A Wireless Operator's Tale, Part 8

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Jack Morley and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Morley fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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The stories were transcribed from audio recordings made and supplied by Jack. When some of the foreign place names that are mentioned could not be found very easily in an atlas, they have been typed as they sounded, as have some of the technical and coded terms with which I was not familiar, therefore, they will probably be misspelled.......... ........Bill Ross, BBC People’s War Story Editor.
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Other parts to this story can be found at:

Part 1: A5041397

Part 2: A5041531

Part 3: A6023701

Part 4: A6039722

Part 5: A6081257

Part 6: A6081301

Part 7: A6126077

Part 9: A6138010

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But I was worried about getting back, especially with this crew being on their last trip.

Every year at reunion, Flight Officer Holmes comes and shakes my hand and tells people, “This lad helped me to get through my tour.” I’m so proud of that.
Before I’d chance to once again fly with my own crew, on the 14th of October, I was detailed to fly with Officer Simpson, a Canadian, on a daylight mission to Diesburg. We took off at 0622 and landed back at 1110. On his report, this officer reported that he’d made a good attack. Well, this was not the case because as we approached Diesberg, we were given the codeword ‘Freelance’ by the master bomber, which read, “Don bombed Diesburg, look around for another target to bomb.” Oh very well, we did this, and we saw a circular looking town with a beady inner centre, with streets running off to the centre but every other road was a circular one. I know this because while they were talking about I, I got up and had a look. They decided that they would bomb this, it must be a works or something, so we bombed a building in the centre of town. I was quite surprised when I was secretary later on, reading some reports, to find out that this officer reported that if you bomb visually, you made a good attack, which he did but he wasn’t on Diesburg, it was just a small town.

The next trip was at last, to be back with my own crew, on the 15th of October, and we were in SRZNG129, our new aircraft. The rest of the crew had all flown in it once before to Sarbrucker. This time it was to be at Wilhelmshaven, the port at Wilhelmshaven — off at 1740 and back at 2146. The funny thing about this was that after we’d been to briefing, my wife rang up. The officer said, “Go to yer lodgings, you know where to go.” I said, “I’ll see yer when I get back.” After this attack, which was a very good attack for us, I borrowed a pilot’s bicycle, and although there were no white lines or other indication, no cat’s eyes on the road, I cycled the 12 miles to Louth. I could just discern the difference between the tarmac and the grass at the side of the road, and so really, I went into almost every gateway on the way into Louth, but anyway, I got there.

On the 19th of October, once more in NG129, off to Stuttgart once more, at 1711 and down at 0000. On this trip we carried one 4,000 pounder and a load of high explosives. The usual good attack, and we didn’t get much trouble at all on this trip; there and back without any interference from the Germans, and it was really a pleasure to get back. On this trip, the skipper said he’d had a ‘marmalade’ from the master bomber, which meant, ‘turn back and don’t bomb, but the wireless op. told the skipper that there was no marmalade that day, because a master bomber never used a code word twice. We’d already had ‘marmalade’ on a previous trip. This was the Germans trying to turn us back, but after an argument with the skipper saying……..”who’s pilot of this aircraft?” the wireless operator insisted that if they turn back, he’ll be reporting the skipper and of course that would have meant a court martial, so, he decided to listen to the wireless op. The wireless op was me.

