Title: D-Day Bombing Mission

I started the day with a hot shower, got dressed and went down to the Sergeants mess for a cup of tea. We were then advised to report for a briefing and come back for breakfast afterwards. Our target was four large guns in a field at Montfleury, which was just behind the beach (I’ve actually been over there and stood in the doorway of this thing since the war ended). We had 24 aircraft on and we each had 12 or 13 1,000lb bombs on, depending on the mark of the aircraft, and the briefing officer said “These won’t make a mark on the guns; but it’ll sure blow hell out of the gun crews!” Now you just think, there were two Squadrons, that’s about 50 aircraft, each with 12 or 13 1,000lb bombs, all going to bomb one small bloody field and the military camp around it. So we did, and there was no opposition at all so it was straight back home.

Len was quite a senior pilot then and he used to take risks that a youngsters just wouldn’t take, and we were just hedge-hopping so I went and stood at Len’s shoulder, and then I sat in the second pilots seat — weel, they called it a seat, it was just a canvas hoop. It was a real thrill just sitting up there it was, I was loving it and he started to climb just as we were going over Lincolnshire. We landed and went up to briefing, they used to give you a tot of rum when you came back; no rum! “Where’s the rum?” “You can’t, you’re going back again.”

So in the afternoon we went to the marshalling yards at Leigh I think, but we were still over and done with by half-past seven. As far as I knew, we had no problems and didn’t loose an aircraft — until I was on holiday in France, just cruising around, and we went to Caan. My wife said, “Do you want to go to..?” and I cut her short, “No I don’t.” “I think you ought to,,” she replied, “you never know, you might see someone you know.” Anyway, I got the big book out, the book the have at the gates of all of the war cemeteries, and I was just flicking through it when I saw ’76 Sqn, 6th June 1944’ — and it was Flying Officer somebody who was killed and buried in the cemetery. “That can’t be right,” I said, “we didn’t loose an aircraft on that day. Twenty-four aircraft in the morning and twenty-four in the afternoon.” It just goes to show; I never missed him. There’s a book called ‘To See The Dawn Breaking’ all about 76 Sqn and it’s in here; in the morning we’d lost one aircraft — but nobody knows how, who knows? One stay shell…
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As told to: alan Brigham - www.hullwebs.co.uk

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