The Separation

1

My first impression of Jack (‘JL’) Sawyer was entirely favourable. I’d been posted to 148 Squadron and along with the other people in the same position I was going through the RAF’s rather eccentric and informal method of crew selection. Everyone was sent to the drill hangar and left to sort themselves out into crews. I noticed JL soon after we walked in, partly because he was an officer - at that early stage in the war most of the men who were picked for operational flying were ‘other ranks’ like me, so JL was already unusual - but also because he was a career officer, not from the Reserve. I immediately assumed I’d be far too humble to be in his crew. He’d been chatting with a tall young warrant officer wearing the insignia of a flight engineer but then he came up to me, a friendly expression on his face.

‘You’re a navigator, aren’t you?’ he said.

He spoke with a good voice, in those days the sort of thing people like me called a BBC accent, but he gave it an amused lilt, conveying the impression that he was slightly mocking himself. He was a big chap: he had broad shoulders, a long back and strong arms, an athletic way of walking. I found out later that he had competed in the Olympics, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew that day was that he gave off an aura of self-confidence, suggesting a kind of inner strength. I instinctively liked him, I felt I might be safe in his aircraft.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sergeant Sam Levy, sir.’

‘We don’t use ranks when we fly together,’ JL said. ‘How did you get on with the training?’

‘All right, I think. I was only lost once.’

‘What did you do about it?’

‘We found an airfield and landed, then phoned back to the base. They gave us the right course to find our way home. It was the first time I’d guided a plane on my own and it hasn’t happened since.’

‘At least you’re honest about it! Where do you come from?’

‘I’m a Londoner,’ I said. ‘Tottenham.’

‘I was born in Gloucestershire. I’m JL Sawyer. Would you like to take a chance in my crew?’

‘Yes, I would!’ I said. ‘They said at nav school that everyone gets lost once. It’s not going to be a habit.’

He laughed at that, slapped an arm around my shoulders and took me to meet the flight engineer, Warrant Officer John Skinner, or ‘Lofty’, as we learned to call him. In the same casual way we soon found the rest of the chaps needed to form a crew:

I’d been chatting earlier with an Aussie bomb aimer called Ted Burrage, so he joined up with us - he already knew a Polish gunner called Kris Galasckja and a young bloke from Canada called Colin Anderson, a wireless operator. With the crew selection complete, the six of us trooped off to the canteen to have a cup of tea and start sizing one another up.

JL struck me as a typical RAF ‘type’: he was handsome, wore his cap at a rakish angle, he was obsessed with flying, used RAF slang with an easy familiarity, moved his hands around to simulate aircraft movements, he was battle-experienced, knowledgeable about targets and bombing methods and full of good advice for us inexperienced recruits. He even told us he’d been to Germany before the war and had seen Hitler in person. Before I went to bed that night I was congratulating myself on having found a first-rate captain.

Four weeks later, after we completed intensive navigation, gunnery and bombing trials, we were feeling as if we were a proper crew. JL’s experience was invaluable. He’d been on daylight ops, for one thing, which earned our respect: we knew how dangerous those trips had been. Then he’d been on several shipping sweeps, again a background that gave him a great deal of experience of flying over the sea, which was handy for us. By RAF wartime standards he was an old hand at the bombing game, already partway through his first tour with eleven completed raids under his belt. He was a natural leader and gained our respect from the outset.

After the trials we were assigned our own Wellington: A-Able. We flew on our first proper mission as a crew in the last week of August 1940, a raid on somewhere in the Ruhr. I don’t mind admitting I was terrified by the experience. Even at the time I’d no idea if we hit the target or not. The next night we were sent to attack an airfield in the Low Countries. More raids followed, and that became the way we lived our lives in the next few weeks and months: a constant round of training, preparedness, stand-bys, raids. It was a hard, cold, frightening and exhausting time, but I think I can speak for all of JL’s crew during those weeks when I say that none of us would have changed a thing.

2

For several weeks during the winter and spring of 1941, though, I was convinced JL was cracking up under the strain. Strange behaviour went with the job we were doing. They used to say that you had to be crazy to volunteer for active duty, but that was only partly serious, almost an embarrassed excuse. A lot of us were recruits but we were willing recruits, knowing we had to do our bit in the war. We were attracted by the feeling of defiance to Hitler that was such a feature of life in those days. As for volunteering for ops: if truth be known, most of us secretly thought we had the best of it. None of us would swap our lot for what the ground crews had to do, for instance. They weren’t in much danger but they worked long, hard hours, slaving outside in all weathers, a daily round of chores with not much chance of excitement. We wanted a bit of action, a bit of glamour, and although the reality of being aircrew was not in the least glamorous, we were the only ones who knew that. Being aircrew was a sure-fire way of impressing girls, for one thing.

