RAF Bomber Command at War, 1939–1945

Introduction

The outbreak of war found RAF Bomber Command in the midst of a period of rebuilding, retraining and expansion. Hopes of the command being able to mount a heavy and sustained attack upon German industrial targets were made impossible by several key factors.

The first was the agreement of the British government to attack only military targets and to avoid civilian casualties. This, in practice, meant that for the early months of the war the command was restricted to the bombing of naval targets and making leaflet raids, codenamed ‘Nickels’, which dropped propaganda material over German towns and cities. The second restriction was the equipment with which Bomber Command was expected to mount an offensive. The command possessed bombers of varying roles and capabilities ranging from light day bombers to what were described as heavy night bombers. Some of the types in service in 1939 were hopelessly obsolescent and were no match for modern fighter aircraft. Amongst the light day bombers were the Fairey Battle and the Bristol Blenheim.

The Battle was a single engine monoplane design dating back to the mid-1930s. The first Battles had entered service with 63 Squadron in the Spring of 1937. Initial reactions amongst aircrew seem to have been positive, but the truth was that the Battle, with its single Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, was hopelessly underpowered. The Battle could carry a bomb load of 1,000lbs with a crew of three. Although the Merlin was a very fine engine it was not capable of providing adequate power to carry such a combat load and the type had a maximum speed of just 257 mph and a range of 1,000 miles. Furthermore, the Battle was under-armed for its task as a day bomber, carrying only a single defensive Vickers K machine gun and one, largely useless, Browning machine gun mounted in the starboard wing.

The Bristol Blenheim was believed to be a more promising aircraft. Designed as a twin-engine medium bomber, the Blenheim went into service with 114 Squadron at around the same time as the Battle. With a maximum speed of 285 mph the Blenheim could outpace the biplane fighters of the early 1930s but, once more, was outclassed by the modern monoplane fighters. The Blenheim, too, had a crew of three (pilot, navigator/bomb aimer and wireless operator/air gunner) and better defensive armament than the Battle, boasting a machine gun in the port wing, one or two machine guns in a rear-facing, under-nose blister and a power-operated dorsal turret containing two more Browning machine guns. The Blenheim could carry a bombload of 1,000lbs and had sufficient range to reach Germany. Unfortunately, the Blenheim proved to be a type which was not very robust and was plagued by engine problems.

Amongst what were termed heavy bombers (though they would be medium bombers by later standards) was the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley which had been delivered to 10 Squadron in March 1937. The original Mk I Whitleys were quickly replaced by Mk IIIs and, in 1939, by Mk Vs. Powered by two Merlin engines, the Whitley V could manage a top speed of 230 mph at 16,400 feet, had an operational ceiling of 26,000 feet and a range of 1,500 miles. Defensive armament consisted of a Vickers K machine gun in the nose turret and four Browning machine guns in the tail turret. Offensively, the Whitley could carry a bombload of 7,000lbs. Carrying a crew of five, the Whitley, with its peculiar nose-down flying attitude and broad, square, wing earned the nickname of the ‘flying barn-door’ but was largely appreciated by those who flew it. The Whitley equipped the squadrons of 4 Group and the crews were the only Bomber Command airmen to be trained in night operations.

Another type classed as a heavy bomber was the Vickers Wellington, a twin-engine monoplane featuring an unusual geodetic fuselage construction which gave it considerable structural strength and a significant durability. The first Wellington was delivered to 99 Squadron in October 1938 and by August 1939 the Wellington equipped eight squadrons in East Anglia. With a top speed of 235 mph, a range of 1,540 miles and a bomb load of 4,500lbs, the Wellington had a crew of five or six and was quickly popular with aircrew. It was nicknamed the ‘Wimpy’ (after a character in the Popeye cartoons). The Wellington boasted between six and eight Browning machine guns as defensive armament, with two each in nose and tail turrets and optional single guns in two waist or beam positions.

The final heavy bomber was the Handley Page Hampden which was first delivered operationally to 49 Squadron in September 1938. The Air Ministry had been much impressed by the radical design and initial performance of the twin-engine, tapered fuselage bomber and the type featured several positive design features, including a maximum speed of 254 mph, possessed good manoeuvrability and could carry a bombload of 4,000lbs with a range of 1,200 miles. There were, however, several disadvantages to the type. Foremost amongst these failings was the cramped nature of the interior of the bomber, it was quickly nicknamed the ‘flying suitcase’ or, from its narrow fuselage, the ‘flying panhandle’, which resulted in poor inter-crew communications and increased levels of fatigue amongst the crew of four. Secondly, the Hampden had inadequate defensive armament consisting of just four hand-operated machine guns.