The next trip, which we expected to be our last one, was to be to Essen, kicking off at 1634 and back down at 2249, but on this occasion, although we carried a crew kit and a number of high explosives, the thing went wrong. For instance, just across the coast, the starboard outer started playing up and had to be feathered. We had a crew conference and we decided that we’d carry on, and that we’d make it towards Essen and not making it in very good time, but then one of the other engines started playing up. We were well on the way to Essen by this time, and as we approached the target area, the bomb doors were opened. As we went to try and bomb, we couldn’t drop the bombs. For some reason, we couldn’t drop them, probably due to this starboard outer, but the bombs had all been primed. We circled around Essen and we abandoned the mission, some 20 or so miles south of Essen, and returned home. On the way home, we heard that there was a lever by the side of the wireless operation position, which when pumped backwards and forwards would enable the bombs to be dropped, but in our case, it didn’t happen. Although we pumped and pumped, nothing happened, so we were in a bit of a stew now because the starboard engine started kicking up and had to be feathered again. When we were pumping the lever, we didn’t know what was going to happen when we landed anyway, and as we got back to base, we were told to report to Carnaby, a grassland station just south of Bridlington. This was a five mile long crash land strip. The navigator informed the pilot that we were just over the cliffs and that they were fifty feet high, so the pilot in hiss wisdom decided, “Right, if the cliffs are fifty feet high, then we go out to sea and come back in with a trailing aerial out. We shall then be flying at fifty feet, so………..” It’s very dicey, but we made our way in and he sez, “I’m not going to try and land it, I’m going to fly it on.” And he did just that; it was a really brilliant piece of piloting, more so because as we were approaching this crash landing strip, we heard a broadcast from somewhere below which someone had left their finger out, it said, “Lancaster bomber coming in to land, may explode. Clear the airfield.” Well that didn’t sound very promising for us. The skipper came to the fore and we all did as we were told and I said to the skipper, “Are we down yet Skipper?” He said, “Yes, I’m going to just taxi off the end of the runway and cut the engines and let the ground staff look after us.” I thought, “Well, that’s brilliant, after the way I’d slated him about not being able to land, about thumping up and down, and when we needed him, he just turned up trumps.

We were in Bridlington, John Arthur lent us a bit o’ money so we could go into Bridlington. There was barbed wire all along the seafront and along the rails, and we did manage to get down to see one of the two high powered rescue boats which were kept in the harbour there. The skipper allowed us to go aboard and look round, that’s the skipper of the boat I’m talking about, but then we came back and we went to visit some friends of Dan and Ginger who were billeted on Windsor Crescent,

Eventually, whatever was wrong with the Lancaster, they got it right and the next day, they got the bombs off and got the aircraft fit to take off and fly back to Ludford. We were pleased about that because we knew we would have to fly another trip in place of that. That was an aborted trip and it should have been our last. We’d been over the Ruhr Valley for nothing. Anyway, on the 28th of October, we were on a daylight mission again. This time, once again, SRZNG 129, the target was to be a bridge across the river at Cologne. Our orders were that whatever happened, we must bomb the bridge by proceeding down river, or up river, I don’t know which, we must not let any bombs fall on the Cathedral, but we must put that bridge out of action. I don’t know how high we were, we were very high up when we dropped our bombs. The rear gunner reported, “OK, it’s a direct hit, we’ve hit the bridge.” Our later photographs showed that we had indeed hit the bridge, but on our target photograph, there was also another aircraft down below. Whenever I met Jerry Murphy after that, he was slated for trying to kill us. His aircraft, S sugar, the famous S sugar, it lasted until the middle of March before it got shot down. It was as plain as anything in our target photograph. Well, we did not bomb the Cathedral.

When we got back, we’d a committee waiting for us when we taxied back to dispersal. The squadron commander was there with a huge yellow flag depicting the name, ‘Harrison Rebels’ a skull and crossbones and we learned after that this flag had been made of ties, cut off from the officers in the officers’ mess by the lady officers, then stitched together. Then the Wing Commander said, “Now then Morley, you’re the biggest rebel of the lot, get hold of this and get on the front row,” which I did. We had our photograph taken with all our ground crew. The ground crew and the aircrew were all together. We’d at long last finished our operations. He also said that he’d deposited some money in the sergeants’ mess, “………enough to last yer all night, so get yer friends and enjoy yer first night without worrying about going on operations.

