The Dam Busters

  “Let’s get him over and see where he’s hit,” he shouted. Together in the cramped space they edged him over on to his back and Whittaker crawled up and gently turned the head over. He saw the great hole in the side of the head and felt the stickiness in the same moment. He said, “Oh, my God!” and felt he was going to be sick, looked up at Foxlee, but Foxlee was looking down. He had lifted his hand off Hay’s chest and the blood showed darkly on his fingers. “He’s got it in the chest,” he said, and Whittaker said, “Yes, the poor devil’s had it.”

  He crawled back up into the cockpit to his seat beside Martin, leaned over and said, “Bob’s dead.” Martin looked at him a moment, then looked ahead again and gave a little nod.

  Whittaker noticed Kenny Stott, the new navigator, standing by Martin’s seat. “Where’re we going?” Whittaker said, and Martin gave him a wry little grin. “Somewhere friendly, I hope,” he said. “Just been talking it over with Kenny. Got any ideas?”

  “Whatever’s nearest. How ‘bout Gib? Or Sicily? Or North Africa?”

  Scott said, “What about Sardinia? Or Corsica? Aren’t they closer?”

  “Is Corsica ours?” Martin asked, and Whittaker cut in, not sensing then the unconscious humour of it: “Yeah. I saw we got Corsica in the News of the World last Sunday.”

  “O.K. Fair enough. Kenny, give me a course for North Corsica.”

  Stott went back to his charts and Whittaker said he would try and assess the damage. Martin found “Popsie” had just enough, power to claim a little more height, very slowly, so he edged the nose up a little, and soggily, not far from stalling speed, the Lancaster started climbing laboriously. In the darkness she was full of noise, the high-pitched screaming of the two good engines battering at the ears in waves because they would not synchronise properly.

  He felt his right foot in the flying boot was wet and remembered he had been hit in the calf. He had enough sense not to strip his leg to investigate because the trouser leg and high flying boot would help staunch the blood. The trouble was, if he lost too much blood, he would pass out and they would all die because no one else could fly “Popsie”, particularly the way she was. Against the ragged thrust of the engines the trim would not hold her either straight or level and he was working all the time to keep her flying. With one hand he pulled his tie loose and wrapped it round the calf over the spot where the shrapnel had hit him, knotting it tightly so that it would press the trouser leg against the wound with the eifect of half bandage, half tourniquet.

  Whittaker came back. “Not too good,” he said. “The floor’s all smothered in grease. It’s from the hydraulics, so you can count them out. Air pressure’s gone too.”

  “I know,” Martin said. “I can’t get the bomb doors up.”

  “The CO2 bottle seems all right,” Whittaker said, “so you’ll probably be able to get your undercart and flaps down but you won’t have any brakes to pull up with.”

  “Oh!”

  “I’ve kept the best bit to the last,” Whittaker said morbidly. “The bomb release fuses have gone for a Burton and we’ve still got the bombs on board.”

  “I thought so. That’s why she’s flying like a brick.”

  Stott came up with a course for Corsica, and Martin swung on to the new heading. They were about 2,000 feet now.

  “We’ll have to get rid of the bombs,” Stott said. “The fusing circuit’s bashed in too, so they must still be fused. We can’t unfuse ‘em. If you can get high enough I might be able to prod the grips through the floor with a ruler and trip them.”

  Martin was trying to coax more height out of the stricken plane. He had a 4,000-pounder and several 1,000-pounders in the bomb bays, and the minimum safety height for dropping a 4,000-pounder was 4,000 feet.

  Curtis was tapping out a “Mayday” (S.O.S.) and excitedly reported, after a while, he had made contact with Ajaccio in Corsica. An advanced R.A.F. fighter unit had just moved in there and the airfield and flarepath were serviceable.

  Foxlee came up from the nose and said in a puzzled voice, “Bob’s still warm. His body’s quite warm. I think he might be alive.” Whittaker went down to investigate and came back up again, a little excited. “He is warm,” he said. “He must be alive still.” Martin told Curtis to warn Ajaccio to have a doctor meet them. Curtis made contact again and came back to the cockpit. “They say they haven’t got a doctor with any facilities to look after a bad head wound. They say if the kite’ll hold together we ought to make for Cagliari. That’s in South Sardinia. There’s an American bomber base at Elmas Field there, and they’ve got everything, but it’s another hundred and fifty miles.”

