Bombing Berlin

[PPRuNeUser0139]

In 1943, the RAF contacted the BBC with a dramatic offer - they were willing to send a two-man radio crew on a bombing raid over Berlin. The BBC chose Wynford Vaughan-Thomas for the mission. He accepted, knowing he might never return.

So on the night of 3rd September 1943, Vaughan-Thomas recorded for the BBC live from a Lancaster Bomber during a bombing raid over Berlin.

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's experiences as a wartime reporter were remarkable; he was at Belsen and at the Normandy landings, reporting as it happened. The recording over Berlin shows his remarkable courage, literally under fire, and his description of the bombing and the views from the plane are rich indeed.

Vaughan-Thomas went on to become one of post-war Britain's most prominent media-intellectuals, a regular commentator and journalist, but those hours aboard the plane clearly remained a defining time in his life. Forty years later, interviewed by Parkinson, he called it "the most terrifying eight hours of my life. Berlin burning was like watching somebody throwing jewellery on black velvet - winking rubies, sparkling diamonds all coming up at you."

Stephen Evans puts Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's recordings in context. He looks at the experience on the ground in Berlin that night, reflects on the place of the broadcast in journalistic history, and dips into a lifetime of reflections from Vaughan-Thomas on a night which changed his life for ever.

BBC broadcast (https://tinyurl.com/y7psj75o)

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/530x348/044855_0704d20e66a3b7189ee8317272f4ced6d9c6c47a.jpg

[rog747]

thanks for the link - very interesting

[nonsense]

Did anyone else notice that the volume control at the BBC link goes up to eleven?

[PPRuNeUser0139]

I wish the BBC could have refrained from overlaying modern day voice-overs on Wynford Vaughan Thomas' historic broadcast.

[rolling20]

I think this was mentioned on here a few years ago. Although I am not sure about the ‘live’ part of it. Richard Dimbleby had already done a similar thing, recording his impressions ( that were broadcast the following day) on raid on Berlin in Jan 1943. His pilot being none other than Guy Gibson.

[India Four Two]

Did anyone else notice that the volume control at the BBC link goes up to eleven?

An ironic nod to This is Spinal Tap:

This Is Spinal Tap Quotes | 115 quotes by | (http://www.great-quotes.com/quotes/movie/This+Is+Spinal+Tap)

[Captivep]

As a boy of 11 (1971), I was living in MQs in Bielefeld; my father was based at Catterick Barracks there. Our next door neighbour was a splendid caricature of an RAF pilot (handlebar moustache and all) who was also based there. He lent me a recording of this broadcast (can't recall if they were LPs or 78s) which I listened to time and time again.

Perhaps time to listen to it again...

[ZeBedie]

Is the recording available without the modern commentary?

[KelvinD]

I just listened to the BBC item and many thanks for the link.
Two things struck me;
1. The incredible bravery of that crew and the sang froid of the crew. The only time they displayed any sort of excitement was when the tail gunner shot down the night fighter. Oh, and the request for a song from the engineer as they approached the UK coast!
2. Max Hastings can be an annoying get! First he states, quite boldly, that the British Army was doing nothing between 1940 and 1943. Really? Then he goes on to state that there was perhaps something unfair" about the de-housing policy as the British public had not been told about it. By coincidence, I watched a documentary on the Battle of Britain on TV this afternoon. In this, Churchill was shown making speeches during the blitz on London, Liverpool, Coventry etc and in those speeches he declared quite unequivocally that the Germans will receive an equal measure and then some more for their relentless attacks on UK infrastructure and the population. I wonder if he was among the anti Bomber Command idiots who claimed the big raid on Dresden was wrong and was aimed at helpless civilians. It wasn't. I took the trouble a few years ago to go along to Kew and saw the plans, target info and the pre-raid briefings and all the areas targeted contained military targets.
I think the recording mentioned that the pilot of F for Freddie had already flown something like 82 sorties. Does anyone know if he survived the war?

[Rockie_Rapier]

Excellent link. Thank you.

