raised his eyebrows and surveyed the featureless Lincolnshire countryside. They were in RAF uniform, they were laden with kit. Did the man think they were here to enjoy the scenery? There wasn’t any scenery.
‘Yes,’ one of the crew replied wearily.
‘In that case, you need the next station. They’ll pick you up from there.’
The train had sounded its whistle and was starting to pull away, but they managed to grab their stuff and climb back on board before it was too late. They flopped back into the seats they had left a few moments earlier. No one said a word.
Finally Ken spoke. ‘Six bloody months to get here and we get off at the wrong bloody station.’
Though operational crews had little say in their immediate future, Rusty Waughman asked to be posted to 101 Squadron; Paul Zanchi, who had become a friend during training, was based there. He was told by a Flight Commander that 101 was a ‘special’ squadron, where only the best pilots were sent.
By the time Rusty arrived at Ludford Magna he discovered that Paul had become yet another casualty of the Battle of Berlin. On the night of 26 November, one of his first ops, he had been sent to bomb the Big City and never came back. ‘It was a real shock, an eye-opener, an awakening; a realisation of what it all meant. I felt a sense of real sadness and I knew then that things weren’t going to be as easy as they seemed to be in training.’
In November 1943 Reg Payne, a young wireless operator, had crewed up with two Pilot Officers, Michael Beetham (later Sir Michael Beetham, Marshal of the RAF and the Chief of Air Staff in ultimate command of the legendary Vulcan 607 bombing of Port Stanley runway during the Falklands War) and Frank Swinyard, and been posted to 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. Shortly after he arrived, he was told that his mother had sent a telegram asking him to come home. His brother had been shot down. His new Wing Commander initially refused him permission to do so.