Ted Gordon's Life in the RAF -Part 4: Chapters 12B to 13

Ted Gordon's life in the RAF -Part 4: Chapters 12b to 13

By Actiondesk Sheffield

People in story: Ted Gordon
Location of story: KELSTERN, GRIMSBY HOSPITAL
Unit name: 625 SQUADRON
Background to story: Royal Air Force

CHAPTER 12b
625 SQUADRON – KELSTERN.
MOTTO - “WE AVENGE” (Continued)
The following day we got the best laugh for weeks, a note on the board read, “Officers required for Infantry Battalions. Volunteers required”. There were no takers.
We were now without a pilot. Berlin 6 was called and Wing Commander Flying decided it was time he took a look at the current situation in view of various losses we had incurred in the last few weeks, so he was our skipper in “H Harry”. The visibility was bad on return and we wished we had FIDO to help.
The weather was so bad that this night is now named as “Black Thursday” in the annals of Bomber Command history, for aircraft were diverted all over the place. We did not get home but were directed to a place we knew well, Blyton, our old Conversion Unit.
The winter of ’43 was shocking and one morning we awoke to find the whole aerodrome covered in snow, so it was down to dispersal with brooms, shovels and anything else to clean it. Quite honestly, I do not think we had as much physical exercise for months but it provided a refreshing change and took your mind off other things. A thankful release, for when we had finished we just flopped into the nearest armchair.
With the skipper still unavailable, I was allocated to a Sergeant Pilot in “Q-Queeni” for my next op to Frankfurt and by now the fourth pilot to fly with on operations.
On mornings when ops were called, it was usual to report to the respective Leader’s office so that he knew who was, or was not, available. This particular day I was told to report to report to the Wing Commander’s office, for what I knew not. On reporting to the Adjutant, I was ushered into the Winco’s office and invited to sit down for a chat. Two things then happened, I was asked if I would fly with the Yank but declined, still wishing to fly with my own crew. Secondly I was handed a sheet of paper, told to fill it in and then hand it to the Squadron Gunnery Leader.
To my surprise it was an application for a Commission. I knew I had been recommended twice before, so I filled it in and passed it to our Gunnery leader as commanded. A week passed and I was told to be ready to go the Base Headquarters for an interview with the Air Commodore at Binbrook at any time.
This came quicker than I expected, so off I went for my interview with a man whose reputation was legendary in the Air Force. His name was Wray, his nickname Hoppy, for he had the reputation of arriving at a Bomber Squadron unannounced, going into a dispersal and climbing aboard an aircraft to fly with the boys. They loved him for it but eventually the powers that be got wise to his tricks and shopped it. In retrospect, I suppose they were right, for he knew too much to be reported missing and was too valuable an asset to lose.
Another two weeks passed by and once again I was called to the Winco’s office, this time to be told I had been awarded a Commission, given a railway pass and clothing coupons and told to go home and get myself kitted out. I had realised an ambition of many years before, for I was still just twenty years old.
On arriving home, my mother in particular was surprised, for I had been home some weeks earlier but as usual in her own quiet way she appeared surprised and delighted by my good news.
We went to town, bought the uniforms required and returned home.
The village where I lived now had two commissioned officers the other one being a R.A.F. Intelligence man and an old friend. Living in a village the news spread fast and the first man to congratulate me was my Intelligence friend, for really he was the only man who truthfully knew what was going on.
My nickname of the “Professor”, given when I was at the University Air Squadron, had paid off. I came home a Sergeant and went back a Pilot Officer. Our crew now had three officers, the skipper, the navigator and myself but in the air it made no difference. On the ground however it did, for I was made a Flight Gunnery Leader, with its own responsibilities. The Gunner Leader laid down our duties and left us to get on with the job.
Initially I missed the Sergeants Mess, with its often boisterous good humour but eventually settled down in the Officers’ Mess, more quiet, and often more serious with the skipper and navigator to help me along.
New Year’s Day 1944 arrived and it was back in the air again for Berlin 7, not with “S Sugar” but “A-Able”, another seven and a half hour run.
