WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 9
During the next month, we did only one operation, on 26th August, lasting 12 hours 50 minutes, then, on 3rd September, another op. on another crew’s aircraft that had just come out of the hangar after major maintenance work. However, due to a broken H/T plug, (probably broken during maintenance), the op. was aborted and we returned to base after 4 hours 20 minutes.
For the next week, we did some fighter affiliation with Beaufighters and Mosquitoes, and went to Wig Bay and ferried a new Sunderland back to the squadron. Then, on 10th September, we flew an op. that lasted 9 hours 25 minutes, being recalled early due to weather.
On 14th September, we took over our new aircraft No. EK578, letter ‘2E’.
‘E’ was a lovely aircraft, with absolutely no vices. She was five knots faster than ‘U’. We were very happy with her, but unfortunately, as with ‘U’, she was very sparse on frontal armament, which we didn’t like one little bit. The FN4 tail turret with 4 Brownings and 1,000 rounds for each gun was the main armament, and was very good apart from a long and vulnerable hydraulic pipeline from one engine which powered the turret and gun-firing mechanism. The mid-upper with 2 Brownings was a problem as it had a nasty gremlin - the links of the disintegrating ammunition belt had a habit of jamming in the chute and stopping the guns. We worked on this problem and hoped we had fixed it. The nose turret still had the single Vickers G.0. gun with 100 round pans, the changing of which was a slow and laborious task.
We decided something had to be done. We installed an American .300 Browning in a ball mount under the nose turret. It was a nice little gun, belt-fed with a 1,000 round magazine and a good rate of fire, but very limited in its field of fire. A G.0. gun was put at each galley hatch, and - (Dudley’s idea) - another G.0. gun at the first pilots’ window. This was only a scare gun and the pan was filled with 100% tracer.
16th September 1943
Another T3 patrol, a first light takeoff, down to Spain, plenty of cloud - (that meant life insurance). Spirits were high. An uneventful coast crawl, then at Finisterre, a request from the skipper to the navigator: “Course for home,” - always a welcome sound over the intercom. However, as we progressed the cloud began to dissipate, then finally disappeared. Our high spirits also disappeared, as we had a long way to go, and all in tiger country.
I had been on the set since takeoff and was relieved by Bob Webster. I went down to the galley. I’d had nothing to eat since our aircrew breakfast before takeoff and was hungry as a hunter. Pierre Bamber, the rigger, had cooked a big dish of baked beans and there was still a lot left, even though I was last to have lunch - so I ate the lot!
I looked on the roster and saw that Bunny Sidney in the tail was due for a break, (an hour was the limit in a turret, as no one can keep the concentration of searching for longer than that), so I went down and relieved him.
I commenced searching, and before long, located something dead astern, slightly above the horizon. It was, I estimated, 17 miles. You can see an aircraft as a dot at about 10 to 11 miles. Beyond that, you just “know” – it’s hard to explain. I reported to control and George Done, (the navigator), hopped up to the astrodome, but couldn’t see it. I was instructed to keep an eye on it and report. Gradually, a dot became visible, then it split in two, then three, four, five, and finally 6 dots were clearly visible dead astern.
Dudley looked for cloud, there wasn’t any, so he opened the throttles and began to climb. We had a saying when things looked dicey: “What we need is more height.” Slowly but surely the dots got bigger and bigger, became aircraft, and eventually I was positively able to identify them as what we knew they would be – Ju88s.
The 88’s began to divide. Four started coming up on our starboard and two on our port. I noticed also that the leader on the starboard had a glass nose, obviously the fighter controller. This meant that they were not just a group of fighters looking for easy pickings, but obviously a well trained and experienced group. (We’d been told that recently the Germans had declared the Atlantic number one priority and were bringing some of their best squadrons from Russia.)
We prepared for battle. The depth charges were run out and jettisoned; Pierre went up to the .300 in the nose; the two galley guns were installed and manned by Bunny and Ivor Peatty, and Jimmy put in his scatter gun.
We checked everything over and over - guns, ammunition, turrets, sights - as the 88’s flew alongside about 1,000 yards out. We sized them up; they sized us up. I followed the four on the starboard with my turret until they were gone from view, then I calculated that the first attack would obviously come from the starboard. We would turn into it, and the attacker would break away from the starboard quarter, so I sat and waited.
I didn’t have long to wait, I heard George over the intercom: “They will start from starboard skip. Ready to turn starboard... ready to turn starboard... - GO!” A wild diving turn. I heard cannon shells raking the fuselage, and there he was, as I predicted, receding into the starboard quarter, his engines puffing black smoke as he throttled back, a perfect no deflection shot, an air gunner’s dream.
I said: “Dead Junkers 88,” and lined up the turret. At least I tried to line up the turret, but it was dead as a dodo. What luck! The hydraulic line to the turret had been severed in the first attack! By this time the others were attacking. The sky was full of white puff balls from the self-destroying shells which had missed us, black crosses flashing across my line of vision, our aircraft twisting and turning to George’s instructions from the astrodome. I had a small handle with which I could rotate the turret, so I did this as best I could and by firing the guns by hand. I sprayed tracer around the sky every time I saw a black cross, but it was pretty hopeless.
Suddenly there was a lull. The 88’s pulled back and took stock. It seemed that the scatter gun had them a bit perplexed, something they hadn’t struck before. George came on the intercom: “All positions report.”
“Tail to Control. Turret U/S.”
“Mid upper to Control. Both guns stopped.”
“Nose to Control. All OK.”
“Thank God for that!” said George.
Bubbles in the mid upper managed to get one gun cleared. Then it was on again.
Last edited by Wiley; 1st Feb 2010 at 00:31.
Reason: Typos, new info from PJ