蜜芽传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site on behalf of Wing Commander John JF Long (RAF retired).

My next visit to Cranwell was in 1943 as an officer cadet on a specialist electronics course from which roughly 50% failed. As a Pilot Officer I was first attached to the US 8th Air Force HQ at Uxbridge and then to No. 149 Night Fighter Wing as Junior Signals Officer. We formed part of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force preparing for the invasion of Europe. For a year we lived under canvas and controlling Mosquito squadrons from mobile facilities in support of the US Air Force who, at that time, had no night fighter capability, and moved many times to different locations in the country. While at Zeals in the West country and feeling pent-up with the waiting for D-Day, a group of us had a few cups of tea in the officers鈥� mess tent and decided on an adventure. We all had our own jeeps or 15cwt vehicles and, having taken a Coles crane from the MT yard, we drove in convoy up the Wiltshire roads at dead of night. Our intention was to use the crane to move a monument from one side of the road to the other. As some of the stones weighed 40 tons and the Coles crane is limited to 16 tons in sideways lift we wouldn鈥檛 have succeeded. However, we sobered up and returned to camp and nothing more was said.
At last, the day arrived for the wing to drive to the embarkation marshalling area at Worthy Down and then on to the landing craft. As our aircraft were operating in support of the US, we were to land on their Utah beach in Normandy. My jeep was the first off the front end of the landing craft and the CO said, 鈥淟ong! If you drown that jeep in the sea and prevent the rest getting off, you鈥檇 be better off to drown with it!鈥� Fortunately, I drove it through the water and up to the Beachmaster who kindly persuaded me not to swim back to England. On to St Mere Eglise, where a parachute was still hanging from the church in the square. Later we moved through France to Amiens. At the end of the airfield named Amiens Glisy we had our first Ensa party 鈥� performed in the main hangar, but why there and not in the open I don鈥檛 know, because the RAF had previously bombed the roof off! The town of Amiens was gloomy with little electricity 鈥� except for one road where there were bright lights, music and drink. With a small party of officers I ventured into one establishment where a rather blowsy young lady with an unlit cigarette approached me and asked, 鈥淎vez vous du fer?鈥� I blushed scarlet and in fractured French explained that I didn鈥檛 smoke. At which she returned to a group of les girls and in a loud voice said, 鈥淭he young Englander has no fire.鈥� We quickly moved to the next, where although it was a warm autumn evening, we spotted an RAF officer in an overcoat with a scarf concealing his collar. We crowded round him having recognised him as our RC Padre and asked what a nice man like him was doing in a place like that. Of course, he was studying the seamier side of life so as to protect his flock from such diversions.
A few days later, I was posted away to Brussels to form and take command of a radar complex for duty in the front line area of Holland.
I was not sorry to be leaving the airfield Amiens Glisy 鈥� a very gloomy place 鈥� and I was directed to report first to No. 85 Group HQ at Ghent. They were in a large building previously occupied by the German TODT organisation. It was widely thought that when TODT moved out, the CLOT organisation moved in! I received my instructions for the creation of a radar screen to provide early warning of V1 (doodlebugs) now being fired at Antwerp and to a lesser extent, on Brussels. As a lone Flying Officer, I had one Sergeant and some seventy other ranks, nearly all Commando trained, who previously had been beach radio parties on D-Day. Once the convoy had formed up in the outskirts of Brussels we drove forward to lonely Dutch farm called 鈥楳aria Hoeve鈥� between the villages of Leende and Maarheeze, south-east of Eindhoven. As we were in a front line area we had an RAF Regiment escort of armoured cars. As we sat up in the farmyard, one of Montgomery鈥檚 artillery barrages was in progress with shells passing overhead and visually bursting a few miles to the west on their side of the Willemsvaart Kanal. The farmer and his wife (who called me 鈥榊onny鈥�), Mijnheer and Muvrouw Vader made us welcome. The men were able to move from their cold tents into their large warm barn and I got a local carpenter to make up portable wooden double-tiered bunk beds. Me? As CO, I was privileged to occupy a bed in the farmhouse.
The US 7th Division was at this time holding this part of the line and I had a special pass to visit their GI operations room to be briefed at regular intervals on the movement of the front line so as to move forward (or back) to obtain maximum early warning of the V1鈥檚 passing over our area to the AA guns deployed across the plain of Louvain. Given good warning of their track height and speed, the guns could begin firing ahead of the V1. The radio observer teams were spread out by me on a front of about 25 miles, but as some of the roads between them often crossed into German-held territory, it took me at least six hours to visit them for pay etc. As the Dutch underground and Polish infantry were liable to shoot at anyone in light blue uniform (too similar to the field grey of the Wehrmacht), we changed into khaki uniforms. From time to time I had to report back to the operations room centred in the old forts outside Antwerp. Having to spend the night in town, I found evidence the some of the V1s were getting through to Antwerp because everywhere there were glass fragments crunching underfoot. The Army had taken over a hotel in Antwerp and the young ATS girl at reception gave me a choice of a room with a bath but no window, or a room with a window (no bath), which I chose.