At last, we collected our kit together and received congratulations all round. The skipper came round the day after and said, “The three officers have been awarded the DFC,” and he said, “There’s one DFM to be awarded among the sergeants.” He came to me and said, “Would you like it?” I said, “I wouldn’t, I’ve already had one DFM taken off me for being a naughty boy.” I was recommended once before but I went to watch a football match, and they found out I was away so, that was that. He said, “Alright then, if you don’t want it, I’ll go and see the others.” He went round all the five sergeants and every one of them refused it. I was so pleased, and yet, I was so sorry for little Jock, ‘cos little Jock………..there were three officers in the front of the cockpit of the aeroplane, and there was little Jock, the flight engineer who was always beside the pilot, and I was wireless op., and we were all forward of the bulkhead, all five of us, but three officers were awarded the DFC. The sergeants got nothing and I thought, if anyone should have got a medal other than the officers, it should have been the flight engineer who’d worked in the midst of them the whole tour. I missed one trip with them, but he’d been with them all the time. But anyway, we didn’t get a DFM, so that was that!

I moved to various places after that, grounded about, different stations, different jobs, but I never forgot that. As we’d finished our tour, we were to go on an extended leave. We got a month’s pay and it was indefinite leave, and whilst I was at home, I used to go up to Norton Aerodrome, only a small one — it wasn’t a flying aerodrome — an RAF establishment, and I used to go up there once a fortnight to draw my pay.

Eventually, towards the end of January, I was told that I’d to report back to RAF Wing, in Buckinghamshire, but not before I’d been to Ludford Magna and got my papers cleared. So it was in February when I went back to Ludford. The first person I saw when I got to headquarters was Dai Jones, our bomber sporting his DFC. We had a chat and he told me that John Arthur, the navigator wasn’t still on the aerodrome, the same as him. Dai was the bombing leader at the time, but John Arthur was instructing on flying techniques, for all the group, so he would be staying there.

I don’t know where the skipper went to. I did my clearance, reported back and was taken by a little van down to the station, then down to Market Rasen, and then got on a train with instructions on how to get to Buckinghamshire, to RAF Wing, near Leighton Buzzard. It was quite a journey there, but anyway, I reported in finally. Wing village was a wonderful little place with a beautiful church. For the next two years, I was to be a flying instructor. The first job I got, the week after I got there — I was made a flight sergeant — I had to do a lecture. The lecture I gave them was about my job as a crucible furnace man, and gave them all the details of what the crucible furnaces were all about, with the teaming and building the fires etc., and all things like that.

The warrant officer was standing at the back of the room and he came forward and said, “That was a very good lecture, would yer like to do it again?” I said, “No sir.” It was quite a job trying to remember everything. He said, “Anyway, you’ll be flying in future, not everyday, just when needed. You can instruct these other lads because we were at Castle Donnington 28 OUT and RAF Wing was 26 OUT, and we were still training wireless operators.

A few months later, at the end of May, the war in Europe was over, so they didn’t need these wireless operators, so for quite a long time, they were fooling about, going from village to village, boozing and all sorts o’ things, up and down to different places. Whilst I was there, I learnt that some of the big banking millionaires lived next door to Wing. Fred Darling's stables were in the village, and that year. come Derby year, we were still there, we would do periods in the flying clothing store and various duties on camp, when we weren’t flying, but, always on the bicycles for a night out into the village and round about, and there were plenty of them. That Derby Day, no, the Grand National came first; Grand National Day, Fred Darling himself used to come into the pub in Wing village and say, “’That Lovely Cottage’, that will win the Grand National,” and it did. We all had a good bet on it, a whole crowd of sergeants and flight sergeants, we all backed it.

Later on, he was training ‘Owen Tudor’, or ‘Edwin Tudor’, I’m not sure which, for the Derby. That night, we were talking to him, “Are yer goina win then?” We could see he was training the favourite. “No,” he said, have a good bet on ‘Airborne,” so we did, and we had money for months and months and months. We all backed it at 66 to one. A wonderful wonderful gift for us from Fred Darling. I used to love to roam around the village, it was lovely. We also used to go down to Lyon’s Corner House in London, have a little trip down there and we quite enjoyed it.

Pr-BR

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