Peter Horstead -Operation Parliament

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About the Author

Peter Horstead spent his childhood in Lincolnshire, ‘Bomber County’, surrounded by RAF airfields. He spent eleven years

in the armed services himself, and later took up flying. As amember of the RAFA Concert Band, he had the honour ofentertaining and meeting, on many occasions, members of

Bomber Command.


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Dedication

This story is dedicated to the 55,573 incredibly brave young

men who sacrificed their lives whilst serving with RAF BomberCommand between 1939 and 1945.


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O

P E R T I O N

P R L I M E N T


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Copyright © Peter Horstead (2015)

The right of Peter Horstead to be identified as author of this workhas been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of

the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, orotherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this

publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claimsfor damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British

Library.

ISBN 978 1 78455 299 2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978 1 78455 300 5 (Hardback)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2015)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.25 Canada Square

Canary WharfLondon

E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain


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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to my friend, Jon Glauert, for his editorial skills

in correcting my appalling abuse of the English language andthe rules of punctuation. I would also like to thank him for his

enthusiastic encouragement and help when producing the

presentable draft. David Evans of Mark generously allowed me

to study his comprehensive library of material on Lancaster

Bombers and Bomber Command. I thank Peter Higman for his

considerable help on the production of the first draft of the

manuscript. My grateful thanks go to the RAF Museum

Hendon, Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre and ‘Lady

Jane’ at East Kirkby, Norman Groom and his Pitstone Museum

and Flyingzone Publications, who all provided invaluable

information and explanation. Finally, to the gentleman who

farmed the old RAF Kelstern airfield in Lincolnshire in the

1950s. As a nine-year-old boy I heard him relating a story of aghost Lancaster, hence, inspiring this book many years later.


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FOREWORD

Tribute to aircrews of Bomber Command by

Arthur (Bomber) Harris

‘There are no words that can do justice to the air-crew who

fought under my command. There is no parallel a period ofdanger, which at times was so great that scarcely one man inthree could expect to survive his tour of thirty operations; this

is what a casualty rate of over five per cent on each of thesethirty operations would have meant, and during the whole of1942, the casualty rate was 4.1 per cent. Of those who survived

their first tour of operations, between six and seven thousandundertook a second, and many a third tour. It was, moreover, a

clear and highly conscious courage, by which the risk was takenwith calm forethought, for the air-crew were highly skilledmen, much above the average in education, who had to

understand every aspect and detail of their task. It was,furthermore, the courage of the small hours, of men virtuallyalone, for at his battle station the airman is virtually alone. It

was courage of men with long-drawn apprehensions of daily‘going over the top’. They were without exception volunteers,

for no man was trained for air-crew with the RAF who did notvolunteer for this. Such devotion must never be forgotten. It isunforgettable by anyone whose contacts gave them knowledge

and understanding of what these young men experienced andfaced.’

Air Chief Marshal, Sir A.T. Harris K.C.B., O.B.E.,A.F.C., Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Bomber

Command, Royal Air Force 1942-1945.


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GLOSSARY of RAF TERMINOLOGY

and SLANG

AAck-ack Anti-aircraft gunfire.Angels Height, i.e. Angels Ten = 10,000 feet.

AOC Air Officer Commanding. (of a group.)AFM Air Force Medal. Awarded to NCOs for one

outstanding action (immediate) or moreusually for a sustained effort in battle.

ASR Air Sea Rescue.

ATA Air Transport Auxiliary. A civilianOrganisation run by the Air Ministry todeliver new aircraft to the RAF from the

factories. Many women were pilots for them.

B

Bought it Killed.Bowser Petrol tanker.

Bus Driver Bomber pilot.CCaterpillar Club An informal association of people who have

successfully used a parachute to bail out of a

disabled aircraft. Once, you are awarded asilver caterpillar lapel badge twice, and you

receive a gold badge from the parachutemanufacturer.

Chaff Slang name for ‘Window’, anti-radar device.Camp An RAF station.Chop Killed.Cookie Barrel shaped 4,000-pound bomb.

Chiefy Ground Crew Flight Sergeant.Crate Aeroplane.Crabbing Flying slightly sideways.

Cans Pints of beer.Corkscrew Evasive manoeuvres when attacked by a night

fighter, sharp diving turn to port/starboardfollowed by a sharp climbing turn tostarboard/port.


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CO Commanding Officer.Coned Being caught in the beam of many

searchlights (a cone).

