Lancaster Target

Jack Currie

• Publisher: Crecy
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781800350007
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

This is a welcome reissue of a book which has been described as one of the best accounts about life in Bomber Command during World War II. Lancaster Target is the classic story of one crew's fight to survive a full tour of operations in the night skies of wartime Europe. Flying Lancaster bombers from RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire between 1943 and 1944, Jack Currie chronicles the life and death struggles against flak, night fighters and perilous weather with clarity and feeling, whilst capturing the 'live for the moment' spirit of off-duty escapades. Jack Currie DFC served as a stretcher bearer and later ambulance driver during the London Blitz before gaining his wings in the USA. Having completed his first perilous operational tour of 30 missions in Lancaster's, he went on to serve as a Pathfinder Mosquito pilot. He remained in the RAF after the war eventually reaching the rank of Squadron Leader. After he left the service, he became a renowned aviation writer and broadcaster and appeared in a number of TV and video productions.

CHAPTER ONE

First, Pick Your Crew

The sound of the airmen’s voices echoed from the high ceilings and misted windows of the drill-hangar. A Wellington hummed overhead in the sparkling morning air. It was the last day of 1942. I stood among the other sergeant-pilots and, trying not to stare at anyone in particular, looked round the assembled groups of aircrew. There were bomb-aimers, navigators, wireless-operators and gunners, and I needed one of each to form my crew. I didn’t know any of them; up to now my Air Force world had been peopled by pilots. This was a crowd of strangers. I had a sudden recollection of standing in a suburban dancehall, wondering which girl I should approach. I remembered that it wasn’t always the prettiest or the smartest girl who made the best companion for the evening. Anyway, this wasn’t the same as choosing a dancing partner, it was more like picking out a sweetheart or a wife, for better or for worse. I needed four of these men to fly with, live with, go to war with. If, as I planned, we went on from Wellingtons to heavy bombers, I would have to find another gunner and an engineer later in our training, but the five of us who came together now would be the nucleus of the crew.

I hadn’t realised that the crewing-up procedure would be so haphazard, so unorganised. If I’d known it was going to be like this I’d have given it some previous thought, but I’d imagined that the process would be just as impersonal as most others that we went through in the RAF. I thought I would simply see an order on the notice-board, detailing who was crewed with whom. But what had happened was quite different. When we had all paraded in the hangar, and the roll had been called, the Chief Ground Instructor got up on a dais. He wished us good morning, told us we were there for crewing-up, and said: ‘Right, chaps, sort yourselves out.’ Then he jumped off the dais and left us to get on with it.

I decided on an order of priorities to follow, and directed my attention first towards the group of navigators. But how was I to pick one? I couldn’t assess what his aptitude with a map and dividers might be from his face, or his skill with a sextant from the size of his feet. I noticed that a wiry little Australian was looking at me anxiously. He took a few steps forward, eyes puckered in a diffident smile, and spoke:

‘Looking for a good navigator?’

I walked to meet him. He was an officer. I looked down into his eyes, and received an impression of honesty, intelligence and nervousness. He said:

‘You needn’t worry, I did all right on the course!’

I held out my hand.

‘Jack Currie.’

‘I’m Jim Cassidy. Have you got a bomb-aimer? I know a real good one – he comes from Brisbane, like me. I’ll fetch him over.’

The bomb-aimer had a gunner in tow and while we were sizing each other up, we were joined by a tall wireless-operator, who introduced himself in a gentle Northumbrian accent and suggested that it was time for a cup of tea. As we walked to the canteen, I realised that I hadn’t made a single conscious choice.

There followed three weeks in Ground School, and a week on leave, before we started to fly the Wellington. Deep in the woodland west of Derby, whenever an aeroplane was serviceable and the February weather permitted, we pounded the Church Broughton circuit and the neighbouring airspace; dual and solo, overshoots and landings, on two engines and on one, with flap and without, cross-country and bombing, air-firing and beam approach. Then we started the whole cycle again by night. I signed a paper which certified that I had received instruction about the fuel and oil systems, and that I thoroughly understood the manipulation of the appropriate controls. We went to the daily flight briefings, studied the met reports, tried to remember where the balloon barrages were, and what to do if we forgot. We practised instrument flying in the Link Trainer, where it didn’t matter if we finished the landing fifty feet below the runway, because the little hooded cockpit never left its platform in the ground school. We talked of QDM and ETA, of cloud-base and safety-height, alto-stratus and cumulonimbus, engine heat and Constant Speed Unit, position report and Standard Beam Approach, terminal velocity and infra-red photography, of dewpoint and occlusion.