Safely home and bed.
Twenty-four hours later we were Berlin bound for the eighth time but this time we were not so fortunate, for we had been advised of treacherous air conditions and this proved right, gremlins appeared all over the aircraft and it was bitterly cold, -30C at 25,000 feet.
All of a sudden and without warning, “A-Able” literally fell out of the sky for no apparent reason; fortunately our Flight Engineer had the presence of mind to open the bomb doors and jettison the load and the next thing we knew was we had pulled out at 2,000 feet. The skipper told us to bale out but we could not.
With now a crippled aircraft and no bombs the skipper turned for home, not Kelstern but Woodbridge in Suffolk. With Mayday called we were eventually guided there with their four searchlights as out guide.
Woodbridge really was a graveyard for aircraft for everywhere they were, Lancs, Halifax, Stirlings, Fortresses of the American Air Force, all in various states of chaos. Tails missing, fins missing fuselages full of holes some broken into two parts, a grim reminder of the war in the air and the reaper taking his toll.
With the ailerons and flaps gone we knew we were in trouble, but we were in the air and there was still hope. A crash landing seemed inevitable but slowly and surely the skipper and our Flight Engineer coaxed “A-Able” to the ground. From wheels touching the runway to the stop it seemed ages but at least we were down. We were told to leave the aircraft, collected by a crew bus, driven to sick quarters, examined by the doctor, given something to eat, a pill to make us sleep, and sent to bed.
Next morning, late, I might add, we went to see “A-Able, and surprised how she had managed to stay in the air. Not only the flaps and ailerons gone but both fins and rudders were a horrible mess, the dinghy had also got torn out of the wings. The latter provided some degree of laughter when we realised somebody inland would find a dinghy less seven flyers.
On how we got away with this, speculation was rife, until we were shown the photographs which automatically worked when bombs are realised and our prognosis is the updraft from the explosion of 18,000lb of high explosive bombs threw us back into the air.
God works in a mysterious way.
Why we went into this sudden dive could only have been by the sheer weight of ice accumulated on the wings and other parts of the aeroplane, even though we knew our ground staff had put warm air in the wings, which was part of the standard procedure.
The only other thought was we had got caught in a Cumulus Nimbus cloud, where the up and down draughts create considerable uncontrollable forces.
So “A-Able died and it was back to old faithful “S-Sugar”. After a major overhaul we did the usual air test with ground crew as passengers and testers, for this was the only time we managed to get them in the air; our way of saying “thanks” for a job well done and a relief from the monotony of working in atrocious weather on the dispersal site. They seemed to enjoy the relief and the flying.
Having had a couple of weeks’ rest through inclement weather, Berlin 9 was called, the usual route down fighter alley but this time we were routed north back home over the Kattegatt and Skagerrak, Norway. At 25,000 feet we found 10/10 cloud and the skipper put sugar just on top of it and to our surprise, it produced a tunnel of cloud in a perfect circle as we went along.
Whilst it was fun in its creation, we later realised it could have been dangerous had any fighters been around.
Once again it was bloody cold.
Forty-eight hours later, ops wee on again and by now we were getting a little fed up with the Big City runs and so when the ops board revealed Brunswick a sign of relief could be heard. On the home bound run we got another shock for, white unexpectedly, we got coned by five searchlights which were not supposed to be there according to Intelligence Report.
With our night vision gone, we remembered what the Major of Artillery had taught us, nose down, port then starboard and out of the beams. It worked like magic, for had we stayed any longer, we would have been easy meat for the night fighters, who worked in conjunction with the searchlight crews.
A lesson to be remembered for later use.
Magdeburg was next and the most horrific sight I have every seen. We had just taken off and got to about one thousand feet running parallel with their main runway, where 460 Squadron Binbrook Lancasters were also getting airborne and all of a sudden a Lanc exploded half way down the runway, flames lit the night sky and there was debris everywhere.
How many other Lancs were considered unserviceable I do not know but it was certainly a major blow to the Aussies of 460 Squadron.