The real problem was the stark contrast between the inactivity of most of the days and the dangers of some of the nights. Many of the men developed a reputation for odd behaviour, verging in some cases on eccentricity or weirdness. After a while you took no notice of the air-gunner who went everywhere in his balaclava helmet, the man who whistled quietly through his teeth through the briefing sessions, the flight engineer who adamantly refused to take off his flying jacket, even when he went to bed. Everyone carried personal good-luck tokens - hours could be spent in frantic searching when one of those little mascots went missing. Some people became withdrawn or aggressive between ops, yet transformed themselves into wild extroverts before we actually took off. On the nights when we were not on operations, most of us would go down to the mess and get smashed: drunken revels were not only tolerated by our senior officers, in the end we came to think they were expected of us.

So odd behaviour was normal, nothing you would comment on. Unless, that is, it showed itself in a member of your own crew. Then you began to worry if your own safety in the air might be at risk.

This was what started to worry me about JL. I noticed that he often went off the airfield without telling us he was going, sometimes, as far as I could tell, without arranging official leave. He was secretive about these activities and other matters. Things came to a head when Kris Galasckja, our rear gunner, commented that he’d accidentally overheard JL on the telephone one morning and thought he’d heard him speaking German.

Lofty Skinner was the second most senior member of the crew, so I had a word with him first. It turned out that he too had been observing JL’s behaviour. We therefore cornered JL one evening in the bar and asked him straight out what was going on. He was surprised at first, then he looked relieved and admitted he was glad we had asked him. He said that there was something he had been trying to keep quiet, for all sorts of reasons. He asked us to keep it under our hats too.

He told us that he was married and that he had been since before the war. He knew that it didn’t create a special situation, but he said he and his wife had been trying for some time to start a family. Now she was pregnant, with the baby expected at the end of May.

‘The first two or three months were relatively trouble-free, but she’s been having a lot of problems recently Her blood pressure’s up and there are other symptoms. Because of the war, because of the difficulties of my being away from home, I’m going crazy with worry about her.’

‘Shouldn’t she be in hospital?’ I said.

‘Yes, of course. But we live close to Manchester and because of the bombing the hospitals are stretched to the limit. Pregnant women are being kept at home as much as possible.’

He explained how isolated their house was, in a village on the Cheshire side of the Pennines, no telephone, not much in the way of modern comforts. JL said that he was using a motorcycle borrowed from one of the other pilots. Whenever he saw the chance, he said, he hopped on the motorbike and rode home as quickly as possible. He always made sure he was back at the base in time and, like us, he treated the safety of the crew as a priority.

‘Skip, that’s not good enough,’ Lofty said. ‘Some of the other officers are married and several of them have brought their wives to live close to the airfield. Why can’t you do that? There are all the maternity facilities at Barnham Hospital she would ever need. And why haven’t you said anything about it before?’

‘I didn’t want to concern you.’

‘It is our concern, JL. If your mind is on something else while we’re on a raid, if you’re tired out from riding a motorbike half across England to be back in time, you won’t be up to the mark.’

‘Have you ever felt I have endangered you?’

‘No,’ Lofty said, and I had to agree with him.

‘Then can’t we leave it at that?’

‘I’m still not happy about it. Why do you have to be so secretive? Does the Wingco know what’s going on?’

‘No,’ JL said. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Then why not?’

‘I haven’t got around to mentioning it.’

Lofty spoke again. ‘JL, do you speak German?’

‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Sam, tell him.’

‘The other day, Kris overheard you on the phone. He said you were speaking German.’

‘I was probably making one of my regular calls to Adolf Hitler, tipping him off about the next raid.’ JL grinned at us, then took a deep swig of his beer. ‘All right, I’ll tell you the rest. My wife was born in Germany. I sometimes speak to her in her own language.’

‘Your wife is German?’ I said, amazed by the revelation.

‘No, she’s British, but she was born in Germany. She moved to Britain in 1936 and she was naturalized as soon as we were married. There’s a lot I could tell you about her, but since the war began I’ve felt that the less said about her background the better. We’re in a bit of a jam over it. You’ve heard the rumours about a fifth column. Because of the rumours the government is interning German nationals, or anyone with even a remote connection with the place. Well, my wife is on that list, I’m sorry to say. Only the fact that she’s pregnant and is married to a serving RAF officer is keeping her safe from internment. Or, at least, that’s what I suspect is the case.’

