RAF 24A BOMBER COMMAND 1939-1945 (Revised Edition)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
RAF Bomber Command 1939 - 1945
Preamble
I
I WAS BORN in March 1953. The Second World War had ended 7.5 years earlier, and the terrible Korean War would end when I was four months old on 27 July 1953.
I was also born in that month that carries with it the mystical turn of Nature ~ The March Winds.
As I have written in the opening to Windsor Street Days on the flagship website, I have always loved the Winds, and my life, too, shows that, whether I like it or not, and I do not, I accept that to believe that nonsense about turning swords into ploughshares as spoken of in the Book of Isaiah is just plain daft.
There is a magnificent statue depicting this dream. As I revise this chapter, we are just six days away from the First Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Isaiah 2 verse 4
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
The sculpture was gifted to the United Nations by the USSR on 4th December 1959
Let the irony speak in its own account.
II
THE Royal Air Force has been a central part of my family’s life for 82 years.
In 1938 an uncle wrote to his mother that it mattered not how many newspaper articles ‘you send me Mum, I’m joining the Royal Air Force, and that’s that!’
That youthful vigour still springs out from his letter to his parents on holiday at Burnham-on-Sea in September 1938.
The interesting thing, of course, is that September 1938 also brings to us that mess on the timeline of history - the Munich Crisis - when Liberty thought she had the upper hand, flew back to freedom in the form of a winged butterfly collar, and declared ‘peace in our time.’
My uncle - Ken Webb - nevertheless pushed on and became a member of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve - service number 1315766. Ken qualified as a pilot in Craig Field, Alabama, USA, returning to the United Kingdom as a sergeant-pilot, serving initially in RAF Coastal Command and whose motto was Constant Endeavour, before transfer to RAF Bomber Command, whose motto was Strike Hard Strike Sure.
His service ended on the morning of 17 April 1943 in dense woodland in Lachen Speyerdorf, Germany. A Memorial now marks the crash site erected and consecrated on Saturday 4 August 2018, and nearby is a bench for the many woodland walkers and the occasional jogger, even the cyclists to momentarily lie down their cycles, remove their helmets for that very welcome breath of fresh air in the hair, and to sit and entertain their own thoughts.
… and after a pause did the cockpit finally break and rest, the stricken fuselage, one part disconnected yet lying just behind, the tail section resting but the fire visible through the dense woodland
The Consecration of the Memorial, the Stone stands where the remains of the cockpit of HP Halifax DK165 MP-E came to rest in the early hours of Saturday 17 April 1943. KTW
Broken, yes… unyielding, no!
The forward structure of the fuselage between the cockpit and the mid-upper turret, sheered in two during the second attack, the rear section descending by its twin fins, as does an autumn leaf on an October day, mercifully saving Sgt Leslie Mitchell who was rescued by the local German civilian population, propped up against a tree and given a cigarette. KTW
The Late Herr Manfred Watta, the young eye-witness, drew this from memory for Herr Erik Wieman the lead archaeologist and head of IG Heimat Forschung on 7 January 2017
The Late Herr Manfred Watta (2017)
III
Across town, just over a mile from Windsor Street, my other uncle - Harry Marshall - in Elmfield Road, was similarly intent. Slightly younger, he showed his resolve by joining the local squadron of the newly formed Air Training Corps (formerly the Air Defence Cadet Corps which itself had been formed in 1938). He, too, served in RAF Bomber Command, as a flight-sergeant flight engineer - service number 1337884 - eventually transferring to 8 Group, the elite Path Finder Force, whose motto was We Guide to Strike. He flew many operations. His skipper’s Log Book is an incredible record of life in RAF Bomber Command in 1944 into 1945. Many towns and cities were targeted. Marshalling yards to hamper Germany’s constant shrinkage towards and finally across and into its own national border. It is not a comfortable read.
There are also three separate entries by Flight Leiutenant Leslie Payne RCAF, recording the sighting of German Jet fighters.I add this note simply to counteract the army of post war self-appointed experts who insist that the Bomber Command Aircrews were mistaken. These people are as devilish in their aim as the late David Irving, a now discredited historian because of his dogged insistance of Holocaust Denial.
Harry, too, went a step too far when his service ended on 16-17 January 1945 also in dense woodland, near Pfaffenhausen, Germany. That crash site is known too, although I have not visited it, but families of some of the crew have, and that does indeed warm my heart.
“To all who love freedom, even though there are places where angels may fear to tread, there are men and women who will not flinch to do so.”
When I wrote that sentence, quite a while ago now, I admit I tended, with misgiving, towards the thinking in the prevailing winds of the time, that Europe would not see war again.
It is now the the 93rd day ~ May 26, 2022 ~ of the War in Ukraine, with more than thirty towns and cities attacked this morning by the invading Russian forces.
I draw no distinction between today’s Russia and yesterday’s Nazi Germany.
I was fifteen in 1968.
