Legend of the Lancasters: The Bomber War from England 1942-45 by Martin W. Bowman

Author:Martin W. Bowman [Bowman, Martin W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844685134
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2009-08-18T21:00:00+00:00

On the night of 26/27 March, Frank Dengate’s crew at Mildenhall did their first trip to the Ruhr when the target for 811 aircraft, 577 of them Lancasters, was Essen. Adverse winds had delayed the opening of the attack on the crew’s first op to Stuttgart 12 nights earlier and at Essen the city was covered by cloud although the Oboe Mosquitoes marked the target well and this was a successful attack. Only nine aircraft, six of them Lancasters, were lost. Dengate’s crew returned safely to Mildenhall and waited for their next op, wherever it might be. By now the crew had settled down to the operational routine, as Frank Dengate recalls:

‘Between raids we did training with our own fighters on mock attacks and also formation flying and cross-country. Also, we did practice bombing, mainly in daylight, as all our raids on Germany at this time were at night. Mildenhall was an old base so we had comfortable quarters and very nice brick buildings with mess halls and bars. As long as you weren’t listed you were free. We would know by about 10 o’clock whether we were operating or we had to go and test our aeroplane. The ground crew were waiting to test to make sure that everything was satisfactory so you’d be ready for the next day. We had a very close relationship with our ground crew. They were wonderful chaps. They waved us off and they waited for us to return. Between the period when we landed to the time we were ready to do our next test, which would probably be a day and a half, quite often they’d work flat out, day and night to get it done. They were very important and we were so dependent on them that we got very close to them. Quite often they didn’t sleep at all during busy operating periods [and] we’d have to take another aeroplane because they hadn’t finished the inspection. Our individual aircraft was K-King and my second name is Hercules so we put Hercules K-King on it. We’d do a test flight in the morning, before the next trip the following night. We’d test everything ready for the next run. You could never be sure whether they’d found all the problems that were involved.

‘Unless it was a special trip of some kind we went to the briefing straight after lunch. It might have alternatives, in which case you went to your briefing earlier. The different members of the crew had already completed their briefing. The navigator set up his route. The wireless operator would be getting useful information from the wireless mob. The gunners would be checking their information about fighters and so forth. Then you all come together into the main briefing. It told you the targets, whether you were backup crew or third across the target or something like that. The Met gave details of what they presumed the weather was going to be like. They’d never be sure, but they had a fair idea.

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