The Gee problem was fixed so Easy could be part of a 550-bomber force attacking Stuttgart the following night. But the Germans plotted their course all the way to the target and were waiting. So as to mislead the enemy and avoid concentrated ack-ack battery positions, bombers never made a beeline for their destination and this night's raid took the squadron down the west side of France before turning left. Easy was 110 miles south of Paris on the way to Stuttgart when, despite a moonless sky, George spotted a Dornier 217 fighter 200 yards away on the port upper quarter and ordered: "Corkscrew port".
Fred said: "We were flying merrily along at night and all of a sudden my rear gunner says 'dive port'. I looked around and saw a two-engined aircraft not very far behind - only a few aircraft distances away. I could make out two crew sat side by side. I also saw the tracer bullets of my rear gunner shooting at him and it looked as though it was very good shooting. What impressed me was the accuracy of his firing. I went on doing corkscrew flying until he told me to stop. I could have hit another aircraft but you don't think of those things." Sitting next to the right person on a train nearly six months earlier was the sort of good luck that might now have saved the lives of the crew. The rollercoaster corkscrewing threw the flight engineer's logsheets into the air and out of the aircraft through the chute. The enemy aircraft broke away to starboard. Hughie ordered corkscrew port three minutes later and also opened fire on probably the same fighter now 300 yards away to port. The gunners fired 200 rounds in the attack, during which the bomb-laden Lancaster lost 500ft in height. Although the Dornier might have been damaged, surviving Luftwaffe records show no 217s lost that night.
George has no particular memory of the incident. "Some of these things you want to forget, and they leave you," he said. Generally he was reluctant to fire at night since that would have exposed the Lancaster's position from the direction of the tracer. When enemy aircraft approached he considered whether they were just passing. "You didn't like to expose yourself. JU88s had 20mm cannon on them and could fire a long way, and we only had our .303."
This raid, coming as the city was still reeling from the one the night before, was the most successful of the three. It was the crew's good fortune not to be on the third raid three nights later: in bright moonlight enemy fighters intercepted the outward bomber stream over France and had a field day. Thirty-nine Lancasters were shot down, 7.9 per cent of the total.
Despite his slight frame, George often needed help from an air or ground crew member to squeeze into the cramped rear turret, thanks to his puffy electrically-heated flying suit and parachute harness. Getting out usually meant falling out of the swivelled turret backwards. At 20,000ft, 'tail-end charlies', as rear-gunners were known, were exposed not only to flak and fighter cannon but temperatures that could plummet to -45C. On one bombing run over Germany George was horrified to discover the suit's heating equipment had failed. "I tapped my leg and I didn't feel it." To make matters worse, his microphone had packed up so he signalled the word Help in Morse code on a link to a light in the cockpit. When Bill arrived he got quite a shock. "He said, 'Oh God'." George had a big icicle hanging from his chin and when they got back he was hospitalised overnight with frostbite.
George Meddick
In the mid-upper turret, Hughie once had a Messerschmitt 109 in his sights, but saw smoke coming from its engine. It would have been an easy kill, but as it was already crippled, Hughie just fired a burst over the plane and let it go.The crew had undertaken seven ops in July but the abortive one did not count, nor did a bullseye diversion - a 4hr 20m night decoy flight to the Dutch coast to lure fighters away from the calamitous third raid on Stuttgart.
A long sea-skimming flight across the Bay of Biscay to sneak under enemy radar followed on August 4 as part of a 288-Lancaster attack on an oil plant at Pauillac, near Bordeaux. Keeping less than 100ft above the waves required vigilant manual control all the way. Fred said: "It was a beautiful sunny day - you could see for miles. You had to be careful when flying that low. You couldn't use the autopilot - if you had had an engine failure at that height you would have been in the water before you could unlock it." No enemy fighters were seen and the raid in clear conditions caused massive fires. All returned home safely.
At the next day's briefing as the curtain was pulled off the operations map, some crews wondered if the planners had forgotten to change it from the day before. In fact, they now had to do the 8hr trip again, this time to oil stores at Blaye, near Pauillac.
On return, Fred landed at Church Broughton, Derbyshire, because bad weather had shut Wickenby. Staying overnight at a different RAF base with no beds available was not exactly comfortable. An officer of another crew recalls it was not until midnight that they arrived at Church Broughton's mess. But a cook volunteered to come in and prepare ham and eggs and they were offered blankets to kip down in the ante-room. A hearty breakfast was served the next morning followed by lunch before they returned to Wickenby.
In Normandy the Allies were making heavy weather of breaking out beyond Caen. Commanders on the ground agreed a risky strategy - a massive attack by 1,019 aircraft that would need the greatest of finesse to dislodge German positions on the road to Falaise without hitting their own troops. Easy's target was the village of Fontenay Le Marmion. Crews were warned not to bomb unless they were absolutely certain they were directly over the target, a task made trickier because it was at night. But Fred's crew, in the first wave of planes, was among 660 to do so. The raid was declared a tremendous success without a single Allied tank hit, even though they were only 800 yards away.
