I Flew the Lancaster Bomber

By Leo Richer

The memoirs of Leo Richer, featuring his time as a pilot during World War II flying the Lancaster Bomber.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304805966

Book preview

Cover.psd

I Flew the

Lancaster Bomber

By Leo Richer

I Flew the

Lancaster Bomber

By Leo Richer

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank these five professional people for bringing this book to its successful conclusion: Lynda Harrison for the computer printout and corrections; Janet Wilder for her read-through, helpful comments and publishing advice; Bob, Lisa and Deb Ede of Palliser Printing who were recommended to me by Lynda and who put in a lot of time and effort, youthful enthusiasm and meticulous attention to detail in order to produce the finished product.

Dedication

This book is ‘specially for my

older sister Lena, my son Roger, my daughter

Sherry, her husband David, and my beautiful and loving granddaughter Tess Marie.

February 17, 1945. The postings were up on the call board for the next day’s operations. With a beating heart, I saw my name printed in chalk — P/O Richer: Briefing, 0930 hours.

At long last, the long-awaited day was finally here. I could hardly wait to tell my crew. All along, we had wondered how we would react when actually assigned to our first bombing mission. Well, I can assure you, the butterflies were there, along with a wild anticipation of what lay in store for us.

My crew and I had commenced flying operations at RAF Station Tuddenham, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk — No. 90 Squadron — on February 9, 1945. As the weary English winter (drizzle, rain, drizzle) wore on, we renamed it Muddenham. If you were taxiing your Lancaster to or from a dispersal area and happened to get one wheel off the black top into the squishy, unforgiving turf, you stayed there, with egg on your face, waiting for a tractor to haul you out.

I don’t think any of my crew slept very well that night. We had struck up acquaintances with various other bods on squadron, drinking in the lurid tales they told — deadly German anti-aircraft guns, and the ordeal of having to fly formation. I had just eight hours of formation flying in my log book and that was on single-engine Harvards at Uplands RCAF base in Ottawa, Ontario. While I was pondering the possibility of running one of my propellers up the ass of another Lancaster, the briefing went on. Intelligence, in their mysterious and always secretive ways, had informed HQ Bomber Command that Wesel, in Western Germany, was just crawling with Nazi troops, waiting for Monty and Eisenhower, who were endeavouring to cross the Rhine and get to Berlin before the Russian Bear.

That was the target for today. The giant wall map of Europe was marked with today’s route to Wesel traced out in red pencil, zigging and zagging, ostensibly to fool the German radar and deadly anti-aircraft guns. It was mandatory that the whole crew attended the briefing. The Wing Commander usually opened proceedings, touching on certain aspects of the raid. He had done his tour (30 missions over Germany) so he was well-qualified to stand before some very apprehensive airmen to instill a little confidence in them, especially the sprogs, such as we were.

Then it was the armourers’ turn — bomb load and types of bombs. That varied according to what destruction was wanted at that specific target. It was certain to be devastating. Navigation was usually next in line. The Nav Chief would draw our attention to the huge map to show where the diversionary Lancasters from Training Command would be flying. Again, trying to fool the German radar by having so many aircraft, all going in different directions, to keep them guessing as to the actual Target for Today.

The bomb aimers were given a short spiel by their chief, then the gunnery officer had his say. His was pretty well the same old thing — rotate those turrets and keep your eyes peeled. You have seven lives to look out for. There was a mid-upper and a tail gunner for each Lancaster, and their vision — day or night — was 20-20 perfect.

We were told we would be dropping some bales of Window over target. This consisted of shredded aluminum foil, cut to a certain length, to confuse the German radar. As the bales were cut and released down a chute, the foil would float down and hopefully screw up the enemy radar and negate their anti-aircraft guns. Once they realized what we were up to, they changed their frequency so that we had to alter ours also, to be effective.

The intelligence officer had a go at us. A very cool sort of man. Very entertaining and full of stories about what could happen to you if you should be unlucky enough to be shot down and end up in enemy hands. First of all, he would discourse about the possibility of ditching in the unfriendly and very cold North Sea, in a very uncomfortable rubber dinghy, with a good chance of being rescued within 48 hours. Or parachuting or crash landing in France — or Germany. Heaven forbid either one, but please God, let it be France!

If you were taken prisoner, and many certainly were, all you were required to tell them was your name, rank and number. The Germans had all sort of wily tricks up their sleeves to try to get tactical information from the aircrews as to their state of readiness, the spirit of the people in England, American entry in the war, etc. He told us of one Canadian F/O. He was a pilot. They kept on and on, quizzing and quizzing him unmercifully. He kept repeating his name, rank and number. Finally, he got fed up. He said, So you want me to say something else? The secretaries bent over their notebooks. He gave them an insolent look and said, Fuck you.

With the briefing over with, next on the agenda were bacon and eggs at our respective messes. Needless to say, the butterflies would start to make themselves known. Geez. We’d finally made it. I don’t think I tasted our Last Supper, which it could rightly be, but we never thought of it that way. We had already had a scare or three, and were ready for whatever fate awaited us. You had to be fatalistic in wartime, taking it day by day, trusting in your lucky charm. Live it up today and to hell with tomorrow. What will be, will be. And only God’s will governs there. My lucky charm was a St. Christopher medal my mother had given me prior to going overseas, which I pinned to the front of my leather flying helmet. I firmly believe the revered man and my mother’s prayers brought me back home safe and sound.

I still have that medal, well-worn now. It’s on my car key ring, so that it’s with me at all times. I have come close to having near-fatal accidents and I have driven many miles. Across Canada twice, 20 times or so to the United States, as far south as Arizona, and many times to Vancouver. All without a serious accident, thanks to Chris.

By noon, we had been to our lockers, put on our flying gear, collected our parachutes and hopped aboard the lorries, on our way to the various dispersal areas where our bombed-up Lancs were waiting for us. Up to now, the anticipation of what lay ahead left you wondering if you might even be able to cope with it. But with the typical devil-may-care attitude so many aircrews were forced to adopt in those terrible years of The Grim Reaper, we just said, Let’s go guys, knock the hell out of them.

One by one, we taxied out from our dispersal area onto the perimeter. There were 24 Lancasters in our squadron, and your order in the line of takeoff had been told you at briefing. Being a new crew, we were to be in the first Vic. We were to fly formation on the left of our leader, with another Lanc on his right. Of course, we took off individually and formed up at a designated rendezvous, or so we were supposed to. Trust me to screw up on my first Ops. I stooged around at the 10,000 foot-level, looking for the squadron, finally saying to hell with it and decided to go it alone. There were lots of Lancs aloft — it was a 1,000 plane raid — so I just latched on to the nearest squadron and joined in the fun.

Did I say fun? To begin with, these daylight operations were carried out when the cloud cover was especially heavy, so in