A Sample Feature From Aviation News

Lancaster Gunner

‘I got fed up with messing around with bombs, so I applied for aircrew.’ Colin Whiting was one of thousands of air gunners who fought a lonely war from the freezing position of a gun turret – in his case the rear position aboard that most famous of all long-range, night bombers, the Avro Lancaster. His story is much like many who fought in the skies during the Second World War, but his has a twist in the tail!

Above: A snowy East Kirkby in January 1945. While the ground crew prepare Lancaster
E-Easy for its next mission, the aircrew gather for an informal photograph. Back row, left to right: Sgt Bert Page (navigator), Plt Off Tom Edgcombe (co-pilot), Flg Off Peter Bennett (pilot) and Sgt ‘Taffy’ Dummett (engineer). In the front, Sgts Geoffrey Lake (gunner), Alan Hart (w/op) and Colin Whiting (rear gunner). (Photos, Colin Whiting, except where stated).

‘HEY SKIP, can I test-fire my guns?’ ‘Don’t you dare’, came the frosty reply, ‘we’ll have every Jerry flying about heading for us when they spot your tracer.’ Sgt Colin Whiting ruefully considered his situation. Was it really such a good move to give up his ground job as an armourer to find himself 12,000ft over Europe in his isolated eyrie of a tail turret, let alone being 60ft behind the Captain where ‘the action was’? He surveyed the blackness between the four .303 Browning machine-guns and was thankful that a heated flying suit was standard issue for rear gunners, particularly as the original glass panel had been removed to give clear vision, but made the location even colder than before.

Called up at 19, Colin Whiting applied for armament training and undertook a course on weapons to prepare him for a posting to a front-line base. Through 1942-43 he worked at RAF Coltishall as an armourer, working on the aircraft based there – Spitfires, Beaufighters and Typhoons among a number of different types, but somehow life lacked something, so the opportunity to fly appealed. Heavy losses in Bomber Command spurred the need for increasing numbers of replacement aircrew, and when a notice calling for volunteers to become gunners caught his attention, he applied. He was accepted and ordered to report to No 1 Air Gunners School at Pembrey, South Wales, for a three-month course, beginning in February 1944. There, he learnt the finer points of air-to-air gunnery, firing hundreds of rounds of .303in from machine guns mounted in the turrets of Avro Ansons at drogues towed by Martinets. Course completed, he came out above average ‘with an inclination to be overconfident’, according to the CO of 1 AGS.

Having cleared the first hurdle, Colin moved to No 29 OTU at Bitteswell in May 1944 where he became familiar with the Vickers Wellington B.III in preparation for greater things! Together with pilot Flg Off Peter Bennett, he packed his bags in August and moved north to No 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby. Situated within No 5 Group, this HCU had been formed in October 1942 and by summer 1944 had an establishment of 40 Short Stirlings. Although the crew’s ultimate destination was unknown, the ageing Stirling seemed an unlikely outcome, given that the Bomber Command main force was now mainly Lancasters, plus some Halifaxes.

A few days into the course on August 12, Colin gained some experience of ‘corkscrewing’, a tried and tested method of throwing off enemy fighters at night, in Stirling O-Orange. More flights occupied the month and in September he transferred to No 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston to prepare the crew for operational duties. Here, Colin completed 12 hr flying war-weary Lancaster Mk Is including R5842, W4358 and ED802, three of the 30 on strength.

Below: The ground crew pause during work on the outboard Rolls-Royce Merlin for a quick snap taken by the New Zealand wireless operator, Alan Hart.

‘For King and Country’

Eight months from his first training flight to become a gunner, Colin Whiting arrived at his operational squadron in October 1944. Part of No 5 Group, No 57 Sqn was based at East Kirkby and was one of the foremost bomber squadrons in the RAF. It had been formed in June 1916 and through the inter-war years had flown Hawker Harts before exchanging these for Bristol Blenheims and Vickers Wellingtons with which the crews contributed to Britain’s fight-back against Germany.  In September 1942, No 57 exchanged its Wellingtons for Lancasters and on October 17, provided ten as part of a force of 94 on the audacious low-level dusk raid to attack the Schneider armament works at Le Creusot.