We had Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring, I had just followed in my uncle’s footsteps and joined the Air Training Corps which would, in time, see me follow in my uncles’ footsteps into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve for 21 years commissioned service. But in 1968, I was full of hope. Yes, we had the Cold War, but here, in Prague, was proof that dictatorship was not what people wanted. Soviet Russia gathered its forces on Czechoslovakia’s borders and scoffed at the world at large at the charge that they were preparing to invade. And invade they did. And the new winter of the Cold War descended upon Europe.
In their repeat performance in Ukraine, though, Russia is seen for what it really is. The question I ask, though, is how long will NATO and the West support Ukraine?
Harry’s youngest brother, my last surviving uncle, Frank Marshall (1928-2018) also served in the RAF and was one of the several thousand personnel on Christmas Island in Operation Grapple when the UK successfully conducted its tests of the hydrogen bomb in 1958, and Great Britain became a nuclear power.
These three uncles most definitely had an indirect bearing upon my own eventual RAF VR service career.
In 2011 I was reviewing matters and wrote the following dispatch which I broadcast from the Liverpool Waterfront. There is a whole series of what I call impromptu podcasts but which seemed to fly around the world. I recall those now with sadness, for they brought me into direct contact with people in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan; especially in Mosul.
There was hope. Then Mosul went off the map, bludgeoned beneath that stinking black rag that is the hallmark of evil ~ Daesh.
Part I 28 November 2011
It is now 66 years [2011] since the end of World War II and there comes a time to move on.
Watching the Channel 4 OD Series “Apocalypse" brings home the stark fact that regardless of who or what caused World War II, every family on every continent, in every country, lost loved ones.
We must never forget what has happened, for that enables us all to keep that 'check and balance' on ourselves and prevent such a war ever happening again.
But let us also be truly reconciled to each other, and move on.
Part II 1 October 2020 ~ Reflection
Thus, my view and perspective in 2011. It is now almost nine years on. The passage of time sees also individual perspective adjust.
It is not unlike our first attempts with binoculars when we haven’t even reached our first decade, and we watch mum and dad’s world - so ‘out of focus and out of touch’ - suddenly come sharply into focus, and that smudge in the air becomes the Kite-hawk hovering and waiting to swoop. And we simply keep going back to those binocs’ even when we’re informed they’re now out of bounds ‘until next weekend!’
Ermmmm! Well, we’ll see about that. I’m light of foot and I know where the squeaking floorboard is! Yet try as I might, it’s always the same; ma or pa appear out of the shadows, simply that reproving smile but simultaneous unspoken consent… And later on, ‘radar ears’ leaning over the bannister, I hear downstairs dad say to mum in the kitchen, “he’s got radar ears … he’s like a ruddy sponge!” … and then giggles and laughs and, ‘oh get off you fool! I’m trying to get the tea!’
Memories, wonderful memories.
In 2011-2013 I was grateful to the then Lancaster Archive Forum. However, I have not included the link here as it might not be fully up-to-date. I will look further into this, and if it is, then I will ask the site owner for permission to link the Forum to this article.
A number of younger and young people are taking a keen interest in Bomber Command, often because they want to find out for themselves exactly what their (great) grandparents, uncles and aunts went through, but also because they want to know anyway.
In an age of apparent cynicism, we tend to think that this history will just die out.
Not so. But it is incumbent upon us all to safeguard our history, and to also keep it from being blanked out by extremist groups.
Whilst I think of myself as the nephew of two uncles who are framed photographs but who died before I was born, it is an incredibly moving experience to discover other nephews and nieces in the same situation.
Even more so, when our connection is that all of our uncles served on the same crews whether it be the Handley Page Halifax Mk V DK165 MP-E - the Webb Crew (RAF) - or the Avro Lancaster PB402 LQ-M - the Payne Crew (RCAF).
“In an age of apparent cynicism, we tend to think that this history will just die out. Not so. But it is incumbent upon us all to safeguard our history, and to also keep it from being blanked out by extremist groups.”
Although my uncles flew the Halifax and Lancaster, I’m especially proud that Ken Webb flew the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley from St Eval during a tour with Coast Command in early 1942. An ungainly aircraft, nevertheless, there are many family recollections regarding this aircraft. When a friend, Peter wilson Cunliffe, the author of A Shaky Do about Operation Frothblower and Operation Chubb on 16-17 April 1943, on the quiet constructed a model and then sent it to me, well, suddenly, all those entries in my uncle’s log book relating to Z9278 really did metamorphose into a whole new angle in my researching RAF Bomber Command.
IV
The one thing I never quite understand are the heated discussions in comments-streams on other aviation websites, when something is stated that suddenly has everyone behaving like rugby scrum but inside a pub house.
