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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0519.PDF
24 April 1953 LINCOLN 195 0 515 NIT BY JOHN YOXALL PART 2* '.hey take off. "F' Freddie, a veteran with 22 operations to its credit. One of No. 20Ts Avro Lancaster 3 bombers from Spilsby m October, 1943 Near the end of May the CO., W/C. Parselle, was reported missing in an attack on Diisseldorf. It was his third operation during that month, the other two being against Dortmund and Pilsen. No details were available of how the Lancaster was lost. In fact there was very little engine or airframe unserviceability at this time—neither does there appear to have been much damage from enemy sources. Later it was known that W/C. Parselle was a prisoner of war. It was in June, 1943, that the "shuttle service" raids were started. The aircraft for the first of these operations took off from Langar, near Nottingham, attacked the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen and then flew on to land at Blida in North Africa. On the return journey Spezia was attacked. Each half of the flight lasted between nine and ten hours. During this first shuttle raid an immediate D.F.C. was won by P/O. J. Mcintosh. Shortly after take-off the starboard outer Merlin of his Lancaster cut, but he continued to the target, which he bombed, and then proceeded to North Africa. He found that the engine would run for periods of up to an hour, and during the flight it was feathered six times. In the following month Mcintosh received a Bar to this decoration. For trips to Italian targets and on to BUda the Lancasters were able to carry about 5,500 lb of bombs, whereas on Ruhr targets the total load usually comprised 1 x 4,000 lb "cookie," 4X 500 lb, 6xS.B.C. (small-bomb containers), each holding 8 x301b, incendiaries, and 6\ S.B.C. of 90x4 lb incendiaries. "Bundles" were also dropped. This was the first reference to the use of "Window" (code-name for metal foil) to fox enemy radar. In August, 1943, the squadron operated no fewer than 31 Lancasters on these shuttle raids and, altogether, 123 aircraft attacked primary targets. A total of 503 tons of bombs was dropped; five machines were lost. One of these raids—on Hamburg—was particularly difficult, there being electrical storms and, at 18,000ft, severe icing. "O," a Lane 3 captained by Sgt. Bremner, was struck by lightning and had both port inner and starboard outer engines put out of action. He arrived back more than two hours late. Another Mk 3 (P/O. F. B. Solomon) went out of control over the target and fell from 19,000ft to 8,000ft before control was regained—and Hamburg bombed from that low altitude. It was surprising how seldom the Lancasters were picked up by enemy night fighters; when they were, they gave a good account of themselves. A typical case was that of aircraft "J," F/O. A. Hollings, during an attack on Berlin. On the final leg * Part I of this article appeared in last zveek's issue. of the journey to the target, "J" was attacked from the starboard side by a single-engined fighter, probably an Fwioo, which was unseen until it fired from less than 400 yards. The Lane was hit and the bomb aimer and flight engineer wounded. Rear and mid-upper turrets drove the fighter off, but the bomb aimer was hit and the bombs had to be jettisoned over the target After leaving the target area the aircraft was coned by searchlights for a full five minutes, but Hollings evaded them by diving some 4,000ft. Twenty minutes later a twin-engined night fighter put in an appearance and was seen attacking another bomber As it broke away, the rear gunner opened fire and shot it down in flames. The squadron diary records that the remainder of the trip was "completed without incident" ! On September 27th-28th a Lancaster captained by P/O. D W Cosens also had a near do. The fighter was not seen until it started firing, and the first burst put both rear and mid-upper turrets out of action. The rear gunner was seriously wounded and the mid-upper hit in the leg. The aircraft went out of control Results of a raid in which No. 207 joined. (See page 517). After the third or fourth attack on this section of the Dortmund-Ems canal, the country side was so churned op and waterlogged that equipment could not be got into position to effect repairs. A photograph taken in March, 1945.
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