First Operation

Bill Smith and his crew went up on their first bombing operation over Germany on 3 November 1943.  This was nothing short of a baptism of fire for the young men.  They had a brand new aircraft, “X” for X-ray, which unfortunately, got badly shot up as they approached the target area over Dusseldorf:

Everything went well until we approached the target area… just before turning on to our last leg we could see the attack starting.  All of a sudden there was an explosion and a rattle and thick smoke filled the kite [aircraft]…  Snip the Bomb Aimer said he had been hit in the leg but felt O.K.  Jim [the pilot] took evasive action and swept the sky.  Everything that wasn’t pinned to my table shot up to the ceiling and floated away and that was the last I saw of it.  All I had left was my chart and a pencil in my hand.  The rear gunner reported the bomb bay on fire, so the bomb doors were opened and “bombs gone” was given just before we reached the aiming point.  Again we were attacked and this time the hydraulic pipes which control the gun turrets was shot away and back turrets were u/s [unserviceable].  Things did look black.  Jim tried to close the bomb doors and found they wouldn’t.  By this time we had lost height from 21,000 to 7,000 [feet] and couldn’t climb.  To make matters worse the A.S.I. [Air Speed Indicator] and altimeter were not registering.  We turned for home with a prayer on our lips.  Doing that journey at 7,000 [feet] is no picnic.  Navigation with only a pencil was not going to be accurate either…  Luckily one of my navigating instruments was in working order and I used it to “home” on our drome.  We were ½ hour overdue, but we were back.  When it came our turn to pancake [land], Jim told [flight] control the condition we were in and to stand by.  When he tried to put the wheels down, they didn’t move, so emergency air had to be used, and blow them down.  The trimming tabs were found to be u/s, so no flap could be used, which meant instead of landing at 100-130 mph, we were going to belt in at about 150 mph.  Jim gave us the option of baling out or staying, but we all stayed.  He brought her down and as soon as we touched we knew that both our tyres had been shot away and that we were running on the rims.  However she kept the right way up and we pulled up still in the middle of the runway.  All the heads from control came out, and when they saw the pepper pot, they were loud in their praises for getting back.  Interrogation followed and took nearly 1½ hours.  The Padre was there with his bottle of rum, so I had a drop in my coffee.  The M.O. [Medical Officer] looked after Snip, and gave all of us a pill to make us sleep.

Bill Smith, diary, 3 Nov 1943 1999/195.14c

It was decided that as Bill’s crew had been through such an ordeal, they were to be granted 10 days’ “survivor’s leave” the very next day. 

Next section: Bombing Berlin.