With the Pathfinders of 156 Squadron RAF Warboys and Upwood 1943

at Warboys and Upwood, 1943 - 1944

The following notes are but a few brief memories of life at Warboys and Upwood with 156 Squadron RAF in the period Late 1942 to 1944. They were written by Peter Hodkinson and originally submitted to Harold Shelton, author of Warboys at War 1939/45 and other publications on local Warboys history.

For more information on the squadron, the reader is invited to visit Robin Riley's web site.

Arriving home from the Middle East in 1942, after three years in the desert, I was posted to North Luffenham in Rutland where I joined 29 OTU as a Sergeant Fitter on one of the training flights. I was there when the first 1000 bomber raid on Germany took place and I recall that everything and anything that would fly staggered into the air on that memorable evening and headed for the Third Reich – Cologne was the target if I recall correctly.

Before Christmas 1942, the O.C.U. started to re-equip with Wellington Mk 3s as training aircraft and a number of us who had no experience of this mark of aircraft were posted. My destination was Warboys and I managed to scrounge a lift in a very ancient Wimpey Mk 1 which happened to be going in that direction. Bicycles being invaluable in those days, I managed to get my bike in the aircraft as well and duly arrived at my new station.

Warboys was a bit of a shock having come from a permanent peacetime RAF station at North Luffenham. Everything was so spread out and the wooden huts where we lived was not exactly the Ritz. There were three living sites for the Sgts Mess and, of course, the Mess itself. I was allocated a room on No 3 site which was the farthest from the Mess and it was a fair old way up to the airfield which was why cycles were so invaluable because there was no other form of transport for most of the time.

On reporting to the Chief Technical Officer I was posted to “B” flight and shortly afterwards a new flight was formed, “C” flight, and I was promoted to Flight Sergeant to take over this addition to 156 Squadron.

“C” Flight office was situated at the far side of the airfield from the control tower, almost exactly opposite, a long ride on my old bike on a cold and frosty morning right round the long perimeter track. I was responsible for the servicing and maintenance of six Lancasters and I had four sergeants and a number of corporals and airmen of various trades to carry out these duties. I seem to recall that each gang had its own shed or lean-to out amongst the aircraft to afford them a bit of shelter in inclement weather and somewhere to brew up the very necessary cup of tea in their very few spare moments.

If the aircraft had been used the previous evening on operations a typical day consisted of getting to work at 8am and finding out if the aircraft could be used again that evening if they were required, by that I mean, we had to check them for damage from flak etc, see what the defects reported by the crew were and estimate how long repairs would take. Normally any major tasks would be taken over by the 2^nd line rectification people while the 1^st line servicing would be done by my lads. Any aircraft requiring air testing or compass swinging would be flown by a duty crew and when the aircraft were serviceable we would just wait for news of whether there was to be an operation that evening. If we were to go on a raid that evening I would be told the fuel load and any special requirements for the raid and the armourers would be told the bomb load to be put on each aircraft. During the severe weather in the winter we were often told to apply de-icing paste to the leading edges of the wings and tail plane, this consisted of a thick brown paste and was very unpopular with the ground crew because the only way to apply it was by hand.

The aircrews mostly had their own aircraft and once they had been briefed on the raid they would come out and do their regular pre-flight checks before flight testing the aircraft. When they were happy with everything they would go back to their various messes and rest until the time came to come back to their aircraft for the operation. As soon as the aircraft was reported as serviceable the armourers would descend on it with their trolleys of 1000 pound bombs or 4000 pound “cookies” as the big block busters were affectionately called and load them onto the Lancasters. The photographers would be around loading their photo flashes etc and the ground crew would be having a last look around before going off to have a meal if there was time before the raid was due to take off.

I recall on one occasion when an aircraft was standing on the tarmac fully loaded and ready to go. Sgt Pete Moody was standing in front of it like a policeman in the “Hello, Hello” stance with his back to the aircraft when the “cookie” suddenly fell off and hit the tarmac with a resounding crash. It seemed that the photographer had inadvertently released it while testing his flashes. Theoretically the bomb couldn’t have gone off because it wasn’t armed but I think the photographer had to repair rapidly to the nearest toilet to effect a clothing change and Pete Moody was unable to say much for a while in fact I was told he remained transfixed to the spot for a couple of minutes in absolute terror. I have seen him on and off since those days and we still talk about it and his memories remain very vivid indeed.

For a period at Warboys we had a Group Captain Station Commander called Collings, not the most popular of men. It was the practice to line up the Lancasters around the perimeter track in order of take off when an operation was taking place which could mean 18 aircraft with engines running waiting in line for their turn. Group Captain Collings would arrange for a couple of adjustable servicing trestles armed to the teeth with Aldis lamps to control the take off.

When he got going it was more like Blackpool than an operational airfield in war time, red, green and white lights flashing all over the place and how the poor pilots ever understood what the messages were I don’t know but they coped somehow. The procedure was ridiculed by all and sundry and some of the colonials returning from the village had been known to make rather caustic remarks as they passed the stands with their lights galore. One particular Canadian was credited with telling the Group Captain to “Get some in” as he passed.

When an aircraft returned from a raid it was the practice to position an airman with a couple of marshalling wands at the end of the landing runway to indicate to the pilot which way to turn when he had landed, other airmen would be positioned at other junctions and the pilot would be so marshalled to his dispersal standing. One night an airman was doing the initial marshalling for an aircraft which seemed to be landing but it was actually a German intruder plane and he sprayed the airfield with butterfly bombs before making off. I recall next morning when I arrived on the airfield seeing these bombs all over the place. They would explode as soon as they were touched and it was a mammoth task for the armament experts to clear them up. One method they used was to drag a hawser across the airfield between two 3000 gallon petrol tankers exploding the bombs as they came into contact with the cable. Quite exciting I suppose.

