
4
00:03:04,434 --> 00:03:06,937
I fought my war from five miles up.

5
00:03:08,772 --> 00:03:12,943
I dropped at one time
seven or eight tons of bombs on somewhere

6
00:03:13,902 --> 00:03:17,155
came back, had me breakfast,
out on the booze the next day

7
00:03:17,239 --> 00:03:18,240
thought nothing of it.

8
00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:23,161
It was totally another world.

9
00:03:28,208 --> 00:03:33,422
But I realised that what I had done
was fundamentally wrong.

10
00:03:36,091 --> 00:03:39,010
But the circumstances were such
that we did it.

11
00:03:41,096 --> 00:03:44,266
And I can't reconcile those two viewpoints.

12
00:03:44,349 --> 00:03:46,268
I just... I can't reconcile them.

13
00:03:52,482 --> 00:03:55,444
I was 20 years old, very naive.

14
00:03:57,154 --> 00:03:59,906
Didn't have any experience of life at all.

15
00:04:01,324 --> 00:04:04,369
You knew you were
facing death all the time.

16
00:04:04,786 --> 00:04:07,372
Night after night,
after night, after night.

17
00:04:09,082 --> 00:04:11,418
But it's just a thing you accepted.

18
00:04:16,173 --> 00:04:17,716
A pet aversion of mine

19
00:04:17,841 --> 00:04:20,510
it's what I call retrospective historians.

20
00:04:21,678 --> 00:04:25,515
Even now if I met one,
I'd ask them just two questions...

21
00:04:26,516 --> 00:04:31,938
"Were you there, were you personally aware
of the circumstances and conditions

22
00:04:32,022 --> 00:04:33,064
of that time?"

23
00:04:33,648 --> 00:04:38,278
The answer to both those questions is no,
so keep your bloody mouth shut.



25
00:04:45,494 --> 00:04:47,120
We heard them coming.

26
00:04:47,913 --> 00:04:52,751
We heard the squadrons
on their way to bomb our town.

27
00:04:54,127 --> 00:04:56,046
The Lancaster bombers at night.

28
00:05:00,383 --> 00:05:04,054
There's no second prize
in a war, you win it or you lose it.

29
00:05:04,471 --> 00:05:07,641
And all we could do in bomber command
was to keep on bombing them

30
00:05:07,724 --> 00:05:09,351
and bombing them and bombing them

31
00:05:09,601 --> 00:05:11,061
until someone gives up.

32
00:05:14,648 --> 00:05:18,777
And the Lancaster played
a big part in winning the war.

33
00:05:19,444 --> 00:05:21,238
It was the best of its day.

34
00:05:24,658 --> 00:05:27,327
And it brought us back alive.


36
00:05:57,524 --> 00:06:01,444
Today, five squadrons
of Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters

37
00:06:01,528 --> 00:06:02,696
are based at Coningsby.

38
00:06:05,156 --> 00:06:08,535
They share the run ways
with one of the most iconic aircraft

39
00:06:08,618 --> 00:06:10,495
in British aviation history.

40
00:06:12,038 --> 00:06:13,331
The Lancaster bomber.

41
00:06:16,585 --> 00:06:19,296
It is one of only two
that remain airworthy.

42
00:06:21,965 --> 00:06:23,633
Looking back now

43
00:06:23,884 --> 00:06:29,055
I have to tell myself,
"did I really fly one of those aeroplanes?"

44
00:06:29,848 --> 00:06:31,766
It's such a long time ago

45
00:06:32,392 --> 00:06:35,770
maybe it's all...
Maybe it all happened to someone else

46
00:06:35,854 --> 00:06:38,982
and I'm just making it... making it up.

47
00:06:42,736 --> 00:06:46,615
It's a living thing
and it was a living thing.

48
00:06:47,365 --> 00:06:50,160
There were times almost
when she spoke to you.

49
00:06:50,952 --> 00:06:52,412
Or you felt she did.