[friendlypelican 2]

The pilot was Fg Off Ken Letford who did survive the war and remained in the RAF afterwards. He had a further moment in the limelight when he was the captain of the Sunderland that landed alongside HMS Amethyst to rescue the injured during the 'Yangtze Incident'.
Of the other crew of F for Freddie on the trip to Berlin that night in 1943, only the mid-upper gunner failed to survive the war. On the 40th anniversary in 1983, I had the privilege of hosting them all at 207Sqn for their first meeting since the war, along with Wynford V-T and Reg Pidsley who was the BBC sound engineer on that flight. A wonderful bunch of gentlemen!

[b1lanc]

This is a great broadcast. A snippet also on this link

http://www.49squadron.co.uk/personnel_index/detail/Letford_K


If you ever get the chance to watch the "Night Bombers" it is equally impressive and in color. I first saw that 30 years ago on PBS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFyYZquh9hM

[KelvinD]

friendlypelican: Many thanks for the info. What an incredibly brave man Fg Off Letford was! I was going to ask why he remained a Fg Off for so long but now I have found a memoir describing his court martial as Sqn Leader. He apparently taxied a Valiant into a ladder and snapped off a pitot tube. He was exonerated.
BBC - WW2 People's War - (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/user/08/u1703708.shtml)

[blind pew]

An order addressed to Harris surfaced a couple of years ago ordering the bombing of Dresden and three other cities signed by Churchill and the allied commander which had been kept secret. Harris had refused to carry out the raids without one.
The bomber boys were well and truly shafted by politicians.. just like the army in northern Ireland.

[pr00ne]

blind pew,

Oh please! Stop trying to paint Harris as the 'poor little oppressed victim!" The man was a total advocate of area bombing of ALL german cities and a known opposer of what he called 'panacea targets" that diverted his force away from what he saw was their primary task of destruction of the built up areas of German cities and towns. This included opposition to bombing of the oil industry, ball bearings, transport targets in the build up to D-Day and the Dams Raid, he even opposed the formation of the Pathfinders.
A month prior to the raid Harris was asked for his opinion on the idea of a raid to support Russian advance and hamper the German withdrawal and he replied with an idea for a combined simultaneous raid on Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden. He was a known advocate for heavy raids on German cities still relatively undamaged and Dresden fell right into that category.

Churchill certainly DID press for a Dresden raid and was most definitely a keen advocate for it, and then, hugely hypocritically, equally a severe critic when the actual impact of the raid on the city became clear, which does nothing for his reputation, but then again this was the man who said of Hamburg, .."drench them in poison gas." But it was not his idea, the idea came from the Joint Intelligence Committee and was reinforced by pleas from Stalin.

Anyone concerned about the raid needs to look at it in the context of the time, and the military situation, it was NOT a war crime, just an extremely effective area bombing raid on a largely undefended city. Those defending it as a "precision raid" need only look at the target maps, all the undamaged built up areas but not the industry in the city.

[Heathrow Harry]

Harris, like Montgomery, had been effective in the worst days of the war ans built up by the politicians and the press to God-like status

The politicians couldn't get rid of these popular icons later during the war when their weaknesses became clear but they could (and did) get revenge later (think of Dowding as well)

Similarly it took a long time for the USA to get rid of McArthur and the USSR Zhukov.................

[pr00ne]

Harris was also constantly at loggerheads with the Chief of the Air Staff, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, the Director of Bomber Operations and others in the RAF command chain over him. Any other commander who acted as he did would have been sacked for disobeying direct orders.

[Heathrow Harry]

Harris was also constantly at loggerheads with the Chief of the Air Staff, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, the Director of Bomber Operations and others in the RAF command chain over him. Any other commander who acted as he did would have been sacked for disobeying direct orders.

that's the danger of the Press - you finish up with a "man on a White Horse"

[rolling20]

I think the thing one has to remember, is that aside of night strategic bombing,what else could Bomber Command do? The doctrine that Bomber Command was following was one that was left over from WW1 and was then re affirmed in the 30s. Its idea of precision daylight bombing was over by December 39. The whole force was geared to a night offensive. Aside of calls from the navy and army looking to take aircraft for their own means, Battle of the Atlantic and Western Desert etc, the only thing it could do was bomb Germany. A whole industry employing tens of thousands of people was geared to bomber production, that could not easily be stopped without disrupting the war economy. Until Harris was appointed, BC was going no where.

