Reflections of War: Armageddon (27th September 1944-May 1945) (Bomber Command) by Martin Bowman

Author:Martin Bowman [Bowman, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Aviation
ISBN: 9781473826625
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Peter Bone’s experience on 626 Squadron was one he would never forget either:

Our tour was relatively uneventful. We saw bombers being attacked by night fighters and shot down and others blown up by anti-aircraft fire but we were never attacked or so seriously damaged that we had to bail out or ditch in the sea. All the time we wondered when our turn would come. Survival was, I am convinced, 75% luck, 25% crew discipline. Eighteen Lancasters and 126 six aircrew never returned to Wickenby during our tour, which was longer than most because Skipper had a multitude of administrative duties to perform as Flight Commander. He had been promoted to Squadron Leader in December 1944. Each squadron consisted of 16 bombers so it was impossible to get to know more than a fraction of our fellow aircrew because of the sheer numbers. I think there was another reason; it was easier to handle losses if one didn’t know too many ‘bods’, as we called each other. So, most remained just names on the Battle Order and faces that never became more than just familiar. Most soon vanished from memory. One name and face however, I’ll never forget. Roderick Donner had been on my navigation course in Winnipeg a year earlier. He was probably ten years older than most of us and I think I regarded him as a kind of older brother. There was always a friendly grin behind that moustache and he smoked a pipe, which seemed to me to indicate stability. I lost sight of him when I failed the course and became an air gunner. I was pleased when he turned up at Wickenby not long after our arrival. He was now a flying officer and protocol demanded that some distance must be kept between officers and sergeants when not in the air. Whenever our paths crossed in the briefing and crew rooms, he would always call out, ‘How’s it going Pete?’ with the same cheerful grin.

Came the night of 20/21 February 1945. Our crew was on the Battle Order for Dortmund, in the Ruhr. Although I didn’t know it, Donner was home on compassionate leave for the birth of his first child. He just had time to bring his wife and baby boy home from the hospital before catching a train back to Wickenby. There he found his crew were on the Battle Order for that night. While he was probably catching a few hours’ sleep, I took my guns out of Tommy Two, the aircraft we had just used and replaced them with the midupper guns of the crew detailed to use T2 that night. The target was Duisburg but T2 never came back. I wrote in my diary that night: ‘Good bods, Pyatt, Donner, etc. Cleaned bike, wrote home, had crumpets and cocoa for supper in the billet.’ And that was all. At the time I was unaware of Donner’s personal life and probably gave no thought to whether he was married or not.

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