Computor Wartime spelling for the first computers. Ding Bat High speed. ‘Going like a ding bat.’

Duff Gen Bad information.Dispersal pan A frying pan shaped concrete pad

where bombers were parked.

DFC Distinguished Flying Cross. Awarded toOfficers for one outstanding action(immediate) or more usually for a sustained

effort in battle.DSO Distinguished Service Order. Awarded to

Officers primarily for leadership anddedication to duty as well as acts of bravery.

DFM Distinguished Flying Medal. Awarded to

NCOs as DFC above.

E

Elsan Chemical toilet on board the aircraft.

ENSA Entertainment National Service Association.A civilian theatre company that entertained

the troops.Erk Ground crew member.ETA Estimated Time of Arrival.

F

FFI Free From Infection, medical inspection for

VD, etc.GGen Information.Gone for a Burton Missing/dead airman or crew.

Group As in 1 Group. The administrative HQ for anumber of squadrons in a geographical area,

headed up by the AOC, an Air Vice Marshall.Groupie Group Captain. CO of an RAF camp.

Green House Cockpit cover of a Lancaster.HHeat Wagon Fire Engine.Happy Valley The Ruhr Valley industrial area in Germany.


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Harbour Master Station Commanding Officer.H2S An airborne radar bombing aid, displayed on

a small screen in the navigator’s position,

giving a rough radar picture of the groundover which the aircraft was flying.

HCU Heavy Conversion Unit. Here experiencedtwin-engine pilots and crews trained to flyfour engined bombers

I/C, i/c Intercom. Radio communication system on board aircraft to allow crew to talk to eachother.

ID Identity, i.e. Identity Card.IFF Identification, Friend or Foe, was a radar set

designed to receive impulses from Britishground radar sets, and to reply automaticallywith a coded pulse on the same frequency and

thus protect British aircraft from Britishdefences. Crews believed that if the ‘J’ switchwere activated IFF would disrupt or turn off

enemy searchlights. [It didn’t!] IP Initial Point. The physical point that is the

start of the final bombing run.J

K

Kite Aeroplane.KIA Killed In Action.

LLadybird WAAF Officer.Ludworth Local market town.LMF Lack of Moral Fibre. A euphemism for

cowardice, now known as Post TraumaticStress.

M

Meat Wagon Ambulance.

Mae West Life jacket/preserver named after the film star because it ‘stuck out in front.’


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Main Spar A structural element of an aircraft’s wing,which runs across the aircraft, forming anobstacle to clear passage along the fuselage.

Milk Run Easy operation.MIA Missing In Action.

Monica Radar fitted in rear of bomber to providesome early warning of night fighters.

MT Section Motor Transport Section.

N NCO Non Commissioned Officer, i.e. Corporal,

Sergeant, Flight Sergeant, Warrant Officer.

OOp/Ops Operation/s.

Officer Ranks RAF Pilot Officer, Flying Officer, FlightLieutenant, Squadron Leader, WingCommander, Group Captain, Air

Commodore, Air Vice Marshal, ViceMarshal, Air Chief Marshal, Marshalof the Royal Air Force.

O.C. / Officer Commanding.OTU Operational Training Unit. A follow on from

HCU.P

Pancake Crash.

Plumduff 4,000 impact fused HC bomb.Piece of cake Easy,

PFF Path Finder Force. A small group of aircraft,which after finding the target, put downflares to guide the following bombers.

Plumber Flight Engineer.

Port Left side of aircraft.

Q

QFE Airfield Atmospheric Pressure; i.e. altimetersetting at ground level, Elkington = 390 feet.

RRDF Radio Direction Finding (radar)R/T Radio Telephone.RP Rendezvous point.


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SSnowdrop RAF Policeman.Sortie One aircraft making one trip to target and

back.Starboard Right side of aircraft.

Scarecrows Bombers exploding in flight, usually becauseof the bombs on board being hit by enemyfire. Crews were told, for moral purposes, that

they were enemy ack-ack devices designed tolook like aeroplanes blowing up.

T

Tail Spar Structural element of the tail section.Tour 30 sorties made a tour. Airmen were then

‘rested’ for 6 months.Toc H Lamp Toc H (Talbot House) was a charitable

Christian society for officers and men, who

could go to a Toc H house for a break fromthe normal ‘entertainments’ they wereattracted to! Its emblem was an old-fashioned

candle lamp. ‘Toc’ was the army signal codefor the letter T. Hence Toc H.