The night routing over Heligoland and Southwest Hamburg was the hottest I can recollect, for there were fighters everywhere, along with flak, which looked like bombers exploding in the air.
We were glad to get home, debrief and bed.
Another “Berlin” came, with our Bomb Aimer being taken ill; my turret became U/S on rotation and my electric suit packed up. Four hours in freezing cold and there were two of us in sick quarters.
The last trip I did was the eleventh of the Berlin saga and once again, my electric suit failed. Five of the seven and a half hour trip was freezing cold and as a result, I was taken to Grimsby Hospital with pneumonia.
Thank God I had an Irvin suit for, with the latter ones, I don not think I would have survived.
Ted the Yank I later learned was awarded a D.F.C. and was transferred the 8th U.S.A. F Bomber Group, reaching the rank of Colonel. Acknowledging the differences between the R.A.F. and Americans’ attitude to air discipline, it is safe to assume the Americans were in for a shock; he was not a lucky person but a very good pilot and his Lancaster crew had more than their share of ill luck.
The daily dose of medicine was the cod liver oil pill, a duty carried out when gunners reported in; it was a necessity for the cold winter nights.
The other oddity not used by all was the “Wakey-Wakey” pill, often necessary on long flights but if operations were called off you just could not go to sleep but when you did you went out like a light.
Other operational aids were the whistle for use if you had to ditch in the sea or call for help and a compass in a button for directional use for escape purposes.
CHAPTER 13
GRIMSBY HOSPITAL
THE AIR WAR COMES TO THE HOSPITAL.
The Station Ambulance took me to hospital, I was put on a ward totally composed of Army and Navy personnel and as an officer, and it was said by many that I should not have been assigned there.
This situation however, quickly changed, for one morning about four o’clock all hell broke loose, beds and personnel were moved out, new beds brought in and we wondered what was happening.
We soon found out; six fliers were brought in. My bed was near the entrance to the ward and the first bed went oppose, he was the air gunner of the crew and sadly he died some two hours later. The pilot was next to me and then came the others.
Reality had struck home once again but this was not the end, for within another forty-eight hours we had a repeat performance, another six arrived.
Total aircrew in the ward was now thirteen, the Army and Navy lads were wondering what had hit them for the RAF had now taken over more than half the ward and activity was ceaseless.
For the Ward Sister and her nurses it was hell let loose, the surgeon were kept busy for many days diagnosing and doing they’re best to patch the lads up. The pilot next to me, I recall, had a broken hip and collarbone, the navigator now opposite had a broken skull and everywhere the signs of bones in plaster. Structures and pulleys with weights were a common sight along with drip feeds attached to arms and legs and pain killers were dispensed by day and night, along with other drugs.
For nearly two weeks we hardly got any sleep except for the help of the odd sleeping pill.
Slowly but surely the misadventures of these two crews unfolded. The first crew apparently had collided with he large trees on their landing approach and crashed on the runway. These trees should never have been left standing for they wee always a danger. They are not there now, for this aerodrome is the Humberside airport at Killington, then the home of 166 Squadron.
The other crew had crashed at my old home, 100 Squadron at Waltham.
As I got slowly better, I found myself with two jobs, the first was rolling bandages and the second was writing letters for the fliers now immobile through being in plaster. To write to parents, girlfriends and wives, initially I found a little embarrassing to give them bad news but it had to be done so one got on with the job. Not knowing, would I have made life even worse for them?
The Sister in charge of this ward was brilliant, she seemed to have the uncanny knack of being able to forecast and understand the moods of all her patients and apply the necessary remedies and this rubbed off on her nurses.
This was truly leadership at work, under the most trying conditions. One thing that became obvious to us all was the daily night visit of the Sister to the pilot in the next bed to mine. Romance was blooming.
She was kidded unmercifully about this attachment but it did survive and later on they got married, to be sent on honeymoon, courtesy of the RAF, in an Anson.
How many of these fliers returned to duty I never got to know, for I was released from hospital, went back to 625 Squadron, collected my kit and was sent on convalescence to Harewood House, between Leeds and Harrogate.