We sat in silence for a while. I for one was wishing we’d kept our fears to ourselves, but at least everything was out in the open now. Whenever I tipped up my glass to drink from it I used the movement to look at JL. Something about him appeared to have changed: he seemed smaller, more human and vulnerable. He’d exposed something of himself to Lofty and me and in the process he had lost some of the flair that had impressed me so much. I decided I wanted to hear no more about his private life. I was thinking ahead to the next time when we would need to pin our faith on his judgment and flying skills, be able to accept his orders without doubt or question. It would be risky to take this clumsy interrogation of him too far if it threatened to undermine the authority he enjoyed or the willing compliance we normally showed.

3

We went through that part of the war OK. There were a few nasty surprises: one night, over Gelsenkirchen, a flak shell took away part of our tailplane. Kris Galasckja in the rear turret swore for half an hour - after all, the part of the tail that was hit was only a few feet from his head but other than causing the plane to swoop with a stomach-heaving lurch whenever we made a turn, no real harm was done. On another night, returning from an otherwise incident-free trip to Kiel, our Wellington was attacked by a German intruder fighter as we tried to land at the airfield. JL managed to keep control, aborted the landing and by the time we had circled round before making our second attempt the intruder had been frightened away by our ground fire.

Gradually the nights were getting shorter and the weather, at least on the ground, was becoming warmer. Shorter nights were good news for us. They meant that we were sent to targets that required less time flying over Germany itself: we went instead to the North Sea ports, military bases in the occupied countries or the industrial towns in north-east Germany.

JL’s odd behaviour continued, but now it took a slightly different form.

One afternoon, for example, I hitched a lift into Barnham, the nearest town to the airfield. I’d finally grown fed up with suffering cold feet during our long flights. The standard-issue socks were too thin. Even if you put on several pairs under your flying boots you still weren’t warm enough. I was looking around the shops, hoping to find some woollen socks. They’d been in short supply throughout the winter - shortages of just about everything was something we had to put up with. I saw JL walking along the road on the other side, coming towards me. We were too far apart to speak to each other, but it was certainly him and because he was looking around our eyes briefly met. I raised my hand in greeting. He made no response and walked on.

This encounter struck me as odd for a couple of reasons. We were due to be on an op that night, which was incidentally why I’d picked that afternoon to try to buy some warm socks. JL was on the base with the rest of the crew. I’d eaten lunch with him in the canteen and in fact I’d been talking to him by the main gate before I hopped on the truck for a lift into town. He hadn’t travelled with me, so I was surprised to see him again so soon. Finally, and this was what made an impression: he was out of uniform, wearing civvy clothes.

I carried on, found a shop, used my clothing coupons to buy a couple of pairs of the socks I wanted and was back at the airfield in time for a cup of tea with the others. I saw JL soon after I arrived, but the incident hardly seemed worth remarking on and was soon forgotten. That night we went to Brest docks, trying to hit the German battlecruiser Gneisenau.

The following day, during the afternoon, I ran into Lofty Skinner, who asked me if I’d seen JL anywhere about. I said not. Lofty told me there was a message for him from Group, but he was nowhere in the Officers’ Mess, nor in his room, the ground crew hadn’t seen him and according to the guardroom he’d not left the base. The next day we saw JL again, talking to one of the other pilots outside the NAAFI.

One evening around the middle of April, Lofty and I came up on the rota for one of the regular perimeter patrols. Perimeter checks had to be carried out twice a day and were one of the more unpopular routine duties, especially in winter. All the crews had to take their turn. It involved a long walk around the airfield, taking the best part of two hours, checking not only that the fence was still intact and that there were no obvious signs of anyone trying to get in, but also testing the navigation and landing lights. In fact these lights were used only rarely or selectively, because of the risk from enemy intruders, but they had to be switched on for night landings and in emergencies, when they were of course invaluable.

We were at the furthest, western end of the airfield, about as far away from the admin and ops buildings as it was possible to get. Here the runway ran out into the countryside, with a main road some distance away on one side, separated from us by a field and some hedgerows, and with several dense patches of woodland on the other. Lofty suddenly touched my arm.

‘Look, Sam,’ he said, pointing ahead. ‘That’s the skipper, isn’t it?’

We could see a male figure dimly distinguishable ahead, standing among the trees that grew up thickly against the fence. He was too far away for us to make out his features clearly, but his size and the way he stood were familiar and we both immediately recognized him as JL. He was not in his uniform but was wearing a large, dark brown overcoat. At the moment we first saw him he appeared not to have noticed us, but as we drew nearer he glanced quickly in our direction then stepped back into the trees. By the time we reached the part of the perimeter closest to him, there was no sign of him.