Snow fell, heavily and quietly, in the night. Next morning, the hangars stood out black and stark in a world of gleaming white. Many of the Australians were seeing snow for the first time, and they greeted it like schoolboys, with boisterous delight. Vigorous skirmishes with snowballs broke out all over the camp, and sporadic sniping still continued when we were all given spades and shovels, and told to get the runway cleared in time for night flying. We worked through the morning and part of the afternoon, but then a freshening wind sprang up, which tugged at the turned-up collars of our greatcoats, numbed our fingers, and made our labours as frustrating as those of Sisyphus. Anyway, we had done enough to make the runway useable if no more snow fell.

That evening, I sat in the flight office with half a dozen other pilots, waiting for the Duty Instructor’s call from Flying Control which would tell us whether we would fly or not. The wind now blew in gusts of increasing intensity, and differing views were held about our chances. One pilot said:

‘Call this a wind? Listen, when I was training in Canada, we often used to fly in fifty-mile-an-hour blizzards. Thought nothing of it.’

Another looked up from a magazine.

‘Yeah, but in Canada you used to leave the snow on the runway, didn’t you? It’s all right landing on hard-packed snow.’

A third joined in:

‘Trouble is, we’ve got this runway partly cleared. Now it’ll have a sprinkling on top that’ll freeze over. Be like landing on ice. I reckon it’d be bloody suicidal. And I’m too young, too gay to die. Besides, I’ve got a date in Derby at eight o’clock.’

The telephone bell buzzed. Everyone sprang for the receiver, but I was nearest.

‘Yes, sir? I see. Night flying cancelled. What time do you want us in the morning? Thank you, sir. Good-night.’

The flight office was empty by the time I had put the phone down.

As we got to know each other better, the strangers in uniform became people, with their individual likes and dislikes, their own attitudes to the war, to discipline, to girls, to food. I found out how often they used the same catchphrases, were depressed, washed, wrote home, boasted. Cassidy and the bomb-aimer didn’t drink, but the gunner, the wireless-operator and I did. We found a small inn at the village on the northern boundary of the airfield. There we were privileged to share with Buzzard Marshall’s crew the landlady’s favours, which included the use of her kitchen for bacon, eggs and sausages after hours, and the company of her daughters. The eldest of these was a big, untidy, cuddlesome girl whose efforts to keep her relations with us on a sisterly basis weren’t always successful.

For the last half-hour or so before closing time, the epicure Marshall sipping gin and vermouth, and the rest of us downing the clear, bitter ale they brew beside the Trent, we liked to sing at the piano, while the village postmistress pounded an accompaniment. Her repertoire was limited to hymn tunes and a few songs of the day, of which we favoured ‘Roll out the Barrel’, ‘Bless ‘em All’ and, for the Australians’ sake, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. To the embarrassment of Charles Fairbairn, the wireless-operator, there would be girlish appeals for him to play his tuba. These requests, which would be loudly reinforced by the rest of us, resulted from a foolery of mine. It had seemed to me that the Australians, with their sun-tanned faces their royal-blue uniform, and those distinctive accents which made you think of a mid-western cowboy influenced by the sound of Bow Bells, had a head start on the reticent Fairbairn when it came to girl-appeal. Thinking to add a little colour to his personality, I had let it be known, in his absence, that in civil life he had been one of the nation’s leading tuba-players. It was a perversity to establish a reputation for him in the field of music, as he couldn’t whistle the national anthem in tune, but it was a memory of Gary Cooper playing the tuba in a movie that had prompted me, for Fairbairn had something of the actor’s slow, quiet style. I had also told the girls that, despite his fame, Fairbairn was inordinately modest. So his anguished disclaimers of any virtuosity were brushed aside, and they besought him all the more to entertain them. Marshall joined the plot.

‘It’s his fingering that’s so good, you see. That’s what makes him such a wizard on the old Morse buzzer.’

Fairbairn shook his head, and smiled wearily. At last he gained relief by admitting that he had left the instrument in the cloakroom at Derby station, and mislaid the ticket.

Crews usually kept their own company, but it was considered all right for the pilot of one crew to associate with the pilot of another on occasion, or indeed one navigator with another, and so on. But for, say, a gunner to be in company with the pilot of another crew more than once or twice would be thought unnatural and disloyal. Girls were another matter, and in that case it was every man for himself. I had little time and less money to spend on girls, but there did seem to be a lot of them about, and it had to be admitted that they were very agreeable.

The Friary Hotel in Derby was another haven, with an urban opulence far removed from the comradely comforts of the village inn beside the airfield. Supreme authority at the Friary rested in the dread, seldom-seen person of Miss Whittaker, who ruled from a shadowy office in the heart of the old fashioned building. Seated at a massive desk, she glared with unblinking severity over gold-rimmed halfglasses, and issued her edicts in a ringing baritone voice. But I found that the dragon would forgive misdemeanours, waive unpaid accounts, even proffer small loans, without the slightest change in her forbidding expression. The sardonic head waiter also revealed himself a friend to the impecunious pilot, contriving to serve two dinners for the price of one, when I was bold enough to entertain one of the glittering girls from the glamorous clientele of the cocktail bar.

