BATTLE ORDER 204 (1) Bomb Doors Open! 2
BATTLE ORDER 204 (3) Target Dortmund 66
‘High Flight’ by John Magee 101
8 Heavies and ‘Butch’ Harris 117
‘An Airman’s Prayer’ by Hugh Brodie 131
10 Holland, Happy Valley and France 147
BATTLE ORDER 204 (5) Put on Parachutes! 162
13 Holland, Happy Valley and Operation
BATTLE ORDER 204 (6) Take Up Crash Positions! 186
14 ‘Three of our aircraft are missing’ 189
15 ’Bold, cautious, true and my loving comrade’ 205
BATTLE ORDER 204 (7) A Perfect Landing 230
17 A Fractured Skull and a Headless Crew 233
BATTLE ORDER 204 (8) Outstanding Devotion
18 ‘It is so good to be alive!’ 247
20 ‘In hospital again. Nothing serious.
287
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312
Lord of land and sea and air Listen to the pilot’s prayer.
Send him wind that is steady and strong, Grant that his engine sings a song Of flawless tone by which he knows It shall not fail where’er he goes - Landing, diving, in curve, half roll, Grant him Oh Lord! full control - That he may learn in heights of heaven The rapture altitude has given - That he shall know the joy they feel Who ride the realms on birds of steel.
Cecil Roberts
Bomb Doors Open!
‘Bomb doors open!’ It was the call that haunted airmen’s dreams.
Approaching the target, flying straight and level with its bomb doors open, the mighty Lancaster was at its most vulnerable. Likely to be ‘coned’ at any second by persistent enemy searchlights. Target for fierce anti-aircraft guns. Prey for deadly fighters.
‘Bombs gone!’ the bomb aimer reported over the intercom, then ‘Bomb doors closed.’
‘Bomb doors closed,’ the pilot repeated.
But there was no respite from enemy attack.
The plane had to continue straight and level until the camera recording the bombing had stopped running. Then and only then could the pilot turn away and set the Lanc on the first leg of its hazardous homeward course. The crew, with the sick sour taste of fear in their mouths,
The smell of cordite in their nostrils and the sight of shells exploding all around and aircraft going down in flames, kept watching, hoping, praying.
On the morning of 29 November 1944 David and his crew woke to find themselves on Battle Order No. 204. It was a daylight offensive, a Royal Air Force sortie of 294 Bomber Command Lancasters and 17 Mosquitoes heading for the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland, the dreaded Happy Valley, as it had been dubbed by the airmen. Today bomb doors would be opening over Dortmund.
David was a Lancaster pilot and this was his twenty-third operation in ten weeks. Only seven more journeys into hell after this one and he would have completed his first tour of duty.
Then, thank God, he would be due for leave.
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World History