Now, what might seem peculiar is that neither Lofty nor I said anything about what we had seen. At the time I found it difficult, particularly Lofty’s lack of a reaction: did he know something I didn’t?, had I been mistaken in identifying the man?, was Lofty waiting for me to say something about it?, and so on. Three-quarters of an hour later we were back at squadron headquarters.

Soon after we had turned in our guard rifles, we were walking back to the mess and almost the first person we saw was JL. He was wearing his RAF uniform again. He said nothing about the incident in the wood.

Afterwards, I said to Lofty, ‘That was JL standing in the trees, wasn’t it?’

He obviously knew at once what I meant.

‘Yes. Have you any idea what he was up to?’

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

‘I was talking to Ted this morning. He said he’d seen JL hanging around outside the guard post at the main gate.’

‘No reason why he shouldn’t,’ I said.

‘That’s right. But also, there’s no reason why he should.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘He’s still a good pilot, though.’

‘Yes.’

In the last week of April I was given a weekend pass, so I went to stay with my parents in their house in north London. One of my sisters, Sara, had joined the Auxiliary Nursing Service and was being posted to a hospital in Liverpool. She was also passing through that weekend, before heading up north. We were concerned for her because at that time the Blitz was at its height and the seaports were being attacked regularly. Churchill was still in full control and everywhere you went you heard and saw the effect he was having. Germany could never beat Britain so long as that extraordinary mood of bravery and resilience survived. Sara and I felt stirred by it, but also humbled. You could only do a bit yourself. Dad took us down to a part of Green Lanes that had been flattened in a recent night raid. We walked around for a while, looking in horror at the damage to the area we knew so well, where we grew up. On the Saturday night the whole family went out to a pub, followed by a dance.

My dad was a sports fan and over lunch on Sunday, shortly before I was due to set off on the slow journey back to the airfield, he mentioned that he’d seen our squadron mentioned in one of the newspapers. A former sporting hero had become a bomber pilot with the RAF and was based at Tealby Moor. He asked me if I knew who they meant. Of course, without more clues than that it could have been anyone. Dad said he’d kept the newspaper and he started hunting around for it, determined to show me and to find out the name of the man. He was still searching when I had to leave.

The following evening, when I was back at the base, Dad phoned me from a callbox. His voice was faint and we were limited to three minutes, but his excitement was almost tangible.

‘That chap I told you about,’ he shouted down the line. ‘His name is Sawyer, J. L. Sawyer. Do you know him?’

‘JL’s our pilot, Dad,’ I said. ‘I told you that ages ago, when I first got here. He’ll be in that crew photograph I sent you.’

‘Name wouldn’t have meant anything to me then. But listen, I’ve been looking him up in a book in the library and he took a bronze for Great Britain.’

‘A bronze medal?’ I said stupidly. ‘Like in the Olympics?’

‘That’s right. He was out in Berlin in 1936. The Jerries came first, but it was a hard race and we came in a good third. Has he ever talked about it?’

‘No, never. Not to me, at any rate.’

‘Why don’t you ask him? That was something, going over to Germany like that and winning a few medals.’

‘What event was he in, Dad? Was he a runner, or what?’

‘He was a rower. Coxless pairs. It all comes back to me. I heard it on the wireless at the time. It was him and his brother, identical twins called Sawyer. They did well for England, they did.’

‘Does it say what his brother’s name is?’ I said.

‘They didn’t put first names in the book. All the competitors are there under their initials. That’s the funny thing about those two: they had the same initials. "J. L." That’s what they were both called.’

‘Does it say one of them was called Jack?’

‘No . . . just ‘J. L." for them both,’ my father said, but our conversation ended peremptorily when the money ran out.

5

Then came the evening of May 10, 1941, the night our plane was shot down.

It began as one of those long evenings of early summer when light seems to hang around for ever, even after sunset. During the long winter we had grown used to the idea that we would take off in the dark and never see daylight again until we woke up the next day, after the raid. But now we were in May and double summer time had been introduced the weekend before. We took off while the sun was still just above the horizon and as we circled for height and set out eastwards across the North Sea we were flying in a serene evening light. The air was soft, free of turbulence. Whenever I went to the navigator’s dome to take a positional fix I could see the long twilight lingering around us.

We were about a hour into the flight, still climbing slowly towards our operating altitude, when Ted Burrage in the forward gun turret suddenly yelled into the intercom.

‘Fighters! German fighters down there!’