[air pig]

blind pew,

Oh please! Stop trying to paint Harris as the 'poor little oppressed victim!" The man was a total advocate of area bombing of ALL german cities and a known opposer of what he called 'panacea targets" that diverted his force away from what he saw was their primary task of destruction of the built up areas of German cities and towns. This included opposition to bombing of the oil industry, ball bearings, transport targets in the build up to D-Day and the Dams Raid, he even opposed the formation of the Pathfinders.
A month prior to the raid Harris was asked for his opinion on the idea of a raid to support Russian advance and hamper the German withdrawal and he replied with an idea for a combined simultaneous raid on Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden. He was a known advocate for heavy raids on German cities still relatively undamaged and Dresden fell right into that category.

Churchill certainly DID press for a Dresden raid and was most definitely a keen advocate for it, and then, hugely hypocritically, equally a severe critic when the actual impact of the raid on the city became clear, which does nothing for his reputation, but then again this was the man who said of Hamburg, .."drench them in poison gas." But it was not his idea, the idea came from the Joint Intelligence Committee and was reinforced by pleas from Stalin.

Anyone concerned about the raid needs to look at it in the context of the time, and the military situation, it was NOT a war crime, just an extremely effective area bombing raid on a largely undefended city. Those defending it as a "precision raid" need only look at the target maps, all the undamaged built up areas but not the industry in the city.Dresden was also one of the three main rail routes to the Eastern Front, the other two being Hamburg and Berlin.

[FlightlessParrot]

I think the thing one has to remember, is that aside of night strategic bombing,what else could Bomber Command do? The doctrine that Bomber Command was following was one that was left over from WW1 and was then re affirmed in the 30s. Its idea of precision daylight bombing was over by December 39. The whole force was geared to a night offensive. Aside of calls from the navy and army looking to take aircraft for their own means, Battle of the Atlantic and Western Desert etc, the only thing it could do was bomb Germany. A whole industry employing tens of thousands of people was geared to bomber production, that could not easily be stopped without disrupting the war economy. Until Harris was appointed, BC was going no where.
I think the case is that there was no alternative to area bombing in 1941 and 1942, after the Butt Report had shown how inaccurate night bombing was; but that at some point it became possible to engage in more precisely targeted actions, but Harris resisted all suggestions and directions, possibly motivated in part by commitment to his idea of how the war ought to be won. Area bombing of civilians was a policy adopted before Harris became head of Bomber Command (and a policy adopted with some misgivings), but his resistance to directions to change that policy was so strong, insubordinate indeed, that it is a surprise he wasn't sacked, on purely military grounds.

[pr00ne]

Don't forget that in Harris's mind there was no reason for a second front as he was convinced that strategic bombing of German cities would render any invasion entirely unnecessary. He was a dogma driven obsessive, and that dogma was the destruction of German CITIES and TOWNS, not industry, not the military, but the steady destruction of cities and de-housing of the population, by death, injury or depriving them of homes.

He said of the about to start Battle of Berlin, "if the Americans will come in with me then we will wreck Berlin from end to end. It might cost me 100 bombers, it will cost Germany the war."

He was wrong, the Americans DID come in, it cost him over 500 bombers, and they failed to wreck Berlin from end to end and it did not cost Germany the war. Harris lost the Battle of Berlin.

[rolling20]

He said of the about to start Battle of Berlin, "if the Americans will come in with me then we will wreck Berlin from end to end. It might cost me 100 bombers, it will cost Germany the war."