  Martin said feelingly, “What a party ! Give me a new course, Kenny.” The aircraft was still full of numbing noise; a gale was howling through the shell-hole in the nose and the two good engines still screamed in high pitch. Whittaker was watching his gauges nervously, waiting for the engines to crack under the strain.

  They were about 2,700 feet when the stars blotted out and they were in heavy rain, followed soon after by hail. Water was sweeping in through the nose, and then darkness swallowed them as they ran into heavy cloud. It was ice cloud. Martin saw supercooled water droplets filming over the leading edge of the wings, forming the dangerous glazed ice that altered the aerodynamic shape and robbed the wings of lift. He had no spare speed to give him lift, and then the propeller of one of the two good engines slipped right back into coarse pitch and could not be budged out of it. The revs, dropped down to about 1,800; the engine was still giving power but the propeller could not use it all. Martin felt the controls getting soggy; he held on to her, correcting the waffling with great coarse movements, trying to coax her to stay up because Stott was shoving a ruler down through the floor into the bomb bay against the bomb grips. He got a 1,000-pounder away and then the aircraft stalled. Martin couldn’t hold her; the nose fell, she squashed down and the starboard wing-tip dropped and they were diving and turning, on the verge of a spin. He had hard left rudder on and the rudder caught her, the spin checked and she was diving, picking up speed. He eased her out but they were down to 1,800 feet. That was clear of the cloud, and soon the thin ice cracked and flicked off the wings. He started climbing again. They still needed 4,000 feet to drop the 4,000-pounder.

  It took a long time. At 2,500 feet they were in the ice-cloud again, but Stott prodded two more 1,000-pounders free before the ice started to make “Popsie” soggy again, and this time Martin eased her down out of the cloud before she stalled. He started climbing again and found they were running clear of the worst of the cloud. It was still there, but higher and thinner, and only the barest film of ice seemed to be shining on the wings. “Popsie” slowly gained height, passed the 3,000 mark, but then progress was terribly slow and when at last they reached 3,200 she could not drag herself any higher. She was still at the climbing angle but moving no higher, like an old man trying to climb a fence and not being able to pull himself up.

  “She’s only squashing along,” Martin said. “Can’t make the safety height, Kenny. What’re our chances if we drop the big one here?”

  “Better than trying to land with the thing,” Stott said. “Let’s give it a go.”

  He went back to the winch slits in the floor and probed. Martin felt the aircraft jump weakly in the same moment that Stott yelled, “She’s gone!” Martin tried to turn away but knew he could not get far enough for safety. The 4,000-pounder took fourteen seconds to fall and it felt like fourteen minutes. The sea below and a little to one side opened up like a crimson rose and almost in the same moment the shock wave hit the aircraft. She jumped like a startled horse and a wing flicked, but Martin caught her smartly with rudder and they were all right.

  Curtis came up a couple of minutes later. “Elmas Field says the best way in is over the mountains in the middle of Sardinia.”

  “How high are they?” Martin asked. Stott said they were 8,000 feet: and Martin showed his teeth sardonically.

  They got a landfall on Sardin
ia about 3.30 a.m. and turned to follow the coast all the way round the south tip, and on e.t.a. Martin let down through light cloud and they came out about 1,000 feet and saw the flarepath.

  “Thank God for that,” he breathed, and a minute later changed his mind. Elmas was on a narrow spit of land. It had one runway only, a dangerously short one for an emergency landing. Martin steered low over it to see what the overshoot areas were like because they were probably going to need them, and felt a chill as he saw that some genius of an airfield designer had had the fabulous idea of building the runway across the spit of land, so that the runway started very abruptly at the beach and stopped just as abruptly and dismayingly quickly at the cliff, where the sea started again. No overshoot.