Tracer Tracer ammunition contains a pyrotechnicattached to the base of the round. It is ignited

by the burning powder enabling the path of

the projectile to be ‘traced’. Normally 1 in 5 bullets are tracer.

Two i/c, 2 i/c Second in Command.TIs Target Indicators/Turn indicators. A bomb- like capsule that busts open at a given height

releasing coloured burning candle flares. As

they drop they ignite at different times,illuminating the target area for several

minutes.U

Undercarriage Landing gear. VVergeltungswaffen Vengeance weapons. Verey Gun/Pistol Fires coloured flares.


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VHF Very High Frequency.VC Victoria Cross. Highest award for bravery.VIC/Vic Flight of three aircraft in an inverted V.

WWAAF, Waaf Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

Went in Crashed.Wimpy A term used for Wellington Bombers. They

were nicknamed ‘Wimpy’ after ‘J.

Wellington Wimpy’ the Popeye Cartooncharacter that was popular in the cinemas atthat time, and the name stuck.

Weaving an uneven course for home. Drunk.Wizard First class, very good.

Window Aluminium Strips of black-coated paperdropped by British aircraft to confuse Germanground radar.

WingCo Wing Commander.Whizzed Drunk.


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OPERATION PARLIAMENT

Prologue

Jack Richards’s family had farmed the land around the villageof Elkington for four generations, and he had kept the traditionalive and followed his father’s footsteps on to the farm.

In the nineteen forties, the Air Ministry requisitioned four-hundred acres of the high land around their farm and two of the

neighbouring farms, as it was one of the many suitable sites inthe county ideal for conversion to an airfield for the modern

Royal Air Force. The elevated plateau of flat land on top of theLincolnshire Wolds had served before, in the Great War, as anemergency landing field for Zeppelin hunting bi-planes, thefighter-aircraft of the day of the Royal Flying Corps. However,

1942 saw it brought back into service. The Air Ministry createdmore than forty-five bomber stations in Lincolnshire alone in

those days of uncertainty and apprehension, and Lincolnshireearned the sobriquet, ‘Bomber County’.

For all Jack Richard’s childhood he had been fascinated,

and loved with a passion, any and everything about aircraft. Hedrew pictures of them, flew the balsa wood gliders he designedand constructed himself and read every book about aircraft he

could lay his hands on. His passion for flying was the result ofhis father’s exciting stories of the ‘string bags’ of the Great War

which flew from the temporary airfield here at Elkington. He

would thrill him with stories of heroic young fighter pilotsattacking the giant blimps and bringing their wounded

aeroplanes back to the field, and with stories of crash landingsand explosions. He dreamed of becoming a pilot. However,when he was a small inquisitive boy, the iron-shod hoof of one


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of the enormous Shire horses, used on the farm, terminatedthose childhood dreams by crushing his leg, and the disabilityit left him with later disqualified him from service in the RAF.

If things had been different, he knew he would have settled fornothing less than pilot’s wings. However, it delighted him,

when in 1942, his father told him the high land was going torevert to being an airfield once again. Even at twenty-one yearsof age, his passion for aircraft still burned.

It was in March of that year that Jack heard theunmistakable sound of four-engine Lancaster bombers as theyarrived at the newly constructed airfield for the first time. They

swept in from the grey skies with roaring engines, formidablegiant, black, war machines that appeared indestructible,

indomitable and invincible; an engraving of image and soundthat would stay with him for the rest of his life. Whenever hecould, over the next three years, he watched and admired the

men and machines that flew above his head every day as heworked the farm.

The first time he became aware of the sound of the

struggling Lancaster bomber, was just after dawn on a crisp,cold, misty mid-November morning in 1948. He was crossing

the runway, pushing the pedals of an old upright bicycle thatretained the scratched and chipped blue livery of its rightfulowners, the RAF, when the noise of an approaching aircraft

stopped him in surprise. Nothing had landed here since the RAF planes had left nearly three years earlier. He searched the

residual night sky, staring through the early morning misttowards the sound, but the mist was all he could see in thegreyness of the dawn. The sound he recognised, he had becomevery familiar with it over the war years, the roar of a Lancaster

bomber’s Merlin engines.His family farmhouse, Beech Farm, was half a mile to the

southeast of the perimeter track, and during the war he hadlearnt to recognise, instantly, the sound of any aircraft engine,

be it fighter or bomber, friend or foe.However, these engines were sounding very rough and

were struggling badly. It was obvious the bomber was introuble. The noise crescendoed as it approached from the


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southwest, heading towards the start of the old runway, bangingand coughing in desperation. He dropped his bicycle and startedto run; convinced the bomber was about to land or crash.

