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RAF BOMBER RAID ON BREMEN 11 FEBRUARY 1941

EXPERIENCE OF S/LDR. H. J WALTERS (100612) NO. 742078
RAF VR AND CREW, 2ND PILOT SGT THURLING, NAV SGT BOREHAM, W/OP SGT SAYNER, AG SGT HALLIDAY, FLYING WHITELY V
NO. T4322, WITH NO. 58 SQUARDRON BOMBER COMMAND FROM
RAF LINTON-ON-OUSE, YORKSHIRE, A 4 GROUP BOMBER COMMAND STATION.

Without the benefit of having kept a diary at the time it is to be expected that after the passage of 44 years the details of sortees are difficult to recall except for the events which are impressed on one’s mind by emotions of perhaps fear, awe, anger, comedy or the gallantry of others.

However the raid on Bremen on the night of 11 February 1941 is recalled by virtue of the fact that it heralded my introduction to parachuting.

I held the rank of Sergeant Pilot at the time of the flight and was flying with my regular crew.

The weather conditions during the day of 11 February were very bad for flying. When testing the aircraft in the morning, after being notified that we were due to operate that night, the visibility was so bad that I had to land with the aid of the Lorenz radio beam or do a ZZ landing as we aircrews called it.

It was the first time that I had had to do such a landing under conditions which made it necessary but all went well and we landed without trouble.

Later in the day we were briefed for the raid on a target at Bremen. As I left the briefing room I said to the Wing Commander “I hope it won’t be necessary to a ZZ again tonight sir”, “no” he replied, “Met says it is going to be clear up and will be alright by the time you get back”.

On that happy assurance we later took off in poor visibility and headed for Germany where the weather did show some improvement and we managed to locate the target area and drop our bombs after encountering anti-aircraft fire and searchlight activity.

After completing our mission we headed for home and soon met the bad weather conditions again.

We eventually arrived back over Linton-on-Ouse in 10/10th cloud and were told our motors could be heard overhead. I then asked for permission to land by Lorenz, as I had done in the morning, but permission was not granted and we were told to await instructions.

After circling for some time we were finally diverted to Drem Aerodrome in Scotland and with petrol getting very low we headed north.

We were flying at 11,000ft in the cloud and the W/T operator reported hearing numerous other aircrafts calling for assistance.

Eventually the clouds began to thin and at the same time when the petrol gauges were reading zero the W/T operator obtained a wireless bearing from Drem and I was given a course heading which took us back into all the bad weather we had just cleared.
As we had be airborne for over 10 hours and it would seem had only a few minutes petrol left I gave instructions to abandon aircraft when flying at about 10,000ft.

After the crew had all baled out I trimmed the aircraft and as we were over hilly open landscape I left by the forward escape floor hatch.

According to the previous ground instructions we had received, one waited 10 seconds before pulling the rip cord of the parachute. Whether I did or not I don’t know but I was wearing a breast type chute and expected to feel a rush of silk pass my face and when this did not happen my immediate thought was ‘it’s not opening’ only to be pulled up with a sudden jerk as the chute opened and left me swinging without any sense of falling.

After a short time I saw aircraft lights coming towards me and thought that I was going to be struck by it but it passed underneath me and I realised it was my own aircraft which crashed not far away.

I could then see the ground and a very wide river, which I later realised was the Clyde and to which I seemed to be drifting but then the ground appeared to be coming up fast and I dropped in the middle of a ploughed field close to a white farm house.

I went and knocked on the door of the house and eventually somebody came to the door but wouldn’t open it and asked who I was and what I wanted.

I told them who I was and that I would like a cup of tea. They then opened the door about 6 inches but promptly closed it again. Being in flying gear I suppose I presented a frightening sight in the semi-darkness. Eventually they did open the door and I was confronted with a man wearing Long Johns with a lady behind him in a long nightdress.

They then invited me in but by this time I was pretty well overcome by exhaustion, refused the tea which was then graciously offered and suggested I had better go to the aircraft which was burning not far away.

There I met an RAF officer who took me into Glasgow. I was eventually re-united with the rest of my crew who turned up minus tunic bottoms which had been given away as souvenirs.

(N.B. As a result of this incident, H.J.Walters became a member of the Caterpillar Club and was given a caterpillar broach, with ruby eyes because he used the parachute at night)

We returned to base the following day by train only to learn that ours was only one of a large number of aircraft, 20 or 30 as I recall, which had crashed or been lost that night from Bomber Command, as a direct result of bad weather.

Subsequently on reviewing the event I felt deeply aggrieved at the loss of the aircraft, which was a new one.

I now think that possibly, if I had not been so physically and mentally exhausted after the strain of flying continuously for over 10 hours under such bad conditions including operating over enemy territory, I would have realised that I had probably been given a reverse bearing and that Drem lay in the opposite direction where the weather was clearer. If the navigator had then been able to make a map location sighting I would have flown towards Drem some 60 miles away in the hope of making it before the motors cut out.

Who knows! The results may have been more disastrous. At least the crew were all safe to carry on the war.

N.B.

Sgt.H.J.Walters’ wife, Mrs E.M.Walters, was living in York at this time, along with her mother Mrs.A.Cattell. She would wait for the return of the Whitleys after their raids and training flights, to their base RAF Linton-on-Ouse, not far away. H.J.Walters would fly low over her house to let her know that he was safely home, but on this occasion he did not overfly the house, so Mrs Walters knew that there was a problem. With no word of her husband and his crew, a telegram boy arrived at her house at 11.00am on 12th February, 1941. This was a dreaded moment amongst aircrew families, as they knew that the telegram brought them news of their loved ones’ fate. As the telegram boy walked up the path to the front door, Mrs Walters turned to her Mother with dread and said that she could not go to answer the door; her Mother insisted that she had to go. The receipt of the telegram telling her of her husbands escape was one of the seminal moments of the Second World War for Mrs Walters, who lived in constant dread for her husband’s well-being.

P.S. Extraordinarily, RAF Linton-On-Ouse operations board for the night of 11/12-2-41 for 58, 51 and 78 Squadrons was photographed before it was cleaned for the next night’s operations (the Ops boards were entered up using chalk on a pre-ruled blackboard) and the photograph published in a book about the then Linton-on-Ouse station commander Group Captain, later Air Chief Marshal, Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman; the book is entitled “High Endeavour” and is written by his son, John Ivelaw-Chapman, published by Leo Cooper, London. The Ops board photograph clearly shows Armstrong Whitworth Whitley “R” for Robert being flown by H.J.Walters, with a take off time of 18.36, bailed out near Wishaw. Group Captain Ivelaw-Chapman wrote as a note to the ops board photograph “ On the night of 11th/12th February, 1941, when I was OC RAF Station Linton-on-Ouse, our airfield became completely fogbound just before the 21 Whitleys which had taken off about 18.30 hours were due back to land after bombing their targets in Germany. It was a traumatic night in our Ops room. The nearest airfield was Drem, about an hour’s flying time away to the North. The photo of the Ops board that night tells a dramatic tale. Of the 21 aircraft that had taken off from Linton, 6 crews bailed out, 10 landed at Drem, 1 at Kinloss, 1 at North Coates Fitties, 1 at Leuchars, 1 crash landed and 1 only landed back at Linton after 2 unsuccessful attempts at 5.30 hrs after having been in the air for some ten and a half hours.”

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