The following two articles were written by James Bartley Bage (of the Tynemouth branch of the family). The first is titled 'A Halifax Rear Gunner' written to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the R.A.F. The second article entitled 'OP No. 15' was written for John Foreman for inclusion in his 'History of the R.A.F.', which also incorporated the Luftwaffe Fighter Command.

On the 11th June 1944, we finished our conversion unit training at Riccall near Selby, and were posted to Holme upon Spalding Moor. After nine hours flying in converting to Mk 3 Halifax's, we were as ready as we could be for the big day we had trained for, to fly on Ops.

A Halifax Mk3

On the night of the 28th June, we were briefed to bomb a V1 site at Mont Candon in France. If ever there was a milk run, this was it. The flight was completely uneventful. No flak, no fighters, absolutely nothing to report.

The following night, at 2200 hours, we took off with railway marshalling yards at Blainville near Dijon as our target. This trip of six hours and fifty minutes was to prove our shake down trip, as we had fighters and fighter flares literally all the way to the target. We had a combat with a JU 88, which in turn, turned out to be a bit of an anti climax in a sense, in that he broke off his attack as soon as I fired on him. I have often wondered whether he was a sprog like us, or an old hand who didn't mix it with wide awake rear gunners. The flak over the target wasn't particularly heavy, just trouble-some. After the previous evenings trip, this was a mind thudding experience, particularly after all the months of flying in clapped out old Whitley's and Halifax's in training.

For the raid, 76 Sqdn. put up 19 aircraft. One aborted. Three were shot down. Our Squadron losses for the night amounted to 16% of our aircraft, a totally unsurvivable figure by any standards.

The day after Blainville, we were sent on leave. I remember thinking whilst on the train journey home to Northampton, "Hang this for a game of soldiers, the odds are not in our favour. Here I am, nineteen years of age with very little visual future ahead of me, we must devise tactics to lengthen these very short odds of survival to favour us surviving not becoming a statistical digit in the loss figures of Bomber crews. But that is another story. Yes, June 1944 was a memorable month in all respects.

On an Ops list being posted, the Station was closed, and no one was allowed out. If one was down for flying, it was a case of out to the aircraft and checking everything, then re-checking. In my case, checking guns, gyro sight, turret for elevation and depression of guns, rotation of turret including Dead mans handle, making sure that the turret was absolutely clean and that the armourers had not left anything lying around that could jam the ammo belts, or any of the turrets movement. The Perspex covering of the turret had to be absolutely clean with no scratches to distract one in the dark. Oxygen supply was checked including portable bottles. First aid kit and anything else that came to mind.

The ground crew would be bombing and fuelling the aircraft, and from the combination of loading Cookies and clusters plus 1000 pounders, or 1000 pounders on their own, with or without wing fuel tanks. With Barometric, Delayed action, or Detonation fuses, we would play a guessing game as to where we were likely to be going. Flying kit was then checked, then either to the billet or the mess to await pre-op meal, then on to briefing.

By the time briefing came around one was getting a little up tight, it showed in so many different ways on everyone. On entering the briefing room, the map of Europe was on the wall facing the room, the all important initial shock was seeing where the target was with the red route marking tape from base stretched endlessly into Europe, and then, it never failed. There would be a moment of silence with everyone sucking in their breath, which would be broken by again someone saying, "Well at least its not as bad as so and so."

After briefing, we would collect our flying kit, flying rations, escape kit with the currency of the countries we were going to fly over. Then into a crew bus, and out to the dispersal point. Depending on the weather, I would dress either completely and sit in the turret awaiting take-off, or sit outside the aircraft until about 10 minutes before take-off before putting on all my kit. I followed this procedure as there was no heating in the Rear turret, and if one were to perspire prior to take-off it was damned uncomfortable when the temperature was low.

I was never particularly fond of take-off with a full load, too many ifs to be apprehensive about. Swing, engine-cutting either before or during take-off, or when one was airborne. Then the long climb to your appointed height and setting course. Oxygen on at 10000 feet and continually searching the sky for both friendly and enemy aircraft, the former to avoid collisions, and the latter as intruders.