‘Where are they, Ted?’ JL’s voice came immediately. He sounded calm. ‘I can’t see them yet.’

‘About twelve o’clock, sir. Dead ahead, quite a long way off’

‘I still can’t see them.’

‘Sorry, there’s only one. Me-110,I think. Way below us, heading west, straight for us.’

‘Is he acting as if he’s seen us?’

‘I don’t think so!’

I was standing at the side nav window at the time and had a clear view around and below us. No other aircraft were in sight. As soon as Ted called his warning I moved forward, clambering up into the cockpit behind JL’s seat so that I could look through the main canopy. Moments later I too could see the plane: a small black shape, some way below us, fully visible against a silvery plateau of clouds.

It was unusual to meet any German fighters so far out to sea, even more so to see one at low altitude. Luftwaffe pilots normally gained the advantage of height before diving to attack.

‘Permission to open fire on him, skip?’ Ted said. ‘He’s almost in range.’

‘No, keep an eye on him, Ted. No point letting him know we’re here if he hasn’t spotted us yet.’

I suddenly made out a movement beyond the Me-110.

‘There are more of them down there!’ I said. ‘Look! Behind him!’

Four single-engined fighters were rapidly catching up with the larger aircraft, swooping down on it from the east. Even as I watched they went into a steep turning dive and accelerated towards the twin-engined plane. I could see the firefly flicker of their wing-mounted cannons, the lines of tracer curving towards the Me-110. The pilot of the twin-engined plane responded at last, making a climbing turn, briefly presenting a plan shape of his aircraft against the grey clouds, but then twisting around, diving away from his attackers. I saw a spurt of flame from one of his engines.

Our own track was taking us on past the fight. We were almost on top of the German aircraft. I dodged back to one of the side windows, but could see nothing.

‘Boom! Boom!’ It was Kris’s distinctive voice, loud in my earphones.

‘What’s up?’ said JL.

‘They got him! I see it all. Four Me-109s and a 110. They got him! Boom!’

‘Is he down?’

‘Bloody big bang! Big flames, big smoke! Down in the sea, skip!’

‘What about the 109s?’

‘Can’t see. They scattered.’

‘Kris, are you certain you saw the 110 crash?’

‘Rear gunner has best seat. Germans attacking Germans. Good stuff!’

‘OK, everyone, keep your eyes open for more bandits.’

I clambered awkwardly up through the fuselage, past Col’s radio kit, and returned to the cockpit, intending to talk to JL about what had happened. He was fully alert, scanning the sky in all directions. He registered my presence and unclipped the mike so we could speak direct.

‘Did you see the 110 go down, Sam?’ he shouted over the roar of the engines.

‘No. We’ve only Kris to go on.’

‘Good enough for me,’ JL said, and I nodded vehemently. We both clipped our mikes on again.

‘More Messerschmitts!’ It was Ted again, from the front turret. ‘About three o’clock. Below us again.’

I craned forward, trying to see down and to the right-hand side. JL kept the Wellington on a steady track, still climbing slowly.

‘I can see!’ I shouted. ‘Same thing as before . . . another Me-110, this one heading due north. He’ll cross under us in a moment.’

‘Has he seen us?’

‘Doesn’t look like it.’

He was a long way off to our right, flying low against the clouds, crossing our track.

‘Hold your fire, gunners!’JL said crisply. ‘They’re not looking for us.’

‘What’s going on down there, JL?’

‘Haven’t the faintest.’

‘There are the 109s again!’ This was Lofty, from somewhere down the fuselage. ‘They must have circled round.’

‘No, the last lot buggered off,’ I said. I could see the smaller fighters now, flying fast and low from the south, catching up with the 110. Apart from the different direction from which they appeared, it was an almost exact replay of what we had seen a few moments before. I saw the fighters go into a diving turn, accelerating towards the larger aircraft. Cannon fire glinted on their wings. Tracer curled across the short gap between them.

But once again our track was taking us over the dogfight.

‘We’re losing sight of them, Kris! Can you see what’s going on?’

‘Rear gunner has best seat. Yeah! They go for him!’

I moved back from the cockpit and found Lofty pressing his face against the thick perspex of the port-side nav window. I crammed up against him, trying to see.

‘They miss!’ It was Kris again, from the rear turret. ‘He’s OK!’

‘They’ll go round again, won’t they?’

‘I lost them. Wait!’

JL came on. ‘Don’t forget, if any of those crates see us we’re in trouble. No one relax!’

‘Yes skip.’

‘Sam, can you get a fix for us? I need to know where we are, how far from the coast.’

‘OK, JL. Give me a few minutes.’

