On the 29th December, we were on patrol and sighted a lot of wreckage as a result of the naval battle, including a lifeboat containing 35 German survivors. We took a photograph, which was printed in ‘The Western Mail’ on 11th January. The boat was so full of survivors, they were all standing. It was a typical Biscay winter’s day, stormy and dull with thick low-lying cloud – life insurance. We kept just under the cloud, ready to duck back in if danger threatened. I was in the tail turret. Someone saw the lifeboat and the skipper decided to investigate. He told all turrets to keep a watch-out, and we left the safety of the cloud and down we went towards the lifeboat. I swung my turret from side to side, searching the space above us – it was not unknown for the Ju88’s to use survivors (even German) as decoys. However, there was no problem. We took photographs and went back to the safety of the cloud.
Later on, the skipper told me that as we swooped over the boat, I swung my turret towards the boat, and apparently, the survivors thought we intended to shoot them up, and all the men swayed over to the other side of the boat. As there was standing room only, there was nothing else they could do. He said it was like a paddock of wheat being blown by the wind.
I often wondered what happened to them. Hopefully, they were picked up by a British ship and made prisoners of war.
(**I understand that the name of one of the blockade runners was the ‘Alstrerufer’, [possibly ‘Alsterufer’], and that the survivors Peter’s crew saw made it to Spain, for they mentioned after making landfall that the only aircraft they saw whilst in the lifeboat was a Sunderland, [almost certainly Peter’s]. )
In a letter written to the editor of the Coastal Command and Maritime Air Association** newsletter in 2008, Peter says in part:
The battle had good coverage in the English press, and I well remember one newspaper reporting the great victory of so many enemy ships sunk for no casualties on our side. The loss of the 228 Squadron Sunderland with eleven men didn’t rate a mention. What did they call us? – ‘The Cinderella Service’? It should have been ‘The Forgotten Service’.
(** the CCMAA website is well worth a look)
With Peter’s mention in his letter of the men of Coastal Command calling themselves ‘The Cinderella Service’, I thought this poem by the late Sqn Ldr Tony Spooner DSO, DFC, AE was appropriate to insert here.
No Spotlight for Coastal
“Bombers or Fighters?” his friends used to say
But when he said “Coastal”, they half turned away
Yet Coastal’s patrols which traversed the Bay
Forced the U-boats to dive for most of the day
With the U-boats submerged for much of the day
The convoys ploughed on, midst the salt and the spray
While the men on the ships did silently pray
That his plane would appear; both to circle and stay
When his plane did appear; to both circle and stay
Then the Wolf Packs held back; wholly robbed of their prey
And the convoys sailed on in their purposeful way
And the seamen reached port where their loved ones did lay
“Fighters or Bombers?” his friends used to ask
“Coastal”, he said, his face a tired mask
“Though not in the spotlight where others may bask,
We’ve a tough job to do and I’m proud of the task”
Our next operational sortie was on 2nd January 1944. The weather closed in at PD and we were diverted to Poole. We went ashore and as I was signing in at the Officer’s Mess, a pilot looked at what I was writing and said: “461 Squadron? Did you know Dudley Marrows?”
I said: “Yes, he used to be my skip.”
He then asked; “Were you with him when he was in the drink?”
I said: “Yes.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m John Cruickshank and I found you.”
I held out my hand and shook his vigorously. “John,” I said, “I don’t know what a life is worth, but I reckon it’s worth a beer,” and I bought him one.
For the rest of January, we flew fairly constantly in very poor weather. Patrols would sometimes be cut short with a signal to return to base, or diverted to Poole or Mountbatten, then next day, a transit flight back to PD. In between time, we did some bombing and gunnery practice and an air test to check out a suspect engine fault.
On 3rd February, we did a patrol of 13 hours 20 minutes, and as I had now completed my 800 hours operational flying, I was taken off ops and awaited a decision on what was to constitute my ‘rest’ (as it was laughingly called).
For a couple of weeks, I stood in for the Adjutant while he went on leave. My main recollection is of issuing clothing coupons to the aircrew NCOs. (The real Adjutant was parsimonious in this regard, and the boys made the most of my liberal tendencies.)
I did one last trip with the old crew on 14th March – 1 hour 30 minutes on radar training – then on 17th March, set out for Alness in an old aircraft with a scratch crew to begin my ‘rest’.