Despite the shortcomings of some of the types equipping Bomber Command at the outbreak of war the general public were often given reassurances that the aircraft were at the cutting edge of technology. Press reports consistently talked up the abilities of the aircraft (without, of course revealing facts and figures which might be of use to an enemy). For example, the Illustrated War News of 22 November 1939 had a feature on the Hampden in which the bomber was described as being ‘a formidable night-bomber with a very high speed’ as well as good defensive armament.

Bomber Command’s initial strategy was for both self-defending formations of bombers operating in daylight, along with more limited numbers of night bombers, mainly drawn from amongst the Whitley- equipped squadrons of 4 Group based in Yorkshire. In the event of a war with Germany, however, the command would immediately be denuded of a large number of light bomber squadrons which would be sent to France as part of the Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF). This planned reduction in operational strength took place two days before the declaration of war when No.1 Group, consisting of ten squadrons of Battles, made its way to bases in France along with two squadrons of Blenheims from another group. These squadrons immediately came under the command of the AASF and did not operate under the auspices of Bomber Command. A further reduction in operational strength took place when the five remaining squadrons equipped with Battles were removed from front-line status and became training and reserve units.

CHAPTER 1

1939 – Feeling the Way

The war opened with the restrictions previously discussed limiting the scope of Bomber Command to wage war. Within an hour of the declaration of war a Bristol Blenheim of 139 Squadron took off from RAF Wyton to make a reconnaissance of German port facilities across the North Sea in an effort to identify German naval units. Upon hearing the report of the Blenheim crew, two flights of Handley Page Hampdens and Vickers Wellingtons took off to seek the naval units, but in the failing light no contact was made and the bombers returned to base.

The restrictions placed upon Bomber Command did, however, allow the force to withdraw nine of its squadrons to create a more suitable reserve. This further reduction, however, meant that Bomber Command entered the war with a front-line force of just 280 aircraft and crews. These aircraft were divided between twenty-three operational squadrons which were further divided between four groups. Bomber Command was run from its HQ which was at Richings Park, Langley, Buckinghamshire. The Commander-in-Chief was Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt. Amongst the early headaches facing Ludlow-Hewitt was the fact that Bomber Command HQ was due to relocate to High Wycombe in March 1940.

On the very first night of the war Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys of 51 and 58 Squadrons were dispatched to drop propaganda leaflets over several German towns and cities. Three of the Whitleys from 51 Squadron were tasked with targeting Hamburg while a further seven aircraft from 58 Squadron pressed on for targets including Bremen and the Ruhr area. None of the crews experienced any opposition from the enemy, but three 58 Squadron aircraft experienced engine trouble as they were returning and were forced to make emergency landings in France. The first of the Whitleys to have taken off (K8973) ran out of fuel and the pilot, Squadron Leader J.J.A. Sutton, put his bomber down in an emergency landing at Fécamp while the Whitley of Flight Sergeant Ford (K8990) was put down at St Quentin. Aboard the third Whitley (K8969, GE-G) Flying Officer (F/O) J.A. O’Neill could not locate an airstrip upon which to make an emergency landing and so was forced to put his Whitley down in a cabbage field near Dormans on the eastern bank of the River Marne around 5.54am. Flying Officer O’Neill’s aircraft was written off, but the crew were uninjured despite several cabbages entering the aircraft with some force.²

Following these initial moves the second day of the war saw another similar Blenheim reconnaissance which identified several German fleet units at Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven. Bomber Command was well aware that the targets, which included the battleship Admiral Scheer and the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were likely to be very well defended with both anti-aircraft screens and fighter cover. Despite these fears, the opportunity to destroy or damage such important naval units at the very start of the war was too tempting a target to refuse. Once again, a force of bombers was sent to attack the enemy ships. From RAF Wattisham and Wyton a force of fifteen Blenheims was sent to the latter target while fourteen Wellingtons from RAF Honington and Mildenhall were tasked with attacking the ships at Brunsbüttel and from RAF Scampton twelve Hampdens were also assigned the mission. Weather conditions were very poor and the bomber formations were forced to operate independently of each other.

At the airfields there had been some confusion as the ground crews had to replace armour-piercing bombs with general purpose bombs as the low cloud cover would mean that the far more effective (against naval targets) armour-piercing bombs could not be used effectively. Nos. 107 and 110 Squadrons assigned five crews apiece to the operation and at briefing they were told that the enemy vessels were defended only by machine guns and by their own heavy armaments which, it was hoped, could not be depressed sufficiently to engage low flying targets. Furthermore, and in defiance of the reliance upon tight formation, the crews were ordered to attack from several directions to confuse the defences.