From the rear, Kris said, ‘I can’t see them no more. The 110 was OK. I saw him fly on.’

‘Which direction was he going in?’

‘Due north.’

‘What about the Me-109s?’

‘Like you say, they bugger off.’

We remained fully alert, knowing for certain that there were German fighters in the vicinity, knowledge no bomber crew liked to have. A strange sense of purpose settled on us. With remarkable efficiency the gunners reported at regular intervals on what they could see in the skies around us and I completed the fix I had been taking.

When I had worked out our position, I reported the information over the intercom to JL.

‘How far does that put us from the German coast?’ he said.

‘A couple of hundred miles,’ I replied. About two hundred and sixty from the Danish coast, though.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because that was the direction the first lot were coming from. That would place their airfield somewhere on the Danish mainland.’

‘They might have come from Germany’

‘It looked to me as if the second lot did. Either way, the Me-109s would have been close to the limit of their range.’

‘Presumably that’s why they buzzed off as soon as they could.’

‘Right. So what were they up to, trying to shoot down their own?’

‘Beats me.’

We were closing on the German coast and we said nothing more about the strange incident. Other business was more pressing. By this time it was completely dark outside the aircraft and I needed to take another positional fix to be certain of where we would be crossing the coast. I worked it out and reported it to JL: our landfall would be a few miles to the west of Cuxhaven.

Not long after, Ted Burrage reported flak coming up from below and the familiar sick feeling of fear rose in me. While we were under attack from anti-aircraft fire, or while we were on a bombing run, I had to sit tight inside my little cubicle, unable to see what was happening outside. All I had to go on was the movement of the aircraft, the change in the pitch of the engines, the explosions of the flak and the often incoherent shouts from the rest of the crew coming through the intercom. On those flights in which we penetrated deep into German or occupied territory the racket could continue for several hours.

That night, though, our target was Hamburg, a port about fifty miles inland from the coast on the long estuary of the River Elbe, so we wouldn’t have to be over enemy territory for long. I plotted the route from the coast to our turning point and reported the bearing to JL. After that I worked out the course that would take us directly over the Hamburg docks, the intended drop-zone for bombing. After the plane had manoeuvred round to the new course I heard the voices of the rest of the crew changing when they reported in. As we neared the target everyone spoke more quickly. Their breath rasped noisily in my headset and sentences were left unfinished. They all seemed to be on the point of shouting.

While we were still on the way to the bombing zone I began to work out the best course for home: the shortest route back to the German coastline, a dog-leg to take us around the known positions of certain German flak ships moored offshore, then, once we were safely out to sea, swinging round to take us by a direct westerly route towards the beacon on the Lincolnshire coast and after that to our airfield. All the time the aircraft was shifting attitude and position and bucking violently whenever a flak shell burst close to us, but from the sound of Ted Burrage’s voice, and from JL’s responses, I gained the impression that things were going as smoothly as could be expected. Those last moments before the drop were the worst for most of the crew, but it was a time of great concentration for the bomb aimer and pilot.

I forced myself to be calm, staring down at my maps and charts and trying to calculate angles and distances, but in reality what I was waiting for was the blessed moment when we felt the bombs being released from the bomb-bay.

‘Let’s go home!’ someone shouted as soon as the aircraft gave its familiar judder of relief. The plane was rising, free of the weight of the bomb load.

‘Keep your eyes peeled!’JL said brusquely. ‘There’s a long way to go yet.’

‘Can’t we lift above this lot?’

‘Bomb aimer, get back to your turret.’

‘Yes, skip.’

‘Christ! That one was close!’

‘Everyone all right?’

‘Yes, skip.’

‘Both engines normal.’

‘Anyone behind us?’

‘Another couple of Wellingtons.’

‘OK, hold on. We can’t turn yet. Searchlights ahead. Some poor devil has been coned.’

‘Can’t we go round them?’

‘They’re on all sides.’

Releasing the bombs had that effect. For a few minutes everyone was talking at once, the held-back fears and excitement rushing out of us. I waited for the others to quieten a little, then I read out our new course to JL. He repeated it back to me.

‘Turning now,’ JL said. I felt the plane moving to port, the engines’ note changing as they took up the temporary strain of the turn. It was all right, it was going to be all right. It felt all right after you dropped the bombs: illogically because the plane was lighter and you were heading for home, you believed the gunners on the ground couldn’t see you. If there were any fighters up they wouldn’t be looking for you anymore. The worst was over.

6

Except that on that night the worst was yet to come.