  He still had two 1,000-lb. bombs that Stott could not reach and they were almost certainly fused, so a belly landing was out of the question. With the emergency CO2 bottle the undercarriage might go down, or it might not; the tyres might be all right or they might have been punctured, and if they were the aircraft stood a good chance of ground-looping so that the under-cart would collapse on to the fused bombs. If his first approach was not perfect the aircraft, without brakes, would certainly run over the far cliff. There was not enough power to go round for a second approach.

  Whittaker yanked down the handle of the CO2 bottle, and the undercart swung down and seemed to lock. In the gloom they could not see the tyres. There was just enough pressure left to get some flap down. Martin headed in on a long, low approach, dragging in from miles back, while the crew snugged down at emergency stations. Coming up to the runway he was dangerously low, deliberately, and in the last moment he cut all engines and pulled up the nose to clear the dunes. The speed fell and at about 85 m.p.h. she squashed on the runway about 30 yards from the end, not even bouncing. The undercart held, and as she rumbled on Martin started fish-tailing his rudders. The far cliff was running towards them and he pushed on full port rudder. “Popsie” swung and jolted over the grass verge, slowing more appreciably She started to slew, tyres skidding just short of a ground-loop, and came to a halt 50 yards from the cliff-top.

  An ambulance and fire truck had been chasing them along the runway, and a young doctor swung up into the fuselage and they directed him up to the nose. He was out a minute later and said, “I’m sorry, but your buddy’s gone. He was dead as soon as it happened.”

  He went over to Whittaker, lying on the grass, and cut his trouser legs away, exposing the legs messy with blood and torn flesh, and where there was no blood they had a distinct blue tinge. He worked for quarter of an hour on them, dabbing, cleaning and bandaging, while Martin gingerly pulled up his own trouser leg to inspect the damage to himself. The doctor finished bandaging Whittaker and as they loaded him into the ambulance told him, “That’s a close call, boy. You nearly lost a leg.” He turned to Martin. “Now let’s have a look at you,” but Martin said as off-handedly as he could, “Don’t bother about me, Doc. I’m quite all right.”

  When he had uncovered his leg he had found one tiny spot of blood on a tiny puncture where a tiny piece of flak, at its last gasp, had just managed to break the skin. It had stung at the time, and imagination had done the rest. The wetness he had felt round his foot was not blood gushing into his flying boot but sweat !

  About the same time the rest of the squadron was landing at home (except for Suggitt, who never made it back). Cheshire was lucky. The “erks” found 150 holes in his aircraft.

  * * *

  They buried Bob Hay in Sardinia. Whittaker stayed in hospital while the rest made rough repairs, flew “Popsie” on to Blida, where R.A.F. “erks” did a thorough overhaul, and then flew back to Woodhall Spa, where Cheshire met them with the news that Cochrane had vetoed any more operations for them. “It’s no use arguing, Mick,” Cheshire said. “He means it. He says you’ll only kill yourself if he lets you go on.” Martin did argue, but Cochrane posted him to 100 Group Headquarters, where he immediately wangled himself on to a Mosquito night-fighter squadron doing “intruder” work over Germany.

  I have a letter which Cheshire wrote to a friend some four years after this, talking about the old days. He said: “The backbone of the squadron was Martin, Munro, McCarthy and Shannon, and of these by far the greatest was Martin. He was not a man to worry about administration then (though I think he is now), but as an operational pilot I consider him greater than Gibson, and indeed the greatest that the Air Force ever produced. I have seen him do things that I, for one, would never have looked at.”

  It is not a bad tribute from a man who has himself often been labelled one of the world’s greatest bomber pilots.

  CHAPTER XIII THE MOSQUITO PLAN

  COCHRANE was not yet convinced that low level marking was practicable, but he told Cheshire he would lay on more lightly defended targets so the experiment could go on. He wanted the system perfected by the time Wallis’s “tallboy” was ready; the first one was nearly ready for testing, and after that they would be some time building up stocks. Meantime the squadron needed some re-forming. With Martin and Suggitt gone there were no flight commanders.

  It was Cochrane’s idea to split 617 into three flights for easier organisation and training; a happy idea, because it gave Cheshire a chance to promote Shannon, McCarthy and Munro, now the only three of the original squadron left, and all battle-tested, reliable and ideal in temperament and training for 617’s unique role.