He was wrong, the Americans DID come in, it cost him over 500 bombers, and they failed to wreck Berlin from end to end and it did not cost Germany the war. Harris lost the Battle of Berlin.
IIRC he actually said 'it will cost us between 400-500 aircraft'. The Americans didn't come in on it, after Schweinfurt/ Regensburg, they were in no position to. Berlin was a hard target to hit. The winter of 43/44 was particularly harsh, with thick high cloud. Also, you couldn't feint to Berlin, it was fairly obvious where the bombers were going.

[Heathrow Harry]

I think the thing one has to remember, is that aside of night strategic bombing,what else could Bomber Command do? The doctrine that Bomber Command was following was one that was left over from WW1 and was then re affirmed in the 30s. Its idea of precision daylight bombing was over by December 39. The whole force was geared to a night offensive. Aside of calls from the navy and army looking to take aircraft for their own means, Battle of the Atlantic and Western Desert etc, the only thing it could do was bomb Germany. A whole industry employing tens of thousands of people was geared to bomber production, that could not easily be stopped without disrupting the war economy. Until Harris was appointed, BC was going no where.
absolutely correct. Churchill started to de- emphasise Bomber Command as soon as we got ashore in Normandy

[rolling20]

Thank you HH. If only you had marked my dissertation!

[FlightlessParrot]

I think the thing one has to remember, is that aside of night strategic bombing,what else could Bomber Command do? The doctrine that Bomber Command was following was one that was left over from WW1 and was then re affirmed in the 30s. Its idea of precision daylight bombing was over by December 39. The whole force was geared to a night offensive. Aside of calls from the navy and army looking to take aircraft for their own means, Battle of the Atlantic and Western Desert etc, the only thing it could do was bomb Germany. A whole industry employing tens of thousands of people was geared to bomber production, that could not easily be stopped without disrupting the war economy. Until Harris was appointed, BC was going no where.
What some people claim is that Harris was so concerned with the interests of Bomber Command that he was obstructive of transferring effort to the Battle of the Atlantic and to tactical air, where they might have been more effective.

[rolling20]

I think prevention was better than cure, ie bombing U boat yards where the boats were being built. The Augsburg raid of April 42 was the longest low level daylight raid of the war. The aim was the destruction of the Man diesel works,producing U boat engines. Failure of many bombs to detonate did not bring about the required result and a 58% loss rate was unacceptable. U boats continued to be launched. This still showed that precision bombing was a dangerous task for Bomber Command and may or may not have fixed Harris’s view for the rest of the war, Chastise excepted. As for diverting resources to the Battle of the Atlantic, it wasn’t until the arrival of very long range Liberators in mid 43 that the battle turned in the allies favour. These aircraft plugged the Atlantic gap, something Bomber Command aircraft could not do. Also by the late summer of 43, a number of squadrons and aircrew returned from the Western Desert to join Bomber Command, their tactical job done.

[FlightlessParrot]

As for diverting resources to the Battle of the Atlantic, it wasn’t until the arrival of very long range Liberators in mid 43 that the battle turned in the allies favour. These aircraft plugged the Atlantic gap, something Bomber Command aircraft could not do.
I'm no expert, but the Lincoln/Shackelton development suggests that something might have been done with very long range Lancasters, given the will.

[Dont Hang Up]

Meanwhile back at the original topic.

After listening to the broadcast I was curious about the recording technology used. Magnetic recording was still in its infancy in 1943 and cutting directly to wax disc was still the most usual method. Not, as you may expect, the most convenient technology for use in WWII bomber on a mission. I came across this interesting bit in an article about Vaughan Thomas's sound engineer on the mission, Reg Pidsley.

...it was on one of the '1000 bomber raids' over Germany with Wynford Vaughan Thomas as War Correspondent that he had first to put the uncut disc inside his flying jacket to warm it up before recording WVT's report on his portable recorder. The temperature inside the bombers flying at their operational height was very low rendering the disc's coating too brittle to cut.