The twelve Hampdens and five Blenheims from 139 Squadron failed to find their targets due to poor weather. The Blenheims, which had been dispatched to attack targets at Wilhelmshaven, fared terribly with no fewer than five being brought down by heavy anti-aircraft fire. Despite several hits being claimed, damage was slight with many of the bombs which did score hits failing to explode. The five aircraft of 110 Squadron were first to attack. The five Blenheims split, with three making attack runs while two others made diversionary attacks from other directions. As the second Blenheim approached to attack a very heavy barrage opened up from the ships and from shore batteries and the third Blenheim was forced to abort its attack and pull up into the safety of the cloud cover. Seconds later one of the diversionary aircraft, Blenheim IV (N6199) was shot down in flames by the flak from the Admiral Hipper. The most serious damage of the raid occurred when N6199 crashed on to the cruiser Emden, killing nine of her crew along with the four British airmen aboard the Blenheim. Somewhat ironically, the pilot of N6199 was Flying Officer Henry Lovell Emden (a married man from St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex). Along with Flying Officer Emden were his observer Sergeant Stanley George McKenna Otty, his wireless operator/air gunner Sergeant Raymond Charles Grossey (24), and Aircraftman Ralph Evans (an under-training wireless operator). The bodies of all but Sergeant Grossey, who was on attachment from 42 Squadron, were recovered and buried at Sage War Cemetery, Grossenkneten, Germany.

Around the same time the second flight of Blenheims, from 107 Squadron, arrived on the scene and attempted to attack in the teeth of the now fully-alerted defences. The first aircraft, piloted by Flight Lieutenant William Frank Barton (26), was hit by flak from the Admiral Hipper and exploded. The second Blenheim was also hit and crashed with both engines aflame. The third was also hit and crashed near the shore, while the fourth was bracketed by heavy flak and crashed, cartwheeling across the sea. The fifth Blenheim somehow survived the ferocious barrage and managed to straddle the Admiral Scheer with its bombs but, once again, the bomb which hit failed to explode. The cost of this failure was paid in the loss of five aircraft and the deaths of fourteen airmen, with a further two becoming the first Bomber Command men to become prisoners of war (PoW). It is unclear which aircraft became the first from Bomber Command to be shot down, but it would appear to have been either N6199 of 110 Squadron or N6184, piloted by Flying Officer John Frederick Ross (23) of 107 Squadron.

For the men of 107 Squadron at RAF Wattisham the return of only one of its aircraft was a bitter blow and surely hammered home that this war was, for the men of Bomber Command, going to be an extremely bloody one. Amongst the losses was Flying Officer Herbert Brian Lightoller (21), the son of Commander Charles Herbert Lightoller, RNR, of Twickenham, Middlesex, and Sergeant Albert Stanley Prince (27) of Chester. Sergeant Prince’s aircraft (N6240) crashed in the target area but his observer and wireless operator/air gunner survived to be taken prisoner; they were Sergeant G.F. Booth and Aircraftsman L.J. Slattery.

The Wellingtons of 9 Squadron took off slightly later than the other formations and did locate their targets, but bombing results were poor and the bombers encountered anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighters and a running battle developed during which two of the Wellingtons were lost and all eleven crew killed. These first two Wellingtons to be lost were coded L4268 and L4275 (WS-H). They were piloted respectively by Flight Sergeant Ian Edward Maitland Morley (30) and Flight Sergeant Albion John Turner. Flight Sergeant Morley was a reservist who had, presumably, been called up as hostilities approached and was a married man from Weston-super-Mare. One of the Wellingtons, it is impossible to say which, was claimed as having been shot down by a Messerschmidt Bf 109 and Feldwebel Alfred Held became the first Luftwaffe airman to shoot down an RAF aircraft during the war.

Of the eleven casualties only three bodies were recovered for burial with the remainder being commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.³ Four of the Wellington crews reported bombing targets, but little is known of their attacks and navigational errors led to one Wellington dropping bombs on the Danish town of Esbjerg, where two people were killed. Another formation of eight Wellingtons from 149 Squadron had worse fortune with only one claiming to have bombed in the assigned target area while the remainder jettisoned their bombs into the sea after failing to locate any targets. The only damage done by the Wellingtons was to a merchant ship which was hit by bombs jettisoned by an aircraft from 9 Squadron.

In total, seven aircraft had been lost by Bomber Command along with the deaths of twenty-five airmen and two more being held PoW for the rest of the war. Damage to the enemy targets was minimal and it had become clear to many of the airmen who had taken part that the bombs which they were using were poor, with many failing to explode, and that their aircraft were extremely vulnerable in daylight to both flak and fighters. As the shocked survivors made their way homeward, they were painfully aware that their attack had failed largely through the failure of the pre-war bombs with which they had been equipped and that lives and aircraft had been thrown away for little result. At least three bombs had hit the Admiral Scheer, but all failed to explode.