Something struck us explosively at the front of the plane. I felt the shock of the impact, was thrown against the wall of the aircraft by the blast and scorched by the sudden glare of white flame as it ballooned briefly down the fuselage. I fell to the floor as the plane tipped over.

‘That’s it! Bail out, everyone!’

I heard JL’s desperate words through the intercom, but they were followed by a dead silence on the earphones. The intercom lead had jerked out of its socket as I fell. I think I blacked out for a few seconds. Then I was back, in an agony of pain. Blood was running down over my eyes, gluing my eyelids. Something must have hit me in the leg, high up, close to the hip. When I put my hand down to see what damage there was, I could feel more blood all over my trousers and tunic. Freezing cold air was jetting in through a large hole in the floor, below and slightly to the side of my desk. All the lights were out. The engines were screaming and the angle of the plane’s dive was rolling me towards the front. My injured leg banged against something jagged that was sticking out from the floor and I yelled with pain.

Suddenly terrified that I alone had survived the explosion, that I was trapped inside the plane as it plunged towards the ground, I dragged myself from under the remains of my navigation table and pulled myself along the uneven floor of the fuselage. Because of the plane’s steep angle it was easier than it would otherwise have been, but I had to get past the large hole that had appeared in the floor. The broken spars of the plane’s geodetic hull jutted up sharply.

I had managed to squeeze past the hole when I heard the note of the engines change. They throttled back, under control, and I felt the downward pressure of G-force on me as the plane levelled out of its dive. I’d rolled forward so that I had fetched up against the back of the pilot’s seat. I hauled myself up and saw JL sitting there, silhouetted by the dim light from the instruments. He was at a crooked angle, but reaching forward with both hands to hold the control stick. The front of the aircraft had suffered great damage: most of the fuselage ahead of the cockpit had been blown apart. Freezing air battered in against us.

Seeing the difficulty he was having with the controls, I reached over and tried to help him by taking some of the weight of the column, but he brushed my hand aside. My intercom lead had followed me down the fuselage so I plugged it into the socket on the instrument panel.

I shouted, ‘Are you hurt, JL?’

‘No!’ His voice was high with tension. I glanced up at him, but his face was unreadable behind the oxygen mask and flying goggles. ‘Well, nothing serious. It got me in the gut,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s OK. More like a big punch than a wound. What about you? You’re covered in blood.’

‘Head wound. Something wrong with my leg.’

‘What about the others?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone else.’

‘I told everyone to bail out.’

‘I heard that. What about Ted Burrage? Or Lofty?’

‘I don’t know. Remind me of that course to get us home!’

‘Do you think we can make it?’

‘I’m going to have a damned good try!’

The plane was apparently responding to the controls, although there was extensive damage to the fuselage. Both engines were running OK, but JL said that the port engine was starting to overheat.

The shock of the explosion wiped all thoughts from my mind and I couldn’t remember the course I’d worked out. I crawled back to the remains of the nav cubicle, holding the emergency torch. By some miracle my pad was on the floor beside the hole, the pages fluttering stiffly in the gale. I grabbed it and hauled myself back to the cockpit. I read out the two courses and JL confirmed them. For a moment it felt as if we were flying normally.

By the time the plane was back on a more or less even keel we had long since crossed the German coast and were heading out over the North Sea. Our course no longer had to be exact, because once we were close to British air space there were direction-finding aids we could use. Getting lost was the least of our worries. Of greater concern was the condition of the port engine, which had obviously taken a hit somewhere. JL throttled it back to ease some of the strain, then a few minutes later he pulled it back a little more.

‘How long before we lose too much height?’ I shouted.

‘An hour maybe.’

‘Are we going to make it?’

‘What’s the distance to the coast?’

‘More than a hundred miles.’ It was only a guess. Without my charts and instruments I couldn’t be sure of anything.

‘I think at least one of us will be OK,’JL said, but he knew as little as I did. Those were the last clear words I heard him utter. Suddenly, the dark sea filled our forward view, pale ripples reflecting the moonlight. We were already much lower than I had realized. Our dive had taken us to about a couple of hundred feet above the sea. JL leaned the weight of his body to the side, shoving the control column to the left - the plane briefly steadied, but we were so close to the surface of the water that we could see the surging shape of the waves.

JL shouted something, but I was unable to understand him.

