Pathfinder Cranswick: 50th Anniversary Edition by Cumming Michael

Author:Cumming, Michael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Aviation
ISBN: 9780957116399
Publisher: Fighting High Publishing
Published: 2012-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Captain Courageous

Although twelve operational missions were the normal minimum required for acceptance into the Path Finder Force and he had already flown sixty-six, Alec Cranswick certainly did not anticipate that his wealth of experience as a bomber pilot would give him an open sesame when he drove up the hill from Offord village and swung through the gates of the RAF Station, Graveley, at the end of January 1943.

The first to be equipped with Halifaxes, No. 35 Squadron was one of the four founder units of Path Finder Force, and within a matter of hours of Cranswick joining them at Graveley he saw the squadron notch up another important milestone by taking part in the first bombing raid to use the H2S radar device. It was this system, which presented on a cathode ray screen an impression of the ground beneath the aircraft, that eventually gave RAF Bomber Command the ability to attack in great strength and with uncanny accuracy, even if the target was hidden by heavy cloud or blanketed by fog. But, when Cranswick entered the Pathfinders, H2S was fitted in only a tiny percentage of aircraft, and a full month passed before his crew were able to commence training with this prized equipment.

They first received classroom instruction in the Pathfinder methods and in the function of H2S and the other special navigational and bomb-aiming apparatus. Within a fortnight the crew was ready for operations and joined an attack on Cologne, playing a modest role. Two nights later they followed this up with a raid on Lorient in which their participation assumed greater importance. In this attack Cranswick was selected to pilot one of the illuminator aircraft, releasing his batch of eight flares from 14,500 feet to bathe the port in artificial moonlight, followed by a coloured marker to pinpoint the target for the benefit of the main bombing force.

After marking further targets at Wilhelmshaven and Bremen, Cranswick’s crew began their airborne H2S training programme. Standards were high in the Pathfinders, but, although they failed in their first attempt, they passed the exacting test schedule after a further spell of rigorous practising. By now Cranswick was settling down well to the tasks in hand. He had succeeded in surviving six ops with the Pathfinders, which was more than a good many chaps had done. Yet this knowledge was liable to instil a feeling that, having gone so far, one was pretty sure of going on almost for ever. This was a feeling to be watched; it was a breeding ground for carelessness. And very often the first mistake was likely to be the only one.

A few hours after passing the H2S test on 16 April, Cranswick and his crew were on ops for the third time in six nights and trundling along in a moonlight marathon high over enemy-occupied Europe to blaze the trail, Pathfinder fashion, to the great Skoda armament works at Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. It was a formidable journey. The round trip was some 1,800 miles, and two-thirds of the way was over fiercely defended enemy territory.

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.