Men of the Bombers: Remarkable Incidents in World War II by Ralph Barker

Author:Ralph Barker [Barker, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781783409433
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2005-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

Howard was no hero, and he had a pretty elastic conscience, but some of his early operational flights had left him feeling slightly unsatisfied, even guilty. There were periods when he had seen little action, but the hours had mounted up just the same. That had all changed, though, when he started flying with Lloyd Wiggins. Wiggins, from South Australia, might not be the most skilful pilot on the squadron, but he was a great operational flyer. Howard, secretly fearful of his quiet dedication, had taken to him straight away.

Wiggins was one of those pilots who often seemed to be in need of a spare gunner. Either they got hurt or they went sick. Fair-haired, athletic, a tee-totaller and non-smoker, he was a disciplinarian who would have been shocked if he’d known that Howard got through a packet of twenty ration cigarettes per flight. But Howard, cut off from the rest of the crew in the rear turret, was a chap who knew what he could get away with.

Less than a week earlier, on one of their rare bombing flights, they had blasted the dock installations at Tobruk. Wiggins had begun with a dummy run to absorb the geography, dropped one 1,000-pounder on a second run and then come back and dropped another on a third. ‘That’s three ops for the price of one,’ complained Howard. ‘Three chances of getting knocked off.’

‘The taxpayer paid for those bombs,’ said Wiggins. ‘He wants his pound of flesh.’

‘Fuck the taxpayer.’

But Howard loved him for it. ‘Mad bastard’ was what he called him, under his breath; but he wouldn’t let him down tonight – or any other night.

When the Maryland crew sighted the convoy it was about a hundred miles from the North African coast, heading for Tobruk, with about 180 miles to cover before it reached port. It was a sizeable convoy, according to the sighting report, of three merchant vessels ranging from 3,000 to 8,000 tons and two destroyers. One of the destroyers was a large one – possibly a small cruiser. They were steering south-south-east at about eight knots and they had an air escort of three Junkers 88s. Clearly it was an important convoy, vital to Rommel’s hopes of breaking through to Cairo.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.