Flight Lieutenant Don Mason DSO, DFC, Legion d’honneur(France), RAFVR Retired D-Day Landing Presentation on Wednesday 20 September 2017
Ninety-six-year-old Don recently visited Swindon RAFA Branch and Club and delivered a highly interesting presentation on his wartime exploits to an invited audience of RAFA members, Air Training Corps cadets, members of the Army reserve and the Defence Academy Station Commander and his staff from Shrivenham.
Don flew missions as a Short Stirling pilot with Bomber Command and he described in great detail what it was like to fly on the mass bomber raids on Nazi Germany, to places like Berlin, Cologne etc., then went on to describe his experiences during D-Day and the subsequent “Market Garden” Arnhem operation when he worked closely with the Parachute Regiment and other airborne units. The Short Stirling aircraft then being used as a glider tug.
Earlier on in the war he had been involved with the SOE flying the Lysander aircraft into occupied France delivering our agents to secret locations. He described that it was all “dead reckoning” night time navigation in those days, looking for torch-light signals from the ground before attempting a landing. The practice had been to circle the lights coming up from the ground three times before putting down.
The torch-light signals were essentially Morse code only sent out to the Resistance two hours before the mission. On two occasions during his landing approach he was met with a deadly hail of anti-aircraft fire meaning the mission had been compromised, likely by Gestapo torture of Resistance fighters or possibly betrayal. It is sad to note that subsequently many of the delivered secret agents, a lot of whom were women and whose names are now legendary, lost their lives at the hands of the Gestapo in Nazi concentration camps.
Don described being shot down twice, on one occasion having to ditch his Stirling bomber in the North Sea. Before the aircraft sank whilst endeavouring to ensure all his crew were out, he noted he was missing his navigator and rear gunner, both of whom were trapped in the damaged aircraft. Don re-entered the aircraft via a hatch in the cockpit area and found his injured navigator just behind the pilot’s position bulkhead. He then had to go back outside the aircraft to the now deployed rescue dingy and retrieve a first aid pack to help his navigator, in all Don went back into the aircraft four times to get his injured navigator out. Then they had to get to the rear of the aircraft to get the rear gunner out which proved a little easier as all the chap had to do was hand crank his turret round to its most extreme position, thereby exposing the turret’s rear door to the open sea and simply fall out.
All this was taking place whilst the aircraft was slowly sinking, the whole crew had survived the ditching, however they spent the next 56 hours in the cold North Sea before being picked up.
All these exploits enthralled our invited audience, particularly the younger members and Don’s presentation was concluded with an interesting question and answer session.
Don, a modest and unassuming “I’m not a hero” man is best described as one of life’s gentlemen and he is welcome back at Swindon RAFA anytime.
Hugh J. Thompson
Vice-Chairman/Welfare Lead
Swindon Branch, RAFA.
September 2017