The engines throttled back, the nose dipped. I could see the waves through the gaps in the fuselage ahead of us where the nose of the aircraft had been blasted away. I stared ahead, filled with a terrible despair. I could smell the salty sea on the freezing air that was rushing in at us. It reminded me, with shocking clarity, of childhood holidays at the seaside. Windy days, huddling out of the rain in a hut on the edge of the beach at Southend, the wide flat sands damp from the ebbing tide. That cold salt wind. I was certain I was about to die. This turned out to be how it was when you died: you died with your childhood before you. I was immobilized with fear, the sight of the sea, the huge black surface rising up towards us at a crazy angle and at a terrifying speed, believing that the end was upon me and that all my life this finality had been selected by that one moment in childhood.

There the flight ended. I cannot remember the moment of the crash or how I was thrown out of the wreck. I next remember I was in the water, floating face down, surrounded by the appalling, unlimited coldness of the sea. I was rising and falling with a sick sensation. Water was in my face, ears, nose, mouth, eyes. When I tried to draw breath I felt an awful fullness in my lungs, a sensation that I couldn’t open them any more to draw in air. Somewhere, from deep and low inside me, a last bubble of air choked out of my throat and burst briefly around my eyes. I snapped into awareness, thinking that I had lost even that, that last gasp of air. I raised my head backwards out of the water, to a black nightmare of heaving, swelling waves, then down again beneath the surface. But I had been in the air so I struggled and floundered again in the dark, pushing my face out of the water, my mouth out of the water, trying to suck in air, trying to empty my lungs of the sea.

Every attempt to breathe was a struggle against death. I coughed, spurted water, sucked at the air, but too late! I was under the waves and taking in more water. I choked it out somehow, breathed again, sank again. I thrashed my arms, trying to lift myself out of the water long enough to live.

I was surrounded by floating debris from the plane. As I flailed my arms about, struggling for life, they sometimes banged against these small pieces of wreckage. I snatched at whatever they were, trying to interrupt the endless deadly sequence of sinking and resurfacing. Most of the flotsam was too small to hold my weight and anyway slipped from my grasp.

I was tiring rapidly wanted to end the struggle, to give up and let death take me. I choked once more, tasting vomit-flavoured salt water as it jetted out through my nose and mouth. I thought that was it, that I was breathing only water. I let go, slipped backwards, relaxing at last, feeling the weight of my flying gear drag me under. It was a relief to give way to death, to glimpse the darkness that was waiting for me beyond life. The rage to live had gone.

But a wave washed over my face and as it did so I felt air bubbles bursting from my mouth. Somehow I had taken in air.

Once again I struggled to the surface and gasped for breath.

There beside me, dark and silent, was the round shape of the emergency dinghy, self-inflated on impact. I swung an arm up, clasped one of the ratlines, got my elbow through it, then after another long effort, fighting the pain that was erupting from my leg, I managed to hook my other arm through the rope.

I clung there, my head at last safely above the surface of the water, breathing in with a horrible gulping desperation, but breathing. Gradually my panting steadied. Breathing became almost normal and whenever the choppy sea raised itself high enough to splash a wave across my face, I was able to hold my breath for a second or two, shake off the water, then breathe again. I was not going to drown after all.

The next enemies, clamouring to take me, were the cold and the pain.

It became vital that I should somehow manage to pull myself out of the water, flip myself over the inflated wall and fall into the rubber well of the dinghy, where I might lie in comparative dryness until rescue came.

Somehow, in that freezing May night, against the huge swell of the sea, against the pain and weakness in my body, I must have done that, because my next memory is of the breaking dawn, a rubbery smell, a soft and shifting floor beneath me, a curve of bright yellow rubber against a dark blue sky, a sense that the sea was distant, that I was tossing somewhere alone, perhaps in some after-life limbo.

Yet when I hauled myself to the inflated yellow tube that was the wall of the dinghy and raised myself up with both elbows so that I could see over the edge, there was the great endless sea around me, everywhere, heaving and grey. The sun glinted low and yellow from between dark clouds on the horizon.

I felt the touch of wind.

I lay there, probably in great danger of dying but no longer in any condition to know or care, when at last my dinghy was spotted by an aircraft. I heard the engine but I was too weak to wave or set off the flares. The pilot tipped the plane’s wings, swooped down over me, turned at a distance, flew low across me again. Then the aircraft headed away. By that time it no longer mattered to me whether it was British, German or any other nationality, but it turned out that it must have been British. Two hours after the plane flew away an RAF Air-Sea Rescue launch came out and saved my life.

I was alone on that sea, the only survivor from our plane. If there was a miracle that night it was one that saved me. Of the others, Ted, Col, Lofty, Kris, JL, they were killed when the aircraft was shot down, or if they survived that then they must have drowned after the plane hit the sea.

That was the end of JL, the last I knew of him. ‘I think at least one of us will be OK,’ he had said to me in the last moments before he died.