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War Experience of F J Collings

Fred joined the RAF and was trained near Bridlington Yorkshire.

He was trained as a Flight Engineer and flew in Halifax bombers.

After joining an aircrew, he went on three missions, the first two of which were aborted.

On the third mission (to Frankfurt on a Saturday in March 1944) , whilst still on the runway and running up the engines, a warning light flickered for the fuel pressure to one engine, and when the engine was on full power the light stayed on. At lower engine power the light went out and checks with ground crew said that it was a faulty gauge. After take off and whilst cruising to join up with the rest of the formation, the light went out, and the pilot decided to carry on with the mission.

Later on Fred noticed that he could not see the glow from the cooling fins on one engine and also the revs were fluctuating, so he brought this to the attention of the pilot who confirmed that he was having trouble and suspected lack of power on one engine. At this, Fred feathered the propeller and stopped the engine.

Because of the increased load on the remaining engines and because of the height, another engine started to fail due to icing. Because of restricted access between the two pilots, the second pilot attempted to feather the engine but did it incorrectly causing the engine to overspeed due to the windmill effect, and the propeller disintegrated. (At meeting after the war the pilot thought they had been hit).

With only two engines the plane lost height and they decided to ditch the plane in the sea, although they were over land. They did manage to reach the sea and all the seven crew got out into the dinghy.

The dinghy started to tilt as the plane went down as the navigator had cut the rope attached to provisions instead of the one connecting it to the plane, and Fred went overboard with a knife and cut the rope. He obviously got very wet and cold in the North Sea in March.

After three days and nights they were washed up on the Belgium coast (Wednesday morning) and taken prisoner by the Germans.

His address whilst a prisoner of war was:-

Prisoner of War Post

Kriegegefangenenpost

1874286 Sargent F J Collings

British Prisoner of War

Stalag Luft 1

Via Stalag Luft 3

Germany

The first his parents new of the incident was a telegram to their home in Hertford, Herts, saying that he was missing.

In April , Alice who was living with the family, went to visit a ‘Psychic’ friend named Phyllis Costigan and asked if Fred’s mother had anything belonging to Fred, with a view to find out if he was still alive.

He mother had an RAF brooch and after holding this Phyllis said that she felt that Fred and the crew were OK and that they had come down on a small lake or the sea. She also said that they could see lights on both sides. All were well except one had something wrong with the top of his right arm. (It turned out he had a boil on his arm).

The next notification was from the pilot’s mother saying she had heard from her son John, and all were well.

Further information came via ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ in one of his broadcasts, which the family used to listen to hoping to hear news. It just so happens that on one occasion the family had not listened that night and the next day a neighbour, Mrs Watts, came round saying she had heard Fred’s name called out. They then all listened the next night and heard his name repeated as being taken prisoner.

Official notification did not come until much later.

Because they ditched in the sea they were made members of the Goldfish Club.

The camp was liberated by Russian soldiers, but they had to be careful outside the camp as the Russians did not readily recognise the blue RAF uniform as British.

Fred met up with the pilot at a re-union in August 1993, and it was there that he found out that the pilot had incorrectly thought they had been hit instead of the propeller breaking.

Fred had also said that he was trained on Halifax’s with water cooled Merlin engines, but the plane he was assigned to had air cooled radial engines on which he had very little training.

The planes layout did not make the job of the flight engineer very easy because the two pilots sat fairly high up with the throttle and other controls between them. The flight engineer had to stand behind and below them and reach forward to get at those controls, and it made it difficult to get at the propeller pitch controls in a hurry.

His mother had a wish that he would not drop bombs on anyone, and she got her wish.

The above account is from items given to me by my sister L D White, and also from my own memory and conversations with my brother.

R J Collings (brother of Frederick John Collings (deceased))

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