In a speech to the House of Commons on 7 September Lord Stanhope paid fulsome tribute to the RAF and particularly to the efforts of Bomber Command which had recently made the news. Lord Stanhope tried to deflect possible criticism of the raid by telling the House that at least two hits had been recorded on a pocket battleship, while the attack had been made in extremely poor weather conditions which had limited effectiveness. Lord Stanhope also explained how many of the airmen involved had joined and been trained since the expansion of the RAF began in the mid-1930s and that a substantial number were volunteers from the Dominions.

Training was continuing apace at this time and the hectic schedule led to further losses. The day after the attack on Brunsbuttel and Wilhelmshaven Bomber Command suffered its first fatal training accident of the war when Pilot Officer Anthony Richard Playfair (26) of 7 Squadron lost control of his Hampden I (L4161) on a training flight. The bomber crashed at Cockwood Farm, Cantley, Yorkshire. Pilot Officer Playfair is listed as being British but his parents lived at Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, Canada. He was reportedly from a theatrical family, his father was an actor and a cousin of Sir Nigel Playfair, the actor and manager of the Lyric Theatre.

Lord Stanhope was also at pains to explain the other ongoing efforts of Bomber Command. He told them how in the last week the command had carried out extensive operations over Germany on three successive nights and that, during the course of these operations, some 10,000,000 leaflets had been dropped over a wide section of German territory, especially the north and west of the country, including the vital Ruhr region. MPs were told that despite the best efforts of the German defences no enemy fighters had intercepted the British bombers and all had returned safely.

In this first week of war the press, following the extremely limited information which they were given, was filled with praise for the efforts of Bomber Command and readers were told of ‘a most daring and effective’ raid being made on German ports and naval units. The leaflet raids also attracted praise in the national and local press with typical accounts informing readers that ‘on numerous occasions flights of the Bomber Command have penetrated far into Germany, dropping leaflets instead of bombs … These leaflet raids, from which our machines have returned unscathed though not unchallenged, must have a telling effect on people who have repeatedly been assured that their defences are impenetrable.’⁴

These night-time leaflet raids, or ‘Nickels’, continued when conditions allowed and provided valuable night-flying and navigational experience under wartime conditions for the Whitley crews of 4 Group. Between the second night of the war and Christmas Eve the Whitleys flew a total of 113 sorties on twenty-two nights. They carried leaflets on all of these and, on clearer nights, supplemented this duty with reconnaissance of German territory. These sorties were largely successful with 105 from 113 sorties being completed satisfactorily and losses were low. The first of the four Whitleys which were lost over Germany during this period occurred in the early hours of 9 September when Whitley III (K8950, DY-M) of 102 Squadron failed to return to its base at Driffield. The Whitley had been piloted by Squadron Leader S.S. Murray (who, it appears, was also a qualified interpreter) and he and his four crewmates were taken prisoner by the Germans after the aircraft came down near Kassel.⁵ Another aircraft from 102 Squadron was lost on this night when Whitley III (K8985, DY-J) also failed to return. It transpired that a navigational error had caused the Whitley to stray into neutral Belgian airspace and the bomber was forced to land at Nivelles aerodrome where the crew were interned. Flying Officer William Curwin Gavine Cogman and his crew were quickly returned to England, but their aircraft was reported destroyed during the blitzkrieg. A third Whitley was also destroyed on this night when an aircraft of 77 Squadron collided with a French aircraft while taxiing at Buc and was damaged beyond repair.

Aside from the ‘Nickel’ operations described above, Bomber Command spent most of the remainder of September training and flying some reconnaissance operations. Losses were limited although several aircraft were lost in training or routine accidents. Two 51 Squadron airmen were killed when their Whitley crashed while they were ferrying it to York from Linton-on-Ouse and the two crew of a Battle were lost when their aircraft crashed into a hillside near Cheltenham during a rainstorm.

From late September until the end of November the Command flew a number of photographic reconnaissance flights over Germany. These operations were largely undertaken by the Blenheim squadrons and a heavy price was paid as the vulnerable Blenheim was no match for the fighters which were often encountered. Over the course of thirty-seven operations on eleven days the Blenheims suffered five aircraft shot down and three other losses.

On 28 September, for example, two Blenheims of 107 Squadron failed to return to their base at Wattisham after being sent on reconnaissance missions. Flying Officer Donald Arthur Strachan and his crew were lost without trace while on a mission to Osnabruck aboard Blenheim IV (N6206).⁶ The second aircraft to be lost was (N6212) piloted by the squadron’s commanding officer, Wing Commander Ivan McLeod Cameron (31), on a reconnaissance of the Munster area. The Blenheim was shot down near Kiel. Wing Commander Cameron was an Australian, from Bealiba, Victoria, flying with the RAF. He had joined the RAF in 1928 with a short-service commission and had been promoted to the rank of squadron leader in 1937 before being promoted once more and