The Red Line: The Gripping Story of the RAF’s Bloodiest Raid on Hitler’s Germany

The next morning was warm and sunny. A group of airmen sat on the lawn ruminating on the events of the night before. Jack Watson was among them. One of the men turned to another. ‘You know, I could see you sitting there in that house burning like that last night.’ It was crass thing to say, but it had been meant as a joke. ‘We used to say stupid things like that,’ Jack explains.

They were young and gauche, and gallows humour provided another release. But the recipient of the comment did not see the funny side; he stood up and walked away. They never saw him again.

CHAPTER 5

30 March 1944

Sam Harris (front row, right) and crew

At the end of March 1944 Britain had yet to emerge from a long and harrowing winter, but the newspapers were still trying to kindle optimism in any way possible. The front page of the Daily Mirror led with the story of the Russian Army’s progress across southern Poland under the headline ‘Soviet Racing for Czech Border’, while ‘“Eat Your Words” challenge to MPs’ reported a piece of political brinksmanship by Winston Churchill on the home front to help shore up his coalition government. The Daily Express also found time to report the story of Harry P. Mclean of Windsor, Ontario, who threw $1,000 into the street from his fourth-floor window. ‘I like to see people happy,’ he said.

Happiness on the home front was still in short supply. The British people were enduring their fifth year of war, and rationing had bitten deep. Londoners had just come through a ‘Baby Blitz’, Hitler’s attempt to repeat his terrorisation of the capital four years earlier by dropping 2,000 tonnes of explosive, and feared further attacks. One story that was not reported was the recapture of 73, and subsequent execution of 50, of the 76 Allied prisoners-of-war who had escaped through a tunnel at Stalag Luft III.27

Against this backdrop, Sir Arthur Harris made his way to his operations room in an underground bunker at RAF High Wycombe just before 9 a.m. on 30 March. As he did each day, he greeted the officers of Bomber Command’s Air Staff with a brisk ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’28 sat down at his desk and lit the first in a chain of cigarettes. Peering over his half-moon glasses, he would then growl, ‘Did the Hun do anything last night?’ before taking his opening drag. He would occasionally substitute ‘Boche’ for ‘Hun’, but his dislike of the enemy was never less than clear.

Harris was driven; he took his responsibility so seriously he never dreamt of delegating it, and didn’t take any leave in three and a half years. He was determined to carry out his job to the best of his ability and bore the enormous strain that accompanied it without complaint. Those who worked with him lived in fear of his thunderous roar whenever they were late or failed to answer a question, and he made frequent enemies of politicians and Air Ministry civil servants. But he did not care. Winning the war was what counted.

The three children from his failed first marriage might have found him similarly uncompromising. They were cut from his life – or at least the version of it he gave to his biographer, Henry Probert. Yet the man who made the most combat-hardened Wing Commanders tremble melted at the sight of his five-year-old daughter. Jackie was a regular visitor to High Wycombe, and Joan Dally, a WAAF Corporal in the HQ Met Office, was occasionally asked to look after the little girl when her mother went shopping. ‘Others might have been in awe of him, but I saw a different side of Harris – a kindly father of a little girl. I would sometimes go into his famous office and Jackie would be playing there. I could see by the way he looked at her that he adored her.’29

Once his question about the activities of the Germans had been answered, the morning conference followed a set pattern. Harris read out the report of the previous night’s operations. That March morning there had been no major raids for three nights because of poor weather conditions, so it was brief.

He was followed by Magnus Spence. Making predictions about the weather over a distant patch of Europe based on scant information was a challenge that Spence and his meteorologists faced daily. Harris took a special interest in the forecasts. Joan Dally remembers his frequent visits to the Met Office. ‘He would come in and say things like, “Now, when are you chaps going to find me some decent weather so I can send my boys out?” He always referred to the aircrew as “my boys”. You could tell by the way he spoke about them how much he cared for them. He’d say, “I don’t want my boys to run into bad weather tonight.”’

Spence’s report encouraged Harris to believe in the possibility of some cloud cover towards the south of Germany, and a half moon at its height between an hour past sunset and the small hours of the morning – when the bomber stream would be reaching its target.

Next to speak was a representative of the US Eighth Army Air Force. At the beginning of this offensive Harris had promised a decisive victory with the help of US bombers, but the Americans remained committed to daytime raids and, in public at least, rejected the concept of area bombing. Their heavily defended B-17s – each had six gun ports – flew in tight formations and sought to destroy the Luftwaffe on sight rather than hide from them in the dark. And they boasted that their Norden bombsight was the best in the world.