"In the middle of the recording a massive bomb was released from the aircraft in which they were working and the aircraft rose, as mentioned above, 'like a lift' with the result that the stylus dug a deep hole into the disc! ... silver paint, which looked like aluminium paint (or perhaps it was a special compound developed for the industry), was [used for] repair which Reg had effected to allow the piece to be broadcast.

This is the website if anyone is interested...
Reporting War 1944/5 - Introduction (http://www.orbem.co.uk/repwar/wr_intro.htm)

[rolling20]

I'm no expert, but the Lincoln/Shackelton development suggests that something might have been done with very long range Lancasters, given the will.
There are plenty of reasons why it was never done. I guess the easiest is that Bomber Command were not going to be diverted from their aim of bombing Germany. Any aircraft that needed modification and testing would have diverted Avros away from the building of Lancasters and BC would have been vociferous in their opposition. The Lincoln came about from a specification for a bomber for the war against Japan.

[megan]

It was planned to use the Lancaster in the Pacific. Following courtesy of William Green's "Famous Bombers of WWII"With the final defeat of Germany, the Lancaster was prepared for a new task, the assault on Japan in the Pacific theatre. Special modifications were required to render the Lancaster suitable for Far East operations, the modified aircraft being designated Lancaster- I (F.E.), and distinguishable externally by a new finish comprising white upper surfaces and black undersides. Some Lancaster VIIs were also detailed for “Tiger Force”, as the R.A.F.’s strategic bomber force in the Pacific was to be known, but in the event, Japan surrendered before this force joined operations.

One of the problems of using Lancasters in the Far East was that of sufficient range to enable the aircraft to be ferried out from this country and operated in the area subsequently, One early solution aimed at increasing the range of the Lancaster was the provision of a 1,200 Imp. gal. “ saddle” tank along the top of the fuselage, aft of the cockpit. Two aircraft (SW244 and HK541) were converted by A.V.Roe to take this tank, but their take-off performances proved to be so poor when the tank was fully loaded, and handling characteristics left so much to be desired that alternative methods of obtaining the required range were investigated, including in-flight ref uelling. The latter solution was eventually adopted, and it was proposed to operate substantial numbers of Lancasters from Burmese bases, refuelling them by converted tanker aircraft enroute to targets in the Japanese homeland. A great deal of the in-flight refuelling equipment had been manufactured, and some Lancasters had been converted for trailing-line-type refuelling when the Japanese war ended and further development was abandoned.https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/1363x831/img021_97e20f4e1a238e5e59d40d0f01f0929cd0580b0d.jpg

[FlightlessParrot]

There are plenty of reasons why it was never done. I guess the easiest is that Bomber Command were not going to be diverted from their aim of bombing Germany.

That is exactly what some people saw, and see, as the problem with Harris: he was entirely committed to having Bomber Command bomb Germany, whilst the rest of the Allied forces were trying to win the war as quickly and economically as possible, which turned out not to be the way the theorists of strategic bombing believed.

[rolling20]

I don’t think the theorists ever envisaged the effective German night fighter force.

[Alpine Flyer]

blind pew,
Anyone concerned about the raid needs to look at it in the context of the time, and the military situation, it was NOT a war crime, just an extremely effective area bombing raid on a largely undefended city. Those defending it as a "precision raid" need only look at the target maps, all the undamaged built up areas but not the industry in the city.

They were not a war crime because Allied actions were not considered war crimes. Area bombing of civilians in Germany was as effective damaging German morale as the Blitz was in bombing Londoners into submission (or incidentally, as Brexit will be in improving life in the UK).

This is in no way meant to belittle the RAFs contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany and the guts and dedication those missions required. Over 70 years later it is not too early, however, to discern between individual crews' performance (valour, etc.) and the justifiability of individual raids.

What is most troubling and disrespectful of the legacy and achievements of those who fought Nazi Germany, however, is the renewed rise of xenophobia as a political instrument.

[FlightlessParrot]

I don’t think the theorists ever envisaged the effective German night fighter force.