The only heating in the rear turret was from the electrically heated suit one wore, which was unreliable at the best of times, when it worked, either too hot, or did not work at all. All too frequently, we were flying in temperatures of -56 F, and in the rear turret with the clear vision panel removed and a slipstream of between 180 and 210 mph, it got very cold and there was literally no room to move ones limbs in order to keep circulation as it should be. Fear, tension and oxygen combined to make the mouth very dry, which was one of the reasons we were issued with glucose sweets and chewing gum. The various crew members would be carrying out their functions. Navigator giving course corrections, turning points, timing, etc. Wireless op passing on wind speeds. Engineer changing fuel tanks and continually watching all his instruments, and the rest of us searching the sky.

As one left the English coast behind, concentration seemed to get keener, I dont really believe it did, but we liked to think so. On crossing the French coastline, there were invariably fighters around. The real activity would start on entering enemy held territory. This would start as the Russelsheim trip did with an assortment of enemy aircraft dropping fighter flares with JU88, FW190, ME110 and ME109's doing the attacking. This would go on for miles with the fighters amongst us. Scarecrows going off, then the search lights, and the never ending flak. In short, it was as though a path was all lit up for us to fly along, and being shot at, like partridges on a shoot. If the winds were out, ETA over target would be affected, which in turn would mean either having to fly on a dog leg to lose time, or conversely trying like hell to make up time.

When we arrived over the target, fires were burning pretty fiercely, the area for miles around gave the impression that the pictures one remembered as a child, of hell, was indeed below us. I will attempt to describe it but whatever I put on paper will never quite capture what it was like. From the ground up to our bombing height of 20000 ft was a varying patchwork of colour. Fire, smoke, cloud, marker flares, flak bursts, tracer, smoke in puffs from flak burst like small clouds blending into one mass of light grey colour, movement, noise and sudden death. In fact over the target there were only the quick and the dead, and I do not mean that in a derogatory manner.

Looking down on this inferno one could see that some fires were outside the pathfinders markers. Flames, smoke and bursting bombs on the ground were a background pattern for the searchlights and the light tracer flak up to 10000 ft, with the heavier stuff between 10000 ft and the height we were flying at. When you could see the flak burst winking at you when they burst, then it was too damned close for comfort, and the aircraft would shudder and thump, and make a noise like a colander full of ball bearings being shaken, and when the shrapnel tore through you it varied in sound, sometimes a fearful shriek, other times a hissing sound, and big lumps would really make a noise, like the piece the armour plating below my turret saved me from being cut in two. There were fighters literally everywhere, with aircraft blowing up, colliding, and going down in flames all over the target area, and all the time the Master Bomber was giving correction bombing instructions to the main stream as to what to bomb on. Over this target, we had a brush collision with another Halifax, whilst on our bombing run, in taking evasive action we were unable to bomb, and had to go round again. This meant flying on a reciprocal course back into the main stream, then turning again through 180 degrees back into the stream to line up again for the bombing run. This time a 109 had a go at us, and we had no sooner got away from him when the mid upper gunner seeing what he believed to be a MA163 going up vertically through the stream. The flak if anything was fiercer than the first time through, and it seemed years before we cleared the target area and set course for home. On leaving the target, a JU88 flew on our homeward bound course about 400ft below us for about twenty minutes. He showed no signs of knowing we were above him, for which we were most thankful. 100 miles from the target, I could still see the fires burning fiercely at Russelscheim.

That particular Op took 5 hours and 55 minutes, on landing it still wasn't over, as we then had to report to be de-briefed, combat reports made out, damage to aircraft, and in fact a complete resume of the trip we had just flown on. After de-briefing we then had a meal and were ready for bed. All in all from the posting of the op, we had been living it for 15 hours 40minutes. I have tried to keep this report impersonal, mainly to avoid exaggeration which really is not necessary anyway.

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