Established on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds only a few miles inland from the east coast, East Kirkby had been built in 1942, and housed two Lancaster squadrons, 57 and 630, but its relative modernity could not change the flat bleakness of the site as autumn greeted the newcomers. Colin’s crew, headed by the skipper, pilot F/O Peter Bennett, with Australian co-pilot/bomb aimer Tom Edgcombe, navigator Sgt Bert Page, W/Operator Sgt Alan Hart from New Zealand, flight engineer ‘Taffy’ Dummett, and mid-upper gunner Sgt Geoffrey Lake, began a week of cross-country, familiarisation flights and fighter affiliation sorties with three Hurricanes based on the airfield. They also became used to East Kirkby’s code-name, Silksheen, a call-sign signifying ‘home’. Squadron CO at the time was Wg Cdr HY Humphreys DFC and he would be replaced at the beginning of 1945 by Wg Cdr John Tomes. At the end of the week, the crew received the order to fly their first operational mission on the night of October 19.

Above: An Avro Lancaster at East Kirkby carrying the DX code for 57 Sqn and the fin marking of a vertical black stripe on red identifying the squadron.

Below: What all well-dressed RAF rear gunners wore – Sgt Colin Whiting prepares for a night in the ‘office’. (Photos, Harry Holmes/Colin Whiting)

Assembly at briefing revealed that the target was the city of Nuremburg, traditional home of Nazi rallies, 500 miles away. Fear mixed with anticipation as to what the night would hold accompanied each of them as they made their way by truck out to the dispersal where Lancaster E-Easy stood ready with the ground-crew making last-minute checks. An evening take-off and an eight hour night flight across Europe was the crew’s baptism of fire. In the belly of the aircraft was 9,000lb of high-explosive bombs, but the target was obscured by cloud and far from being the hoped-for total destruction of the ancient city centre, the RAF raid hit the southern outskirts, killing 300 people and destroying only houses and some light industrial buildings. From his rear turret, Colin’s view was not as spectacular as he was expecting, but his nervous scanning of the inky blackness was rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of a Junkers Ju 88 night-fighter passing in front of the moon as it hunted for a target; fortunately, they were not its victim. Of the 263 Lancasters which formed the attack, only two were lost, a good night for the RAF, but a disappointing outcome for Bomber Command planners.
The armed fortress of Walcheren was the target on the 23rd, only this time it was a daylight raid involving 112 Lancasters from 5 Grp. Take-off was at 15.15hr for the comparatively short flight to the Flushing gun batteries which were the actual target. However, the weather again intervened and the bombing was scattered. Losses were light, four aircraft failing to return. Düsseldorf was next, ten days later, when Bomber Command attacked this city for what would be the last time. Of the 992 aircraft despatched, 561 were Lancasters accompanied by 400 Halifaxes and 31 marker Mosquitoes. Beneath the clouds of smoke and darting flames, over 5,000 houses were destroyed together with the premises of a number of steel-making firms. The German flak was heavy and from his ‘Tail-end Charlie’ position, an ‘Me.109 Fighter’ was spotted, but again it passed them by. The squadron returned to base and most had landed by 22.00hr.

As the Germans fell back towards their borders in front of the advancing Allied armies, so Bomber Command was called upon to support the troops, a task which was unpopular with Air Chief Marshal Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris who considered his aircraft and crews were being taken away from the more important strategic area bombing of Germany’s main cities. However, on November 21st, 5 Group Lancasters attacked the Mittelland Canal near Gravenhorst, aimed at interrupting barge traffic being used to transport vital goods for Germany’s war effort. The raid proved a success, for as the banks were destroyed so the water level dropped, flooding surrounding areas and stranding 59 large barges in one section alone.

The U-boat pens at Trondheim, Norway, on the 22nd proved to be the longest mission to date for the crew, but heavy cloud obscuring the target resulted in the Master Bomber calling off the attack. Nearly 11 hours flying with nothing to show for it apart from two Lancasters and a Mosquito lost, saw tired crews landing at Lossiemouth in Scotland for fuel on the way home. Accommodation was found on the base and they flew back the following day.

On the night of November 26, Munich was the target for 270 Lancasters of No 5 Group. Another 11hr flight in A-Able, but this time good visibility aided the accuracy and much damage was done to railway yards and housing areas. No opposing fighters were seen, an indication that fuel was becoming an increasing problem for the Luftwaffe’s night-fighter force, but flak was heavy and sustained resulting in damage to one engine and a return home on three. The Silksheen call-sign could not have sounded better!

Below: Lancaster B.I RA530 of 57 Sqn at East Kirkby. The codes were red, outlined in yellow conforming with other 5 Group squadrons; it too has a black stripe on a red fin. This aircraft was lost when it crashed at nearby Stockney shortly after taking off on March 20, 1945. (Photo via Harry Holmes)

For the rest of this feature please see the May 2008 issue.