Peter brett's memoirs continued...
Thank you Beagle-Eye, I have been a bit busy recently, so haven't had time to do any posting. Here is some more from Peter...
On the 10th Feb 1945 I noted an RP attack on a stores dump. The only note in my log book for this op was "Large explosion!". Another couple of days off, probably due to foul weather, then three operations in one day. The first two of these were armed recce. Both were in the Wesel/Bocholt area and both abortive. The first was due to weather and we were recalled from the second. In the afternoon however, four of us did an RP attack which I noted in my logbook was 'Winkle'. This, as far as I can recall, was a code name for attacking dug-in troops. On returning from this I found that my engine temperature was climbing slowly but I managed to get back to Gilze-Rijen before it got too dangerous. A check by the fitters revealed a damaged oil cooler.
Feb.14th and St.Valentines day. The morning operation was an attack on, firstly, a rail target at Hurl followed by an attack on some motor transport in woods north of Lubeck. There was no flak at all from the first target and only a small amount from the second. All the operations at this time were FCP, which stood for Forward Control Point. This meant that we were patrolling a fixed area and were called up from a forward position by the army to deal with any trouble spots such as gun positions, mortar batteries, observation posts etc.
In the afternoon the four of us, I was no.3 on this op., were to attack a moated castle east of Goch. (During my 1998 visit I managed to identify this castle. From maps I worked out it was either Kalbeck or Wissen. I visited both and at first thought that Wissel had been the target and that I had made a mistake as to its location. The reason for this was that Kalbeck has no moat whereas Wissen is a beautiful medieval castle with an extensive moat. However, in talking to the owner of Wissen he assured me that it was never attacked during the war since it was a hospital with a large red cross on the roof. Going back to Kalbeck we could not find anybody but did find evidence of bullet damage and also evidence of an old moat. One tends to forget that things change a lot in over fifty years! Since returning from Holland my friend in Horst has been contacted by the owner of Kalbeck Castle who confirmed that there was a moat in those days and that the castle was attacked during February 1945. He said he would like to meet me!!)
Another day off, the weather was terrible, and then another FCP attack on the 16th against mortar positions west of the Forest of Cleve. We made an RP attack followed by three strafing runs but there was no flak. There followed a period of five days when there was no activity at all because of bad weather and then on 21st February I flew an Auster to airstrip B86 with a Fl/Lt Galbraith as passenger and returned.
Back to operations the next day, with an FCP attack on field guns east of Goch. On this operation there were four of us with myself flying number three. The number two, Anton, (I cannot recall his surname) was hit during the dive, burst into flames, and crashed near the target. We were attacking well spaced apart as the leader had ordered us to fire the rockets in pairs as a ripple. This meant that the gunners could concentrate on each individual aircraft. We were all hit, but Anton was the unfortunate one. I did not realize that I had been hit myself until on the way back, when my windscreen suddenly became covered in oil.
A quick check of the engine instruments showed nothing amiss and then I realized that the oil was too clean to have come from the engine. However I was not taking any chances and immediately throttled back. Luckily, since our targets were now nearly always at the front line, we were invariably back over friendly territory very quickly. I spotted a new-looking airstrip and made for it, landing 'straight in' as there was no flying activity taking place at that moment. This airstrip turned out to be B89 at Mill. The numbers were allocated in order of construction, B for British and A for American.
This particular airfield was occupied by a Mustang wing at the time. I was taken back to B77 (Gilze-Rijen) by road whilst the aircraft was examined. It turned out that the reduction gear casing behind the propeller had been hit and had burst. Had I kept going much longer it would have seized up and either exploded or caught fire. Lucky me again!
My aircraft was repaired during the next day and on the morning of the 24th I tried to fly back to B89 with P/O Jack Bridges to collect it. However the weather again put paid to this trip and we had to return. I never did get back to collect the aircraft, as I was on another operation that afternoon and only managed one more op. before being posted.
Much later, the 183 squadron Adjutant told me that I should have been charged the cost of a new parachute which I had left in the aircraft at B89. However he was a decent type who arranged for the chute to be written off "Due to Enemy Action".
On the 24th February, in the afternoon, I led a four on an armed recce. in the Isselburg area. There was a lot of cloud and I suddenly spotted a bridge and some barges. I called "Target, Target, nine o'clock below" and peeled off in a 180 degree roll. The other three followed me closely and we shot down through a small hole in the cloud to fire our 32 rockets in four eight's very quickly. They were all good shots and we learned later that we had severely damaged the bridge and sunk six barges. We were in and out so quickly that there was no flak at all, or at least we didn't see any tracers.
Next day saw me leading 'Green' section of four on a Headquarters building near Weeze. This target was by contrast very well defended and we faced a hail of 20mm tracer. Again we were all hit but nobody was shot down or badly damaged. In my case, it was a couple of holes in the tailplane.
This proved to be my last operation with 183 Squadron as next day I received a posting to the Fighter Leaders School at the Central Fighter Establishment at Tangmere on the south coast near Chichester.
Although I have not previously mentioned it, we were at this time on a direct line between the German 'Buzz-Bomb' sites and Antwerp, which the Germans were attacking constantly with both V1 and V2 weapons, since it was the main supply port for the Dutch campaign.
We were constantly seeing these 'Flying bombs' passing over the airfield and occasionally gave chase to them when returning from operations. We were not allowed however to chase them past the Western edge of the airfield since there was a 'Flying Forbidden' area starting just west of Gilze-Rijen where the American Army had set up a radar operated belt of AA guns which were busy shooting down these weapons. We were told that we entered this area at our own risk since the guns attacked ANY moving targets in that area.
A few of us, during a lull in flying when the weather was too bad, visited one of the gun sights. We were made welcome by the American gunners and given a demonstration of firing. It was noteworthy that the site was alongside a tree-lined road. All the trees were somewhat shorter than originally, since the guns had taken the tops off them!
I recall two particular 'Buzz-bomb' incidents. The first was when we were standing at a dispersal point on the airfield when we saw a one approaching at very low level with its motor misfiring intermittently. It flew past us about 50 metres away and 20 metres up and getting lower. We all stood watching it until all of us, at the same moment, realized that it was about to hit the ground. It was, after all, a large bomb not an aircraft! We all 'hit the deck' at the same moment, a couple of seconds before it exploded some half way across the airfield.
The other, less amusing, incident was when a buzz-bomb landed in the village of Gilze destroying several houses, killing eight people, and damaging the local tannery. At the time this happened, it was around noon I was standing with several others outside the building we were using as an Adjutant's office. We just caught a glimpse of the bomb as it passed a gap between the houses but did not have any time to react other than flinch as it exploded about 300 metres away. In both these cases the engines of the bombs were still operating when they struck so they were not targeted on Gilze but were malfunctions of the autopilot mechanisms.
(From the excerpts from a diary kept at the time and supplied to me by Mr van den Hout, I can fix the dates of these incidents as Sunday 28th January and Monday 26th February respectively - the latter being the day that I received my posting back to U.K. I now have a photograph of myself and Mr. van den Hout standing at the exact spot where I was at the time of the second incident.)
More soon ==TOW