There are more than a handful of BBC newsreel recordings, where aircrew are speaking the King’s English. I’m quite certain this was the case in many crews. I’m also certain that my uncles, in their crews, spoke an ordinary grammar school english. After the war, I used to listen to my father speaking from the ops room (we were both serving in the police force) and it was calm, measured and, like his brothers, a local Gloucestershire educated english. That is how we were taught. There was no ‘social media twang’ in those days. If a pilot (or in the police force a police officer) decided upon a course of action, then informing listeners of that would be I’m going to not I’m gonna. My equipment was exactly that, not my stuff! And this would be so in every accent, no matter what part of the English-Speaking Peoples, bar the USA.
What riles me, are comments such as “what’s the flight engineer doing in that recording? He’d not even be involved.”
Really?
In both the Halifax and the Lancaster the flight engineer had two positions. One, in a small compartment, standing room only, behind the pilot’s bulkhead. The other, in position on the collapsable hessian seat that was unfolded, affixed to the starboard side of the cockpit shortly after take-off. This put him eighteen inches from the pilot. In the Lancaster (as depicted in the image of Flying Officer J P Burnside), that most certainly is where my uncle, Harry Marshall, spent much of his time.
F/O J B Burnside Flight Engineer - Avro Lancaster B Mk III 619 Sqn RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire. The image has been colourised by D B Colour from an original black and white image.
Yes, the bombardier did ‘fly’ the aircraft. Literally? On a run to target, he’d be ‘flying’ by giving his pilot and skipper instructions that would enable the bombardier to align his bombsight and release, and to take the aeriel photographic evidence.
What amazes me in the comments sections of these various websites is the proliferation of narrow thought-processing and one track minds. They end up detracting completely from all that their fathers achieved and which signed off the guarantee for lives to be once again lived in peace, safety and freedom that they, the kids, grand-kids and great grandkids, and I enjoy.
It is why I rarely open the comments on this website.
I am used to the cut and thrust of cross examination in open court. It is a discipline. Comments all too often show me the undisciplined, wayward mind, that lashes out and puts the boot in; much like people who like to eat out and then post on TripAdvisor the most disgraceful reviews. Whenever this happens, even with the families of WWII veterans, I say quietly to myself, in my very king’s english flight lieutenant mode … navigator we’ll give that little odd bod a wide berth. New course please. | Okay Skipper. New Course, steer … … … …
Part V - Ancestry Research
On April 1, 2019 I received an e-mail through archival research:
From your tree I am thinking that Harry Alfred Marshall, born 1923, is your uncle or great-uncle? He was a member of the crew of Lancaster PB402, piloted by my uncle, Harold Leslie "Les" Payne, that crashed at Pfaffenhausen, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, Hessen, Germany. I do have a couple of pictures that have him in them. I have also visited the graves and the crash site. Even bringing back to Canada some scraps from the airplane. I am happy to send you the photos, if you'd like, but you'll need to send me your email address. All the best, LP
And this is how so many families find they are on the threshold of discovering chapters, of family history just waiting to be written up, that enable events to be looked into, and for the mists of history to clear the fields and woodlands as the sun rises high in the sky.
The photograph by the skipper in his 1944 album (being the same as the photograph in our family archive) was a moment when past and present align and meet, when the heavens pause, the host of heaven gasp, and the pendulum stops mid-air …
Further correspondence enabled Flt Lt Payne’s niece to provide valuable information and thereby helping me enormously in compiling my own family archive.
We look to the future and to our young people to pick up the torch and carry it high and fully lit into the night sky, for history will never allow the grass to grow underfoot to the ever-enquiring mind.
Flt Lt Leslie "Skip" Payne RCAF and the author's mother in November 1944 at Elmfield Road, Cheltenham - the photo is taken by Leslie's niece from his photograph album
Sergeant-Pilot Kenneth Ernest Webb RAF VR 1315766 (1921-1943) - Craig Airfield Alabama USA South East Air Corp Training Center - April 24 1942.
Pathfinder Acting Flight Sergeant Harry Alfred Marshall RAF VR 1337884 (1923-1945) - RAF Gransden Lodge, 8 Group seconded to 405 (City of Vancouver) Squadron, Cambridgeshire, No 8 Group RAF Path Finder Force.
11 May 2023
All Rights Reserved
© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb
© 2023 Eyes to the Skies
Updated 24 February 2022 in light of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on that date.
Reviewed 11 May 2023
Vintage Wings of Canada is a superb website and whose website link is here and visitors may enjoy ‘popping across’ to Canada …
The RAF Bomber Command’s Strategic Air Offensive could not have been mounted without the Royal Canadian Air Force and it is a huge pride that both my uncles’ flying log books are RCAF, and that one was seconded from the RAF to the RCAF 8 Group Path Finder Force
KTW
Banner Image ~ a Relief from a Painting by Piotr Forkasiewicz
Clip from BBC Newsreel ~ RAF Bomber Command
The RCAF Payne Crew ~ Sgt Harry Marshall RAF on secondment somewhere in England, possibly Gransden Lodge, Cambridgeshire in 1944.
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