Though it also brought heavy losses, daylight – in theory – would allow them to locate their targets without the need for Pathfinders. Even though cloud cover regularly obscured their objectives, they steadfastly ignored the facts and maintained that their methods were more accurate, and that their only targets were military sites, factories, docks and other strategic industries. The reality was very different, though; as historian Anthony Verrier points out, precision bombing was a myth, ‘an aspiration which some crews in certain conditions occasionally achieved’.30

After hearing the morning’s reports, Harris’s conclusion was swift: there would be a major raid that night. The target would be an industrial city which had not been bombed for seven months, with factories producing tanks, armoured cars and diesel engines, a large engineering works, two Siemens electrical factories and an aircraft repair facility on the outskirts. It was also a major administrative and communications centre, and the iconic location of huge pre-war rallies filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and screened across Germany. Triumph of the Will both charted and enhanced the rise of the Nazis and the creation of the personality cult around its leader, imbuing the city with symbolic as well as strategic importance.

Nuremberg was a beautiful city with a rich history. Its medieval quarter still boasted an imperial castle which dated back to the twelfth century. Its darker side was reflected in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which formally reduced the status of Jews in Germany to that of non-humans. Hitler had described it as ‘the most German of German cities’, and championed the building of a host of monuments there, designed by Albert Speer, to celebrate the Thousand Year Reich. Destroying these, the railway lines and army barracks, scrambling the lines of communication and obliterating the factories where many of the 426,000 population worked, would strike a uniquely damaging blow.

Harris presented his plan to his senior staff and advisers in the operations room at High Wycombe later that morning, advocating a straight run to Nuremberg. His Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Robert Saundby, kept his concerns to himself until the meeting was over. His boss was not a man to cross in public; many even questioned the wisdom of doing so in private. ‘He was generally acknowledged to be a grim man who could freeze an Eskimo with a look; a man of explosive temperament; a man of few words – all of them forceful.’31 Saundby also knew that Harris did not take his decisions lightly, only too aware that each time he signed off on a raid it meant thousands of men would be risking their lives.

When they managed to speak, Saundby expressed his reservations about the ‘straight run-in’ to Nuremberg, though whether this refers to the long leg or the bombing run after the turning point is unclear. Harris ‘thought for a moment, then grunted – and those knowing him will appreciate how effective those grunts could be. He said he would wait to see the result of the afternoon’s Met Report.’

Saundby remained uneasy, but on his shoulders fell the task of finding the best route to and from the target. A straight route meant easier navigation, shorter flying time, less fuel and more bombs, though it also gave the Germans a better chance to plot their course and ambush the bomber stream. An indirect route increased the chances of aircraft going off course and meant more time in the air and a lighter bomb load.

Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, chief of the Pathfinder Force, was also concerned. He called Saundby to propose a more deviating course. Saundby listened carefully and canvassed the opinions of the other group commanders before coming to a final decision: the direct route it would be. The order was sent to Harris for approval, and once that was gained it was transmitted by telex across 39 air bases throughout eastern England, from North Yorkshire to East Anglia. Approximately 1,000 aircraft and 6,500 men would be part of the operation, which had been given the codename Grayling.

The bombers would take off at approximately 10 p.m. to make use of the forecast cloud cover and avoid being caught in moonlight. The stream would assemble over the North Sea, then fly over the enemy coast and into Belgium, going west of Brussels. Charleroi marked the start of the perilous 265-mile straight leg south of the Ruhr.

Four ‘spoof’ raids involving 162 aircraft would be launched as diversions, and to camouflage the primary target for as long as possible. Fifty Halifax bombers would head for the North Sea, to give the impression of a much larger force threatening Hamburg or Berlin, then drop mines in the Heligoland Bight, a bay at the mouth of the River Elbe. Three separate forces of Mosquitoes would head for Aachen, Cologne and Kassel, where they would drop target indicator flares as if for a full-scale attack, designed to draw the enemy fighters away from the main stream.

At the end of the straight leg, the stream was to take an abrupt southerly turn 79 miles north of Nuremberg. Within 19 minutes of altering course it would be over the target, giving the Germans little time to react. Until then, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, even Munich, might still be the target.