It seems pretty clear that the theorists over-estimated the effect of strategic bombing, based on extrapolation from WW 1 experience and some wishful thinking, based in part on a laudable desire to avoid another Western Front. Baldwin was right, the bomber always did get through, but it didn't have as much effect as was expected, so that instead of a Knock-Out Blow, there was a war of attrition, in which the quality of air defences (and the frequency of accidents) became crucial.

People didn't know this in 1939. Harris didn't start the area bombing campaign, but he did persist in it, with a hostility towards alternative strategies that was remarkably fierce, and suggests that he was very concerned indeed with the independent role of Bomber Command. He saw it as a question of what Bomber Command could do, not what the Allied forces as a whole could do. He was always promising total destruction of German fighting power with just a bit more effort, a bit more priority given to Bomber Command. The criticism of Harris is that he persisted in a strategy that was proving not to be as successful as anticipated, that he did so in an insubordinate manner, and caused diversion of effort from activities like ASW and tactical air power, which would contribute more directly to success and which were, coincidentally, more in line with conventional notions of the ethics of warfare.

[Mr Mac]

My late father who was in Bomber Command, and indeed was shot down over Germany in 1943 commented to me on the difficulties of finding your target over blacked out Europe, and indeed my Godfather (shot down early 1944 a Pathfinder Navigator) commented to me during the same conversation, that one of the reasons they were able to bomb Berlin was because the Germans built the city so big in the first place ! Both said never compare modern flying (this was a circa 1990 conversation) with crawling around the night skies of Germany on a dark winters night with a lot of dedicated people trying to kill,you because you were going to drop bombs on their friends and family. Indeed they both said perhaps in that regard the Night Fighter crews and Flak had the clearest conscience of any of the Nazi armed forces in that respect.
Regards
Mr Mac

[pax britanica]

Oh its about world war 2. i thought it was the headlines in mail on Sunday as Boris Johnsons latesty idea on leaving the EU.

Oddly enough though what would happen if the Eu took a US Civil War approach to the issue and said actually little UK we are much bigger than you, much greater population so we are not going to let you leave but take you over?
i suppose we have reasonable armed forces but then so do France and Germany and all the other smaller countries have reasonably modern forces . More to the point Russia and America would be neutral or on the other side this time and the Commonwealth ( nee Empire wouldn't give a monkeys )
We have nukes but so do the French and theirs don't need permission from the Yanks to use them.
We could be very hungry PDQ and its still pretty cold in march so no heating or electricity might be an issue for us
We don't have the last line of defence in the form of the Warmington on Sea Home Guard platoon anymore
We only have about 8 Spitfires and even fewer Hurricanes.
We are more like the bad guys this time

[Kerosene Kraut]

The even more dangerous daytime raids did more harm to the nazi industry railway lines and capabilities. Nighttime raids had to be unprecise so hitting housing areas and creating area fires was the main effect to be gained. The german fighter defense was pretty poor, the flak was the real danger to the bomber streams.
When in Berlin visit the British war cemetery at Heerstraße. Pretty sad to see all those graves of 19 year olds even when they had bombed my hometown - but for a valid reason.

[Heathrow Harry]

Oh its about world war 2. i thought it was the headlines in mail on Sunday as Boris Johnsons latesty idea on leaving the EU.

Oddly enough though what would happen if the Eu took a US Civil War approach to the issue and said actually little UK we are much bigger than you, much greater population so we are not going to let you leave but take you over?
i suppose we have reasonable armed forces but then so do France and Germany and all the other smaller countries have reasonably modern forces . More to the point Russia and America would be neutral or on the other side this time and the Commonwealth ( nee Empire wouldn't give a monkeys )
We have nukes but so do the French and theirs don't need permission from the Yanks to use them.
We could be very hungry PDQ and its still pretty cold in march so no heating or electricity might be an issue for us
We don't have the last line of defence in the form of the Warmington on Sea Home Guard platoon anymore
We only have about 8 Spitfires and even fewer Hurricanes.
We are more like the bad guys this time

I like the idea for a quiet Sunday

My main worry is that I'm pretty sure we don't have an R E Lee or a T J Jackson on our side.........