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Fred James has vivid memories of the night of June 22, 1944.
It was the most action packed night of his life and now 66 years on, he still has little difficulty in recalling how he nursed his huge bomber back home with one of its engines out of action.
It was immediatelty after the opening of the second front. The Allied invasion of Europe was in its 16th day and F/O James found himself in the air in his beloved Lancaster bomber - I for Ink - far from the peace of his home village.
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Fred James, second from the right,
with five of the crew of I for Ink
part of the 101 Squadron.
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Fred had not been on many missions, but there he was at the controls of a massive four engined Lancaster - described by some as the noblest aircraft of them all. And this was no ordinary Lancaster I for Ink and the remaineder of the Lancs in the 101 Squadron were very special. "Secret" was the official word, and the equipment aboard gave them just that bit of edge over the Germans.
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There was a crew of eight aboard instead of the usual seven. The eighth man was the crewman with the box of tricks. Interception of enemy radio signals, jamming them and sending false messages had been a trick used by the British for some time. But until recently it had only been used on points on the mainland.
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AIRBORNE CIGARS
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Photo and text courtesy of Wikipedia
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101 Squadron Lancasters were equipped with a top secret radio jamming system codenamed "Airborne Cigar" (ABC) operated by German-speaking members known as "special operators" commonly abbreviated to "spec ops".
They sat in a curtained off area towards the rear of the aircraft and located and jammed German fighter controllers broadcasts, occasionally posing as controllers to spread disinformation. The aircraft fitted with the system were distinctive due to the two large vertical antennae rising from the middle of the fuselage.
Deliberately breaking the standing operating procedure of radio silence to conduct the jamming made the aircraft highly vulnerable to being tracked and attacked, which resulted in 101 Squadron having the highest casualty rate of any RAF squadron.
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But Ground Control Interception had its limitations. It was only effective as far as the French and Dutch coasts. Now it had been taken ine important step further. GCI had become ACI - Airbourne Control Interception.
No. 8 man on each of the Rolls Royce Merlin-engined planes was German-speaking, trained conning the enemy into believing untruths. But even his skill and that of his pilot and fellow crewmen could not bring I for Ink through unscathed that night.
Fred was an experienced pilot, but until he had joined 101 Squadron only a few weeks before he had been out of action from December, 1942 - badly injured when a Wellington bomber crashed in bad weather.
From his home, Fred recalled feeling that this was going to be "one of those nights". But he was not afraid. He did not think he knew fear on any of his 40 raids and he believed most airmen were the same. There just was not time to think about fear when the enemy was throwing everything in their direction.
The fear and the jitters came at other times. "I used to lie awake at night with visions of myself being enveloped in fire when the aircraft caught fire," he said.
With the Allied forces trying to gain ground against strong enemy oppostion on of Bomber Command's important tasks was to distrupt the German lines of communication.
The target for June 22 was a railway nerve-centre - the marshalling yards at Rhiems. Take-off time from Ludford Magna, between Market Rasen and Louth, was 8p.m..
Beyond Beachy Head darkness gave the planes welcome cover, but it was darkness the enemy penetrated very quickly.
The Luftwaffe was in the air. I for Ink had barely crossed the water before there was a burst of firing from the port side and a large ball of falling flame illuminated the night as a Lancaster fell victim to an enemy nightfighter. It was not the last Lancaster to go down in flames that night, but Fred's plane forged ahead, escaping as if by a miracle the dozens of brilliant searchlights which probed the sky.
I for Ink turned for its run into its target. Ten minutes to go before the bomb aimer was due to press the button which would release tons of bombs on the rail yards far below. Fred and his crew were alert for target markers being dropped from a master bomber. Timing and navigation were spot on, but the markers just did not appear.
The mission as far as I for Ink was concerned would be a failure, but on the turn for home markers went down astern. Fred took a quick and vital decision. He had to go round again and make another run in. "It took us ten, maybe twenty minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to run the gauntlet again", said Fred.
The the bombs were away and Fred turned for home - a run fraught with even more danger than the outward one. The second run meant they were at the tail end of the returning squadron or even completely alone in enemy airspace.
Then it came : the aircraft shuddered as if in collision, followed by a sharp vibration. Tracer shells smashed into the starboard forward quarter of the Lancaster and flame shot from one of the engines.
The attack had come from behind and below - a position favoured by German night-fighter pilots. But the attack had not gone unanswered. "I think I hit him" came a voice from the rear turret where a crewman was stationed with his twin guns.
Fred's reflexes reacted swiftly, following a frequently practiced drill. He throttled back, switched off, cut the petrol, feathered the engine and pressed the extinguisher button. Luckily for the crew of I for Ink, it worked. Out went the flame, but with speed cut by the loss of one engine the Lancaster became an even easier target.
Searchlights lit up the sky and one by one planes around them were picked off by enemy fighters. Many of them went down in balls of fire, some exploding as they went, and to make things worse for I for Ink, one of its fuel tanks was holed. A gauge showed zero fuel in one tank, possibly holed by a shell. On just three engines the pilot repeatedly took the Lancaster through violent dives and corscrews in an attempt to escape the limpet-like beams. Time after time it was recaptured and held, only to escape again as streams of tracer screamed by.
Fred's flight engineer was shouting for him to dive, but by now that was out of the question. They were battling for survival at less than 1,000 feet. They were down so low the searclight crews were unable to hold them in their sights and finally they broke away from the beams.
It was time for a "cuppa", and time for the Irish flight engineer to kiss the rag doll mascot. Was there enough fuel left for the haul back to Ludford Magna? Possibly not, so Fred headed for an emergency landing strip in Essex, before rejecting that thought in favour of sending out an emergency call.
The reaction was immediate. Light which not long before had been an enemy became a welcoming angel as a searchlight probed upwards and dipped forwards while further ahead three more coned skywards to pinpoint their have - RAF Thorney Island. But even at this late moment I for Ink was still in jeopardy.
Only one green light winked to indicate a landing wheel was down. What had happened to the other? To add to Fred's problems there was apparently damage to one of the planes's wing flaps. It seemed a perfect toich down, but Fred could not hold it straight.
A cannon shell had holed the starboard tyre and the plane swung in an arc before it came to rest - not on the runway, but behind the officer's mess.
Was there, after all, some point in Flight Engineer Paddy Orr kissing his good luck doll?
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