The aiming point was a railway goods depot south of the centre of Nuremberg, to compensate for any ‘creep back’ – the fires started by the first bombs to be dropped were often used as the aiming point by subsequent crews; they would release their load as soon as the blaze below came into their sights, and as each successive wave bombed the nearest ‘edge’ of the fire it crept further away from the target. The setting of the moon would give them the cloak of darkness for their five-hour return journey against the forecast headwinds.

Zero Hour was set at 1.10 a.m. on 31 March. Five minutes before that the Pathfinders would start marking with flares to illuminate the area, so their fellow Mosquitoes and Lancasters could release their target indicator bombs on the aiming point, and the last bomber would drop its load at 1.22. The entire 68-mile-long stream, arriving in five waves behind the opening Pathfinder force, would have 12 minutes to carry out the attack – at a rate of 57 aircraft per minute. If the winds en route held up the progress of the stream, Zero Hour could be adjusted.

In those 12 minutes the objective was to drop 2,600 tonnes of explosives on Nuremberg, half of which were incendiaries. In later raids the bomb load increased – 3,900 tonnes would be dropped on Dresden in February 1945 – but it was still significantly more than the 500 tonnes the Luftwaffe had rained on Coventry in November 1940.

As Sam Harris woke that morning in Elsham Wolds, a warm spring still seemed a distant promise. Two of his crew, Eric and Mac, had already gone for breakfast. He and the others sat in bed smoking cigarettes, summoning the will to exchange the warmth of their beds for the chilly floor of the hut and the freezing dash to the ablutions hut to shave with cold water. No one had lit the coke stove around which they had chosen their beds on their arrival in January. The stove usually warmed the whole hut; they even used the outside of it to toast bread ‘obtained’ from the mess. One night it got so hot that it ignited Chalky’s blanket.

Their hut nestled in the corner of a field, down a narrow dirt track, a bike ride away from the mess and the other squadron buildings. This seclusion had its benefits; nipping under the coke compound fence to steal extra supplies for the stove was one. Otherwise, their meagre ration only gave them an hour or so of heat. But on mornings like this the squadron office and the NAAFI wagon with its delicious sticky buns and steaming mugs of tea seemed a long way away.

Eventually they climbed on to their bicycles and set off, their breath billowing in the cold air as they pedalled. The morning cuppa and bun had become an essential part of their routine over the course of the last three months and 10 completed ops. That morning Ken Murray decided they should practise a few drills aboard their aircraft. The idea was not universally popular, given the weather, but they all knew that preparation was as important as luck in determining their chances of survival. They cycled grudgingly across to their Lancaster, G-George, eager to get back to the warmth of the mess before all the newspapers had been claimed and the crosswords completed.

Lancasters were never warm, and as they went through their drills that morning it felt even more arctic inside their plane than it did outside. They had come a long way with G-George since the January morning when they first encountered her. First impressions had not been promising. Someone had painted 84 yellow bombs beneath the pilot’s position on the port side to mark each completed trip, and the rest of the ageing veteran’s outer skin was crisscrossed with patches covering the plethora of holes, gouges and scrapes from the flak. Inside it was dirty, scruffy, unkempt and unloved. She had been inherited from 103 Squadron, who shared Elsham, because no one wanted her.

As a member of the ground crew first showed them around, he announced with a grin that because they were a new crew no one expected them to last long, so there was little point in wasting a new aircraft on them. No one laughed. Ken had bristled. ‘We’ll show you what a new crew can do,’ he said.

Their first couple of ops hadn’t endeared the plane to them. She was slow to climb, her auto-pilot was unreliable and she needed a longer take-off distance than any other Lancaster on the squadron. Mac called her ‘horrible, ancient’, and Ken was so fed up that he complained to their Commanding Officer. The response was similar to the line they got from the ground crew, minus the humour: ‘A sprog crew doesn’t expect to get a new Lancaster. You’ll be lucky to last five trips.’

Against the run of the dice they had survived the ill-fated raid on Leipzig; they overshot the target because of the winds and flew back with bombers being shot out of the sky all around them. At that point it occurred to them that, for all its discomforts, this old girl knew how to get back from an op, and from that moment they started to love their creaking but reliable Lancaster. They lived with the constant awareness that an aircraft could be their coffin, but they knew a good one could be their saviour.