Abruptly, the noise stopped. He whirled round, searching thesky, but there was no sign of an aircraft anywhere … no noise

… nothing … just a swirling, curling disturbance in the mist.He remembered sitting at the supper table that night with

his young wife and his father, after they had tucked up their

young son snug in his bed, relating his early morningexperience.

“I’m surprised you’ve not ‘eard it afore?” said his father.

He had heard the clatter of a struggling Lancaster bomberapproaching the runway every year since before the end of the

war. It was always about this time of year and always first thingin the morning. He, and several other villagers, believed it to bethe ghost of one of the Lancasters that crashed in ‘43 or ‘44,

and it was trying to bring the lost souls of its crew back home.“She’ll bring ‘em all back home safe and sound, one day.

Mark my words, boy, mark my words.”


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1 ... Blooded

The Skipper, Johnnie Sanderson, said quietly to his crew,“Tomorrow night we will be on ops again. This time it is the

real thing, our first bombing run over enemy territory.

Germany!” That night there were no drinking sessions in the messes,

no ‘booze ups’ at any of the local public houses. Every memberof the crew of ‘G-George’ lay in his bed deep in thought. Thosegoing on their first operational bombing sortie ever, ‘Dusty’

Miller, the mid-upper gunner; ‘Yorky’ Ward, the tail gunner;‘Jan’ Greasely, the air bomber; and the elegant ‘Algy’ Willoughby-D’Arcy, wireless operator, hoped their training

would see them through and help them keep their nerve. Theywere not sure how they would react if attacked by anti-aircraft

fire or a night-fighter. Being under fire for the first time, wouldthey be able to master their fears? Would they be able toconcentrate on their jobs? Would they let their friends and

fellow crewmembers down? None of them slept well that night.They had volunteered for this job, but they were scared.

It was no different for those with operational experience. Inmany ways it was worse, they knew what to expect.

Johnnie felt a strange stirring inside. An excitement

coursed through him. Instead of flying for hours on trainingsorties, he was going back to the task he had joined up for, backto flying against the enemy. Back to dropping bombs, back to

the horror of flak and fighter, back to the stomach tighteningfear of operational service. The waiting period between thefinal briefing and take-off was the time he hated most, when

you had time to think, that was when the nerves were rubbedraw, and the memory of bad experiences came to the fore, theimagination creating ‘what if ... ’.


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He knew that they would all be frightened and hope that‘Group’ would abort the raid for some reason, but no one wouldhave the courage to admit they were scared. It was always a

relief when the time came to start-up the engines and taxi roundto the threshold of the runway ready for take-off. Once in the

air, all negative thoughts disappeared and the training andconfidence would kick in. Even though he knew deathaccompanied most squadron sorties, flying into war still

brought a nervous excitement to him. He had volunteered forthis... he was scared.

Michael ‘Paddy’ Doolan, the navigator, had a love of

adventure, and although he had completed eighteen sorties inWimpy’s, he still felt the same twinge of nervous excitement,

that stomach-sucking moment when he thought about flyingthrough the black night. Of being at the mercy of night fightersand vengeful anti-aircraft fire, of being responsible for

navigating the exact delivery of the bomb load and the crew tothe distant target and back home again. He had volunteered todo this... he was scared.

‘Chalkie’ White, the flight engineer, lay in his metal-framed bed listening to the night-time noises of the other

occupants of his Nissen hut. The evening was warm, even withthe doors of the bow-roofed tin hut propped open. His thoughtswere of the baby son he never had the opportunity to get to

know, never had the chance to play with, to teach, to love. Histhoughts were also of his youthful bride, who had shown him

so much unselfish adoration; and the strong, loving, cheerfulfather, who had guided and cared for him after his mother’s death all those years ago? He could not wait to get back in theair; he could not wait to strike back, to wreak his revenge, to

kill the bastard Germans. He was angry ... he was not scared.The next morning found them on ‘Battle Orders’. It stated,

Pilot; ‘JJ Sanderson, Aircraft; G-George’, one of twentyLancaster crews for that night’s operation. Their first bombing

run as a new crew in their new squadron, was to take place in afew hours. Johnnie met them all in the flight office.

“I thought that we might have a chat about tonight, just between ourselves. As you know, Chalkie, Michael and I, all

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Peter Horstead -Operation Parliament