In the front line area there was always some air activity. One evening I watched a line of three Typhoon aircraft flying up from Eindhoven on dusk patrol. As they came over at us at about one thousand feet, a further aircraft joined up behind them and in the same instant that I recognised it as an ME109E, I heard the machine gun rattle and the tail Typhoon broke up. As I watched, the pilot baled out but his parachute did not open and he fell to the ground some 100 yards away. The second Typhoon was also shot down further away before more aircraft arrived and the German himself was shot down. The dead pilot was a Canadian warrant officer. My men seated his body in the rear of my 15 cwt Fordson and I drove to the Eindhoven airfield where there was strict security at the gates. It was dark by then and the guard insisted on searching my vehicle. Having shone his torch on the dead pilot, he came back white-faced to direct me to the mortuary.
A week or so later, we watched the massed fly-past of the 6th Airborne Brigade on their way to Grave and Nijmegen. About this time I may well have been one of the first to see the new German jet ME262 aircraft, which flew over at low level and dropped two anti-personnel bombs which exploded in the next field with no damage to our radar equipment, which was difficult to camouflage.
As the front advanced, the V1 launching sites were over-run and a new barrage began from north of the Waal river, so I re-deployed my HQ to a deserted school in the town of s鈥橦ertogenbosch (pronounce the 鈥榮鈥�, but not the 鈥楬鈥�). The five forward sites were then re-aligned along the south bank of the Maas river from the town of Waalwijk to the river crossing at Maasbommel. Not having the benefit of advanced intelligence, I took one radio team close to the river crossing, but was a bit concerned at the stillness, the fact that the trees along the avenue had sticks of dynamite strapped to each trunk, and that occupants of the few houses were peering out at us from behind curtains rather than the usual welcome. At 3am, I was roused to go back out and move them, as a German patrol that night had penetrated beyond them into the village and had taken back the village policeman as prisoner.
On the last three miles on the road into Waalwijk, one emerged from behind trees into open ground. At this point, there was a large notice, which read, 鈥淒o not loiter. You are observed by the enemy.鈥� The land between the Maas and the Waal was low-level, marshy no-mans land. The Polish Armoured Corps occupied our side, and one of their favourite ploys was to stand down their sentries at night and allow German patrols to penetrate our lines and then close in behind them. Pretty fearsome, the Poles!
On one of my journeys in this area I drove up behind a large Army convoy. The marked feature was that the troops were heavily armed with blackened faces. I realised they were about to enter battle (Operation Market Garden) because they were all deathly quiet 鈥� no singing, no whistles or jeers that one usually got from soldiers on the move.
As winter developed, the Germans realised that most of their V1s were being shot down, so they started sending them over five at a time in formation. Unfortunately, as snow gathered on their wings, the V1s were started to fall short into our previously safe area. About this time they started to fire V2 rockets, which went straight up and could not be shot down. However, my radio observer teams could see the condensation trails (contrails) following up from ground level. By passing back compass bearings to my operations room for triangulation we were able to inform base, so that shortly after, we could see ground attack aircraft to seek out and strafe the launching sites. At the end of 1944 the Germans made their last desperate armoured strike through the thinly held lines in the American sector facing the Eiffel/Ardennes area. Their intention was to split the Allied forces and capture Antwerp. That would have put my unit behind enemy lines and I received instructions to prepare to evacuate in a hurry. Fortunately, their salient was halted, and with the end in sight, V-weapon activity dwindled and came to an end. In the spring of 1945, I was recalled to Brussels, but 85 Group still had a job for me. Looking beyond the war鈥檚 end they sent an RAF Regiment squadron into the advancing front line to fight for a large and comfortable HQ for them to occupy in the Hamburg area. I was sent by aircraft as the ceasefire was announced to ensure that signals facilities were available at the chosen site and for my ability to speak German. The grass airfield at Fuhlsbuttel (Hamburg) was thought to have been mined, so we circled until we spotted in the dew of a motor vehicle across the field, so we landed in line with that. As I arrived at the gates of the Luftgaukommando 13 site in Blankenese, I was a bit startled to be saluted by armed German sentries who had temporarily retained to prevent locals from looting the place. At the officers鈥� mess, which was palatial, we rounded up the very frightened steward Willy Blumenthal and as the German speaker, I told him we wanted sleeping accommodation prepared and cleaners employed for the eleven RAF Regiment officers and me. He indicated the west wing and said he would hire twelve young dienstmadchen (serving girls). I thought that wasn鈥檛 a bad idea, but when I translated this to the RAF Regt CO, he said angrily there would be 鈥淣o strength through joy鈥� for us, thank you. Willy turned up trumps when he got to know us and showed us where to dig up the hidden champagne and Hungarian Tokay.
When the main HQ moved up from Ghent to Blankenese, I was sent back to Ghent to be Rear HQ Signals Officer. For the next thirty years I served happily at home and overseas (including Aden and Cyprus) with appointments including Central Staff at the Ministry of Defence and Commanding Officer at RAF Stanbridge.

Postscript
In 1973, I was posted finally to Rheindhalen (near Munchen Gladbach) as Chef de Cande (Chief of Communications and Electronics) at 2nd ATAF HQ. The Commander-in-Chief was Air Marshal Sir Harry (Mickey) Martin of Dambuster (Operation Chastise) fame. His Chief of Staff was a German war ace. One day, I said to Kuprinski, 鈥淚 believe you were one of the very few Luftwaffe pilots to fly the ME262 jet 鈥� did you by any chance drop bombs on me in Holland?鈥� He laughed and said he wouldn鈥檛 have done that to me 鈥� but he agreed to give me a signed photograph, so perhaps he had a conscience.

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