  The squadron had several new pilots now, including another American, Nicky Knilans, a droll youngster from Madison, Wisconsin, with precisely the quality of nervelessness that Cheshire wanted in 617. He had joined the Canadian Air Force before America came into the war and had just recently been transferred. Now a “lootenant” in the U.S. Air Force, he wanted to stay and finish his tour in the R.A.F.

  In the next few weeks 617 was busy training new crews and settling down with the new flight commanders. Cheshire and “Talking Bomb” kept flying around at 5,000 feet trying medium-level marking, but could find no way of lining-up an indistinct target. Cochrane told them to keep trying.

  The first couple of prototype “tallboys” were finished, and at Ashley Walk range, in the New Forest, the complicated process of testing them started. They were sinister objects, 21 feet long, shining blue-black steel, slim and perfectly streamlined, weighing 12,030 Ib. A Lancaster dropped one on test from 20,000 feet, and it sliced through the air like a bullet till it was falling faster than a bomb had ever fallen before. Long before it hit it passed the speed of sound, and as the compressed waves of the sonic barrier piled up round it the bomb vibrated in flight so that it almost toppled and was deflected slightly from its even course, just enough to interfere with the fanatical accuracy that Wallis wanted.

  He overcame it with a brilliant idea, offsetting the tail fins so that, as the next bomb dropped and gathered speed, the offset fins began to revolve it. Faster and faster it whirled till by the time it reached the speed of sound it was spinning like a high-speed top, and the gyroscopic action held it perfectly steady as it plunged through the sonic barrier.

  At Ashley Walk they dropped one with dummy filling from 20,000 feet and it sank 90 feet into the earth, almost enough for the maximum camouflet that Wallis had planned from 40,000 feet, and certainly enough to make a respectable earthquake.

  Came the day of dropping the first “live” one, and they buried a movie camera in the earth to film it. There was some discussion as to where the camera should go, and perhaps it was logical (if a little cynical) that they decided to bury it right in the centre of the white circle that was the target, on the assumption that it was the safest spot.

  The result was a lesson for anyone who doubted Wallis’s genius. Peering over the edge of the sandbagged dug-out half a mile away, they saw the slim shape streak down and hit the centre of the target, right on the camera ! The dug-out trembled, and where the camera had been was a smoking, stinking; crater eighty feet deep and a hundred feet across.

  Cochrane called Cheshire to Group H.Q. a
nd told him the earthquake bomb had passed its tests with honours and they were now building up stocks for “a big operation” in the spring and summer.

  Cheshire had been pondering some new marking ideas. It seemed to him that Lancasters were too big and clumsy for marking; too big a target for the flak and too clumsy for manoeuvring low over rough ground on pin-point targets. He went to Cochrane and suggested that he try marking in a Mosquito, and Cochrane liked the idea. The twin-engined Mosquito was much faster as well as smaller and “nippier”. Provided Mosquitoes could be used, Cochrane for the first time began to feel more comfortable about the idea of sending crews out to mark at low level.

  A new idea was already growing in Cochrane’s mind : to have 617 mark for the whole of his Group, about twelve squadrons, instead of the Pathfinders. He had already sounded out Harris on his new idea and Harris had reacted favourably. Cochrane reasoned that if they could show that low marking in Mosquitoes was reasonably safe, Harris would probably give 5 Group its chance. He said to Cheshire :

  “Well, I’ll see if I can get you a couple of Mosquitoes, and then I’d like you to try them first on easy targets. If it seems all right, you could have a go at a tough one.”

  It was not easy for Cochrane to get hold of Mosquitoes for 617. They were in short supply and great demand. While he was working on this, 617 visited the explosives factory at Bergerac, on the banks of the Dordogne.

  For once, in the light of flares, Cheshire’s bomb aimer, Astbury, got a good sight at 5,000 feet and put his markers on the factory. Munro did the same. Shannon and McCarthy branded the explosives dump near-by, and Bunny Clayton put a 12,000-pounder in the middle of the dump. For fifteen seconds it looked as though the sun was coming up underneath; five minutes later the factory as well as the dump was a sea of flame. No bomb fell outside the works.