Evening star., 1943-01-18


London had not been under a
1941. "A. P. Wirephoto.
/ the nose and connecting up your
oxygen supply pipe?"
/ His would you mind" was merely
politenesS. pleasantly cloaking a
friendly order. I did as l was told
/ 1t is some job to crawl along a
narrow passageway and down tiny
! steps into the glass S-Covered nose of
the big bombing plane when you
are not accustomed to wearing a
bulky flying suit and are hampered
by clumsy flying boots.
My parachute harness caught one
of the myriad knobs Of the planes
control apparatus and l uncon-
! sciouSly flicked it over and did
something to one of our four motors
which would have made any one
! less patient curse me heartily.
Somehow I managed to get into
the floor and let the forward gun
ner connect my nose-mouth mask
with the oxygen supply.
There wasn't any monotony. at
least for me, in that overwater leg
Of the flight. I was fascinated with
the 'intercom' conversation of the
crew.
Then In pause in which there
was complete silence I heard the
voice of Clayton saying imperson-
ally, We're now five minutes away
from the coastline of enemy oc-
cupied territory"
could feel the alertness of every
one aboard
Enemy Fighter Spotted.
Then soon after that Clayton in
formed us we were well over enemy
territory. BY this time night had
closed in but there was bright
moon in the sky and visibility was
good. NY unpracticed eyes couldn't
spot anything untoward even when
I heard the forward gunner sing
out enemy night fighter off the
starboard."
"Okay," said the skipper, Keep
a sharp lookout"
Lying on my stomach and peering
through planes nose. I looked and
finally saw a tiny black speck NOV
ing through the sky. But I caught
only fieeting glimpse. Suddenly
that big Lancaster tipped far over
ci% CT oil
vertical, dive for what seemed like
a thousand feet, then leveled off.
We had taken advantage of some
cloud below us to hide from our
would-be attacker When you're
carrying a 2-ton bomb and lots Of
incendiaries 1t is not wise to risk
being hit by an enemy planes in
cendiary bullets. Besides, that load
was intended for Berlin and Berlin
was quite distance farther on.
After We eluded the German night
fighter we all settled down as the
big motors churned us forward to
Berlin.
Presently I heard once again the
impersonal voice of Clayton saying.
you're now 80 miles from the
target"
Hardly were the words out Of his
mouth than ground gunners began
sending shells up at us splitting the
sky with jagged flashes of light as
they exploded. Either their aim was
poor or Shippers" plotting was ex-
cellent They didn't come near
enough for us to hear the explosions
above the noise of our motors.
You are now nearing the target"
said Clayton, as if he were reading
aloud some newspaper item he con-
sidered OF general interest.
Dummy Fires Near City.
Then I saw sight had heard
about from many of my Raj friends
and read about in some publica tions:
Dummy fires lit by Germans on
bogus landing fields, imitation freight
yards and fiimsy structures dis
guised as important buildings. These
fires on the outskirts of Berlin were
intended, OF course, to make the
raiding airmen think they were over
the city and drop bombs on them
only TO have them fall harmlessly in
open fields. We ignored them.
1t was only a moment or two later
when I saw the real thing. Waves
OF raiders that had taken off before
us back in Britain had found the
target and dropped their loads and
made way for us new arrivals.
Below and slightly to the right Of
me were several straight strings OF
lights going like street lamps. These
strings, which seemed to crisscross
each other at right angles. were
caused by incendiaries that had just
burst. Here and there inside of them
yellow fires were glimmering in the
clear moonlight like clusters of gold
nuggets. Here and there also were
( angry red patches of flame where
fires were going full blast, one of
them giving off q long curtain OF
e-colored smoke,
Looking down l was fascinated as
the white lights of fresh incendiaries
/ turned to yellow and then red when
suddenly there was binding flash,
a great cone of light with its point
on the ground and its ever widening
base reaching to the sky. Some
kite" had released a 4,00O-pound
bomb, We were flying at too great
height to hear what must have
/ been colossal explosion.
Immediately after the big bomb
/ numerous small fires merged into
one great seething cauldron in which
the skeletons of some buildings were
clearly distinguishable. The fires
were so bright they partially illumi-
mated the bomb aimer's compart-
ment, silhouetting our bomb aimer