A week later on August 14, a suddenly-arranged repeat performance had disastrous consequences and was probably the day the crew might, incredibly, have bombed Hughie’s brother-in-law! The omens were already there - some Canadians had taken Easy for a test flight and had not returned in time to prepare it for the raid, so another Lancaster, PH-C, had to be used. Fred said: “It wasn't a patch on E. You never saw such a difference. We had a nice-kept aircraft and the thing we were asked to fly was a bit of a wreck. This didn't work, that didn't work, another thing didn't work. I think we were quite happy to come back." And the crew needed a stand-in engineer, Sergeant Emmott, because Bill had hurt his shoulder.
The op involved 805 aircraft attacking German positions facing the 3rd Canadian Division, which was marching on Falaise. But half-way through the daylight raid, Canadian troops, fearing the planes were homing in on them by mistake, fired yellow identity signals, which happened to be the same colour as the target markers. Some aircraft now started to bomb them, killing 13 and injuring 53.
Fred’s crew, which had once again been warned that accuracy was essential as the Allies were only 2,000 yards from the aiming point, was among 16 from Wickenby, all ordered to circle again before bombing because the masterbomber was unhappy with their positions over a target obscured by smoke and dust. On the second run they bombed the centre of the smoke, as now directed by the masterbomber. In the maelstrom below, however, Hughie’s brother-in-law was in the Canadian tank corps being inadvertently hit, and was seen by colleagues running from a burning tank “with his backside on fire”. Every Christmas after the war there was always the same good-natured argument between Hughie and his brother-in-law over who was at fault - army or airforce!
Despite the catastrophe, Clair reported "Jerry troops. Good show," and photoreconnaissance later showed almost every street in Falaise, the centre of the defining conflict in the Battle of Normandy, was blocked by craters or rubble, and parts of the town were completely devastated.
In Britain, summer steadfastly refused to show itself: thunder, low cloud, continuous rain and poor visibility at Wickenby dampened spirits. Airmen kicked around in the messes as, day after day, the blackboard announced Ops Cancelled or No Ops Tonight. They might have read newspapers or listened to Count Basie records on the HMV radiogram, then spent the evening drinking at the bar. Some of the keenest drinkers in the crew were Bill and heavy-smoking Ginger, who would often visit local pubs, sometimes with leading aircraftman Alf Rowland of the ground crew. Bill said: "Ginger liked a drink. He would say there was no point drinking just pints then going back to the bar at the sergeants' mess, so someone produced a fire bucket. We paid for it to be filled and just dipped our pint glasses into it."
Once Ginger sneaked round the back of the bar and rolled a nine-gallon barrel of beer to his billet. An astonished Bill arrived to find the barrel resting on top of Ginger on the bed, the tap open and beer pouring into his mouth. Cycling with Bill the two miles to the Adam and Eve pub at Wragby one evening, Ginger decided on an unconventional route through a wheat field. If that didn't get them into enough trouble, more followed at a dance held in a wooden hut behind the pub. Bill said: "There was place you could buy doughnuts. After Ginger had had a few beers, every time he went past the saxophone he tossed a doughnut into it." The high jinks got him flung out. Outside, Bill found his friend stuffing paper under the hut for a revenge arson attack, which was wisely called off. Ginger was emerging as quite a character. Returning late after another night out he and a girl climbed over a style and fell into a barrel of cider, where the girl is said to have been discovered several hours later! But however much they drank, the crew always turned up sober for the next op.
In Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, probably in May or June 1944. Left to right: Clair, Hughie, George, Bill, Dave, Lorne and Fred.
Others would fly Easy when Fred was off-duty but he regarded it as his own. "It was a new aircraft brought into the squadron and I think I was the first one to fly it. It was a good aircraft, too."He was not over-concerned about the risks, blessed as he was with a steely constitution and a belief in himself. "My interest was flying and if you are going to start thinking about things like that you are going to make a wreck of yourself. The thing to do is to get on with what you are supposed to do and the enjoyment of what you are doing. I cannot remember ever wondering about what might happen. I think the majority didn't."
Bill said: "On the bombing runs I was so close to Fred and I could see his face, his determination. There was no fear whatsoever, just pure concentration on what he was doing. He was just normal. He didn't show any emotion. I think he was a natural. There was never any sign of fear - a fine pilot."
However, such coolheadedness was interrupted on one memorable occasion. Fred said: "There was one time when we were all a bit apprehensive. We were briefed to bomb Berlin in daylight and after our briefing we did all our kitting-up and were sent to the airfield on hold. Berlin was a long way and heavily-defended. That was an agonising wait to learn whether we were going to Berlin or not - sitting on the grass with all my kit waiting for news. Then we were called off. After we were told it was cancelled everyone cheered. There were a lot of delighted crew members who took off their kit having waited a long time."
During the tour of duty mid-upper gunner Hughie Mark injured his neck and although he wanted to continue flying, he was ordered to take a rest. Fred was not told why he had disappeared and was refused permission by the adjutant to talk to him. Hughie's place in Easy was taken by an experienced officer who headed the gunnery section, Canadian Flying Officer Milton. But Hughie returned after three ops, and stayed on at Wickenby after the others had finished to complete his tour with different crews.