While the night veiled many of her flaws, G-George always looked older and more frayed in the cold light of dawn, and this morning was no exception. She looked like a blown rose next to the sleeker machines alongside at dispersal. They climbed aboard via a small ladder to an entry hatch forward of the tail. Prior to an op they had to squeeze along the fuselage, trying to avoid banging their heads on the roof, their flying suits and kit snagging and banging on the sides of the cold metal frame. It was less of an obstacle course on a drill, but they missed the warm gear. The smell of fuel hung heavy in the air, together with the mustiness that attested to the bomber’s age, and at times like this they still envied crews who had been treated to one fresh off the production line, its cockpit pristine, without the slightest hint of a scratch on the Perspex or the dials, a complete absence of oily smears or dust, and the delicious, leathery scent of factory goodness in the air.

They took up their positions for the drill. Bert Winn, the rear gunner, turned left, the only man on board to do so. He crawled through the tail on hands and knees and slid his legs through the doors to his cramped Frazer Nash turret. Once in, that was it: facing away from the direction of travel, he would barely move for the rest of the flight, his gloved fingers gripping the twin triggers of his four Browning machine-guns.

The rest of the crew made their way through the fuselage. Eric Page, the mid-upper gunner, took his station just forward of the main entrance. His ceiling turret was armed with two Browning machine-guns. When he and Bert swung into action the staccato rattle of their weapons could be heard throughout the aircraft, and the lingering smell of cordite would mingle with the Lancaster’s perpetual cocktail of hot oil, glycol and sweat.

Roland Luffman took his position at the wireless operator’s desk on the port side of the cabin, forward of the wing. Next to the inner engine, it was the warmest part of the plane, and so where the crews often kept their ‘pee can’. On one raid, Rusty Waughman, of 101 Squadron, remembers a bomber below them exploding, ‘which rolled us a half roll over’. As he fought to regain control of the plane, Taffy, his wireless operator, started to scream ‘Blood! Blood!’ over the intercom. He thought he had been hit. In fact the pee can had been turned over during their dive and emptied on his head.

Sam Harris eased himself behind the navigator’s table, hidden behind a curtain on the starboard side, just behind Ken and flight engineer ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, and lit by an Anglepoise lamp. Chalky White, the bomb aimer, slid down the steps into the nose and lay flat on the ice-cold floor. Things would get a damn sight hotter for him when the flak crackled around him and the aircraft lurched and veered its way on the final run in to the target.

Once at their posts, they went through the usual drills. After cries of ‘Prepare to abandon aircraft’, then ‘Abandon aircraft! Abandon aircraft!’ they threw open the escape hatches and slithered over the wings to practise a ditching at sea. Nothing could mimic the real challenges of trying to escape a bomber in a vertiginous spin, pinned to the sides or the roof by massive g-forces, unsure which way was up and which way was down. But it was something – certainly better than surrendering their fate entirely to chance – and it might buy them the precious seconds that could separate life from death.

They paused for a smoke and a chat, ran through a final crash landing drill, and headed back to the mess for those newspapers. After lunch there were no rides into town because there was no definitive word on whether there would be an op that night. No word meant staying on camp, idling away time, catching a nap, playing cards, stealing some coke for the stove or writing a letter home.

Then the base Tannoy sprang to life.

‘All crews to report to their squadrons.’

The poor weather had seen three successive operations cancelled, which meant that Rusty Waughman and his crew had just enjoyed their third good night’s sleep in succession – all except their rear gunner, Harry ‘Tiger’ Nunn. The previous night’s op had been scratched just prior to take-off, and by then Harry had taken a ‘wakey-wakey’ pill, the methamphetamine cocktail intended to make sure he would be alert for the whole flight. As his mates got their heads down, he had spent the whole night pacing the floor of their hut, talking to himself, too manic to even lie on his bed.

Rusty Waughman, the 20-year-old son of a Durham colliery worker, had worked hard to become a pilot. Like Cyril Barton, he had been a sickly child. He had suffered bouts of diphtheria and tuberculosis and had a heart murmur, and his mother, a Royal Red Cross-winning matron at a military hospital during the First World War, constantly had to nurse him back to health. He missed out on many things as a result, football and swimming amongst them, so he always felt an outsider – and when he was old enough to join up he seized his chance to be part of something rather than feel left out once again.

Like the Bartons, his parents worried about him constantly, but when he told them about his plans to follow his father into the Navy they weren’t unduly concerned, confident that his childhood illnesses would render him unfit to serve. When Rusty filled in the medical form at the recruiting centre, he omitted to mention his tuberculosis but included everything else. Then, on the spur of the moment, he decided to try his luck with the RAF instead. Their medical examination was less stringent and he was accepted immediately.

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