On with the motley
Occasionally, ENSA, the Forces entertainment organisation would send us one of their wonderful concert parties. Ralph Reader ("We're riding along on the crest of a wave....") and his Gang Show were the best known but I well remember Gordon Harker, a famous cockney actor and film star coming back to the Sgt.'s Mess at the end of one of the shows. Above the fireplace and written on the ceiling in charcoal were the words "Pinky Wood peed in the fire from here". " Anything Pinky Wood can do , Gordon 'Arker can do, " he said and straightaway proved it.
The Pubs, or more usually the Pub was always a long walk from the isolated camps. They were always short of beer and we were always short of money but we were young, we were alive and lived for the moment and morale was high so the everpresent Jackie was always welcome.
We went back to Blackpool and the "Avalon" for our wartime ,rationed wedding reception and then made our way to the railway station to take the train for Southport where we planned on staying a few days with one of Dora's Aunties, who lived there. Unfortunately we had to change at Preston and, as so often was the case, the train for Southport never turned up so we found a grimy little boarding house next to the station and spent our wedding night listening to the stentorian Lancashire voice coming over the Tannoy all night long. " The train standing at platform one is the delayed London to Carlisle express and is subject to unknown delay etc....." There was also the noise of the occasional train rushing non-stop through the station and the very occasional departure but never an arrival. We eventually got to Southport the next afternoon and were made very welcome by Dora's Aunt who must have felt very sorry for the bedraggled , tired honeymooners who were standing on her doorstep.
The honeymoon passed all too quickly and my posting came through . I received a railway warrant telling me to proceed immediately to a place called Heck in Yorkshire. The ticket seller refused to believe that such a place existed but it did and still does and came in to the news a year or two ago when a man, driving a jeep, fell asleep at the wheel and went down the embankment there and derailed the Scotland- London express killing some and injuring many passengers. I noticed, at the time, that the papers called it "Great Heck" but I never heard it called that all the time that I was staioned at nearby Snaith.
Snaith, near Goole, was where 51 Squadron of 4 Group, Bomber command was based and I was made very welcome by the SWO and put in to C Flight which was, unusually, commanded by a Squadron Leader who was not a pilot. He was an Observer and one of the bravest and finest men I was ever to meet aand I was to meet many. He would put himself on Operations with each and every pilot in his flight, replacing the normal Bomb Aimer. I Was now a Flt.Sgt. but when Charlie Porter flew with me I was the Skipper and my word was law. He seemed old enough to be my Father but was probably about thirty three years old. It says volumes for his assessment of ability---and luck---that he survived the mandatory tour of thirty operations despite having to fly with all and sundry. He survived the war and was a popular figure at the annual 51 Sqdn. reunions until, sadly he died around 1992. Strangely enough he was replaced by yet another Squadron Leader Observer, a very different character called Simmonds, who was an ex Guards Officer remustered to the RAF and went into action wearing long brown leather leggings.
Most unusually my first trip on Halifaxes was as second pilot. This, to gain experience, was a very expensive practice that was soon discontinued as two valuable pilots were lost when the machine was shot down. My Skipper was Flt.Lt. Bill Irwin and the target was Hamburg on the night of July 24th. 1943 aand a new device was to be tested on the German defences. It consisted of thousands of thin metallic strips which were to be released from their aircraft as it flew over the target area. Each strip as it floated down would give an echo on the German radar similar to that of an aircraft and, it was hoped, would swamp the German defences. Although the British had known of this device for a considerable time it had not been used in case the Germans used it against us but now, with the ever mounting losses of Bomber Command,
....40 to 50 aircraft on each raid, each containing at least seven crew, was not uncommon... the powers that be decided to unleash "Window" as the strips were codenamed, upon Germany. It was my job, as spare man on board, to drop the bundles of window through the flare chute as we flew over Hamburg. It certainly worked well that night. We heard from our intelligence that it had caused complete chaos in the German Night Fighter defence. Pilots were being ordered to sectors to intercept the hundreds of British planes reported there and being virtually accused of cowardice when no sightings were reported. The use of window in the next few months certainly saved hundreds of British lives but the Germans brought in all their day fighters and illuminated the target area with hundreds of searchlights, silhouetting the bombers above the clouds. This was called Operation "Wild Sow" and was very successful but window had served it's purpose well and was to play a huge part in the D-Day landings when about thirty Lancasters dropping window and doubling back upon themselvs repeatedly, conviced the Germans that a large Naval force was approaching the German held coast.
The raid on Hamburg was to take it,s place in history as the first where great fires were started giving birth to the terrible "Fire storms" that, literally sucked the oxygen from all around it and the destruction, devastation and death toll was terrible. I take no pride whatsoever in taking part in this attack , just a deep sadness that it was found to be neccessary. As "Bomber Harris " so prophetically told the Germans "You have sown the wind and you shall reap the whirlwind.