coincidence, Cliff
We have a lot more in common than Liverpool, Cliff. The Flt/Sgt Discip sitting in the front row in your ITW picture was called Skoular. I can't vouch for the spelling, it might have been Schoular or Skoular and he was Egyptian. He was also my Flt/Sgt i.c B Flight at No 6 ITW at Aberystwyth when I was there from Dec 1940 until March 1941. He was very tough and very fair as I remember. Our Corporal was a Cpl. Beaton and he and the F/Sgt were a darned good team. Just one of the numerous coincidences that I have encountered during my life. I seem to remember that his moustache was a bit more luxurious when I knew him but then he would have been about a year younger. By the way, in the thread from "Wiley", he asked if you knew how many survived the war. According to statistics , Bomber Command alone, had 55,000 aircrew killed or missing, more than the entire number lost by the brave men of the Merchant Navy.
While I am here at the desk.....I'll get on with a bit more of my story..... There was always a huge gasp of dismay when the curtain was drawn at Briefing and we saw the long ,tortuous track of the red ribbon finishing at "The Big City" as we always referred to Berlin. We knew that we were in for over eight hours of nerve wracking tension and knew that there would be a savage reception awaiting us.
I had been a Flt.Sgt. for a very long time but one day I was called to the Wingco's Office and was interviewed by a very charming Air Vice Marshall Carr . It was a very brief interview and consisted of two questions;" How long have you been on Operations ?" and "What does your Father do ?". The answer to the first was "Over a year , Sir " and the second was "He is an RAF Signals Officer at Helwan, Egypt, Sir." His answer was short and sweet but addressed to my Squadron Commander. "I do know that Helwan is in Egypt and see that this chap does his next Op as an Officer. " As a matter of fact my commission came through in under three weeks , together with that of my Navigator and my Bomb Aimer and I found myself as a very new Pilot Officer for my first Op as a "sprog" . The target was a place that no one had ever heard of and it was very unusual that we were operating at all as it was full moon and we had never been called upon to operate at that time before. We were told that it was a vital target and was a secret Radio Station and if we didn't destroy it that night we would have to go back every night until it was destroyed. We were also told that 4 Group,which was our Group, of course, had the doubtful honour of leading the raid which consisted of around six hundred four engined bombers, mainly Halifaxes and Lancasters.
You have, of course , guessed, by now, that the target was Peenemunde, a small place on the Baltic and the breeding ground for the V2 Rockets that would wreak such havoc later......much later as a result of this operation. I see that the remarks in my log book just say "Quiet trip. Bombed and got an aiming point " or words to that effect. I was astounded to hear that we had lost 42 aircraft, 30 of them over the target as we had not seen any signs of fighters, just the usual flak and searchlights. We had not been told that 30 Mosquito's had been sent, as a diversion , to Berlin and timed to look as though they were the leaders of the main force so that the German fighters had been "scrambled" to Berlin and only arrived over Peenemunde towards the middle of the operation and had then really taken their toll. Once again, luck had played such a huge part of staying alive.
The Germans had used, for one of the first times, their answer to "Window" . It was called "Wild Boar" and was to use every fighter available, even their daylight fighters and get them up high enough to see the bombers silhouetted against the searchlights, fires and the cloud below if there was any. Incidentally I got the code name wrong for the upward firing guns mounted on their fighters. It was not "Nacht Musik" but was "Schrage Musik" (It might be "schraage") Schrage Musik was "Jazz" or "Kinky" as was the idea of fixed upward firing guns, but it worked . Our answer was "Monica", A device that beeped whenever anything came near the blind spot roughly under the main spar. The trouble was it could'nt distinguish betweeen friend or foe and as there were always hundreds of other aircraft around, Monica would sing during the whole trip and was, as often as not, switched off.
I made three trips to Berlin and on one of them had a very unusual experience. We were lucky enough to be one of the first Halifax Squadrons to be equipped with radial Bristol Hercules engines and we could now join the Lancs at the dizzy heights of 22,000 ft where, or so they told us, the flak was less accurate. On this night, over Berlin, it was as light as day because of the low cloud ,the searchlights and the fires blazing below. I had just started my bombing run when I looked out to my left and was astounded to see a Messerschmit 109 about four hundred yards away , literally formated ,just out of our range on our port wing. He stayed there and I told the gunners not to fire as it was useless and would only draw others to the scene. He flew across the target with me as we bombed, then the pilot pointed towards his guns, shrugged his shoulders, gave me a "thumbs up" sign then half rolled on to his back and dived away. We were "coned" after that by three searchlights but I got my head down in the cockpit to avoid being blinded and did some violent weaving and managed to get away.......