There was one Australian character I knew, Billy Love, a rear gunner and a real rough and ready fellow. He was supposed to have worked in a circus in Aussie before the war and he could be seen hanging from the rafters in the Sgts Mess with a knife between his teeth when he had had a couple of drinks. One of the only people on the station to have his own car was Group Captain Collings and one night it was stolen. It was later found in one of the dykes out on the Fens. Rumour had it that Billy Love was the culprit and he probably was but the Group captain could never pin it on him. Billy was lost on operations over Germany and many years later in 1982 I went to Australia and visited their War Memorial with its Roll of Honour and found two W. Loves recorded. As I looked at the names, I knew he must be one of them, I felt quite sad and at the same time nostalgic about those dark days at Warboys in 1943/44. The War Memorial at Canberra is a magnificent building and well worth a visit by any old Bomber Command personnel if they are fortunate enough, as I was, to get the opportunity.

The characters that stick out in my ancient mind are mostly colonial; New Zealanders, Australians and Canadians. They were all thousands of miles from home and they played harder and drank harder than their British counterparts and didn’t give a damn for anyone and who could blame them when their expectancy of life was rather short. One big Australian, a F/Sgt rear gunner would not get into his aircraft to go on operations without wearing a policeman’s helmet on top of his flying helmet as he got in. He had stolen it off a policeman in Manchester as far as I can remember and it was his good luck charm. Many of the fellows had something or other in the way of a talisman to take with them on raids.

The Colonials were great gamblers too, most lunchtimes in the old Mess at Warboys you could hear the rattle of dice and the cries of “Crap” as they rolled the dice. Most of them had more money than their British opposites, their pay was a lot better than ours.

There were two pubs that we used to use what one would call regularly. The Pelican in Warboys, alas no more, and the favourite of my near circle of acquaintances, the Travellers Rest at Woodhurst, which was nearer to my billet than Warboys anyway. A lovely middle-aged couple were Mine Hosts – Bill Bowzeat and his wife and we were always made welcome. Bill worked during the day as a post office engineer and was often up on the airfield doing repairs to the telephones etc. I recall that they always took one complete aircrew under their wing and made them feel at home and they often put the parents of the flying crews up at the pub and their wives. There was always great sadness when such a crew failed to return from Ops but Bill and Ivy made many friends and I visited the pub many years after the war and I understand those friendships lasted for many years. We were sad when we were posted to Upwood but we still made the journey across to the Travellers on occasions on our trusty bikes.

King George and Queen Elizabeth visited the station and after inspecting the aircrew it was the turn of the ground crew to be lined up in one of the hangars to be given the once over. As Chiefy I was told that when their Majesties arrived at my flight I was to introduce the men to them as they walked along and shook hands with them. The men were dressed in clean overalls and we were wearing gloves and I can remember very vividly to this day how, when I introduced Cpl So and So to the King I said something like “This is Cpl So and So your Majesty, he services the engines on the Lancasters”. Meanwhile Cpl So and So was trying to remove his gloves to shake hands with the King but the gloves were up over the cuffs of his overalls and the harder he pulled the tighter the gloves gripped the overall cuffs. He was a redhead and his face was getting redder and redder as he wrestled with these gloves until finally I had to move along to introduce the next airmen while Cpl So and So tried to hide his confusion.

There was a great deal of secrecy at the time over the new anti Radar device “window”. Then one evening prior to a raid these mysterious packages wrapped in brown paper arrived at the aircraft dispersals f the aircraft going on Ops that evening. Very Hush Hush. They were loaded and off the aircraft went. Next morning when we got to the aircraft the insides were littered with these long strips of foil which were the Window, they had blown back into the aircraft as they were dropped through the flare chutes I think These strips hung around the place for ages.

When the Flying Fortresses were returning from their daylight raids on Germany they often overflew Warboys. Some had one engine feathered, some two, some had chunks out of the wings and one day one came in over the horizon with only one engine going and landed at Warboys and as it came to a stop that single engine stopped also. It had been well shot up and the crew had jettisoned almost everything they could to lighten it to get back home. There was even a parachute harness hanging from the top of the fin caught in the aerial mounting. After it stopped one of the crew scrambled out and, like the Pope, got down on his hands and knees and kissed the Warboys runway.

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Footnotes:

Peter was transferred from 45 Squadron in Helwan to 103 MU for a period. His service record notes show him having joined 29 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at North Luffenham on 17th April 1942. The record shows that he was then posted to 156 Squadron on 19th August 1942.

The 1000 bomber raid took place on 31st May 1942, little more than one month after Peter had arrived at North Luffenham.

No. 156 Squadron moved to RAF Upwood on 5th March 1944.

Details from the Australian War Memorial web-site and the WW2 Nominal Roll suggest that the Billy Love in question was Flt Lt William John Hamilton Love, No. 415339 of the RAAF, serving with No. 578 Squadron of the RAF and who was presumed dead after a mission over Germany on 24 February 1944. He was born on the 4th July 1923 in Wagin in Western Australia. At the time of his enlistment on 14 September 1941 he resided at 12 Kalgoorlie Street, Mosman Park in Western Australia.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited 8 Group Headquarters at RAF Wyton on 26 May 1943. The visit to RAF Warboys may have coincided with that occasion.