One or another of these charming creatures was occasionally claimed by the prosperous patron to whom she owed her luxurious life-style, and would be absent for a while. Then she would reappear, yet better bedecked and sleeker than before, to dispense her favours at leisure. Not for these ladies the encumbering infants who littered the lives of the airfield inn girls, not in their primrose paths would I find the blunt, battle-dressed men of the bomber crews. Here was the sound and the scent of a different social scene, which for me complemented the other, more homely, menage. Here, too, I met an amusing companion in Steve, a curly-haired, cheerful fighter pilot with a fund of good stories. Perhaps the best, and certainly the longest of these concerned one Pilot Officer Fotheringay-Jones. It seems that this paragon arrived on posting to a Spitfire squadron, and reported to the Flight Commander, a Squadron Leader Watson, who said:

‘Fotheringay-Jones, eh? Jolly good show! Glad to have you with us. Now, the first thing you’ll want to do is to gen up on station standing orders, station routine orders the flight order book, pilot’s notes and so on.’

‘Actually, sir, no. I want to get in the air.’

‘Eh?’

‘In the air, sir. I want to fly a Spitfire.’

‘Yes, yes, Fotheringay-Jones, of course, all in good time…’

‘No, sir, now. I see one is ready at the hangar for air test; may I take it up?’

‘Oh, very well, Fotheringay-Jones. I don’t want to quench your commendable zeal. You can attend to the admin this afternoon.’

Within minutes Fotheringay-Jones was airborne. Not only airborne, but beating up the squadron offices at very low level. As the Spitfire flashed by his window for the third time, Watson attempted to have Fotheringay-Jones recalled by Flying Control, only to find that the pilot had omitted to turn on his RT. Meanwhile, the Station Commander, Group Captain Ponsonby, was dealing with some correspondence in his headquarters, which now attracted Fotheringay-Jones’s attention. As the Spitfire made his windows rattle, flashing past inverted at nought feet, the Station Commander ducked instinctively. He then picked up the telephone and directed a tirade at the unfortunate Watson for permitting such dangerous antics, and demanded an explanation.

Fotheringay-Jones eventually tired of his attempts to terrorise the station and flight commanders, and landed off a stall-turn in the circuit, flicking his wheels down at the last possible minute. As he climbed out of the cockpit, he was met by an agitated mechanic with a message from Squadron Leader Watson to report to him immediately, if not sooner.

When Fotheringay-Jones sauntered in, Watson looked at him coldly:

‘I suppose you think you’re very clever. You have the mistaken impression that you are an ace. Well, Fotheringay- Jones, let me tell you that you are not. You are a dangerous young fool. Had you taken the trouble to read the flight order book, as I suggested, you would have known that low flying is most strictly prohibited. As for your extraordinary behaviour in dive-bombing the admin buildings, your failure to observe RT discipline, your irregular manoeuvres in the aerodrome circuit, I shall say no more for the moment. I am bound to tell you that you have managed to incur not only my serious displeasure, but also that of the Station Commander, all within a few moments of arriving on this squadron.’

Fotheringay-Jones eyed him calmly.

‘Have you quite finished, sir?’

‘For the moment, yes.’

‘Then you can go and get stuffed.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Go and get stuffed.’

Watson was appalled. Dismissing Fotheringay-Jones from his presence, he reported the outcome of his interview to the Station Commander, concluding:

‘I’m afraid he was rather insolent, sir.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I would prefer not to repeat it, sir.’

‘Out with it, man!’

‘Well, sir, he told me to get stuffed.’

‘Did he, indeed? I can see that I shall have to deal with this fellow myself. What did you say his name was?’

‘Fotheringay-Jones, sir.’

‘Bring him to my office, Watson. Immediately.’

When Fotheringay-Jones had been run to earth in the bar of the officers’ mess, the further interview took place, and Group Captain Ponsonby administered a similar rocket to that delivered by Squadron Leader Watson, but on a far grander scale. When he had thundered to his climax Fotheringay-Jones who had been shuffling his feet for some time, looked up and spoke:

‘Go and have a good shit.’

After a moment’s horrified silence Watson, by now appalled almost to bursting point, motioned the pilot out and awaited the great man’s wrath. Spluttering horribly, the Station Commander sent for Fotheringay-Jones’s documents. The adjutant laid them in front of his master, who instructed Watson to read them aloud:

‘Elementary Flying School – “A highly proficient student”. Basic Flying School – “Well above the average”. Advanced Flying School – “Exceptional”. Operational Conversion Unit – “An exceptional s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 First, Pick Your Crew
• 2 Wickenby
• 3 Hamburg
• 4 Summertime Targets
• Plate section
• 5 Fifteen Gone – Fifteen to Go
• 6 The King’s Commission
• 7 The New Squadron Forms
• 8 1944 and the Big Black Beaut
• 9 Big City Finish