50
00:06:53,622 --> 00:06:57,584
I could still go to her right now
and press the right buttons I think.

51
00:06:58,877 --> 00:07:01,379
I'd love to. 

52
00:07:04,549 --> 00:07:07,427
Pure nostalgia, pure nostalgia.

53
00:07:07,969 --> 00:07:12,057
Every time I see it in the air
I say "God, look at that. Beautiful."

54
00:07:12,641 --> 00:07:14,643
And there's no question about it

55
00:07:14,726 --> 00:07:20,148
it transformed bomber command
by its pure operational capacity.

56
00:07:20,941 --> 00:07:23,526
It was an amazing, amazing aircraft.

57
00:07:27,238 --> 00:07:29,866
The Avro Lancaster was a crucial weapon

58
00:07:29,950 --> 00:07:31,952
in winning the war against Hitler.

59
00:07:35,121 --> 00:07:40,210
But before the bomber's arrival,
Britain was fighting for survival.


61
00:07:57,936 --> 00:08:00,271
I can still hear it sometimes.

62
00:08:02,565 --> 00:08:05,694
It's a whistle that gets
louder and louder and louder

63
00:08:05,777 --> 00:08:08,363
and everything gets darker and darker.


65
00:08:14,619 --> 00:08:16,162
then there was nothing left.


67
00:08:21,292 --> 00:08:24,462
my mum had gone into an Anderson shelter.

68
00:08:25,797 --> 00:08:27,340
When she came out

69
00:08:27,841 --> 00:08:33,054
she just went berserk
and she felt the thud in the ground

70
00:08:33,763 --> 00:08:35,849
but of course to see her house gone...

71
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:51,239
When the London blitz started

72
00:08:51,322 --> 00:08:54,784
I used to stand on the cliff at Whitstable

73
00:08:54,993 --> 00:08:58,496
and could see all the German bombers,
hordes of them

74
00:08:58,580 --> 00:09:00,331
coming up the Thames estuary.

75
00:09:07,297 --> 00:09:10,592
They bombed about 22 mile of dockland.

76
00:09:11,009 --> 00:09:14,471
There were all timber wharfs
and all that along the Thames

77
00:09:14,846 --> 00:09:16,556
and they set them on fire.

78
00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:21,895
And then they just showered
the bombs on the arsenal

79
00:09:22,062 --> 00:09:23,229
Woolwich arsenal.

80
00:09:25,648 --> 00:09:28,443
I was in the auxiliary fire service

81
00:09:29,235 --> 00:09:31,112
and I thought, "well, bugger this".

82
00:09:31,446 --> 00:09:33,656
There was ammunition going off, you know?

83
00:09:34,407 --> 00:09:36,159
Exploding and all that.

84
00:09:40,121 --> 00:09:41,640
I can remember one night

85
00:09:41,664 --> 00:09:44,042
my father and I had
to go down the fire escape

86
00:09:44,125 --> 00:09:49,255
because the bombers were so close
and I trod on a huge piece of human flesh.

87
00:09:53,843 --> 00:09:57,180
And that was my...
I suppose my induction to war.

88
00:10:05,772 --> 00:10:08,775
For eight months, the bombs fell.

89
00:10:12,070 --> 00:10:17,742
London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow
and most notoriously, Coventry

90
00:10:18,076 --> 00:10:19,953
were amongst those cities hit.

91
00:10:25,959 --> 00:10:29,337
In all, 43,000 people were killed

92
00:10:33,883 --> 00:10:35,528
 I thought, "well,
if that's the game we're in

93
00:10:35,552 --> 00:10:36,886
that's the game we're in."

94
00:10:39,055 --> 00:10:42,934
You couldn't be one—sided otherwise
it would have been over in no time.


96
00:10:57,991 --> 00:11:00,118
I wanted... always wanted to fly

97
00:11:01,536 --> 00:11:04,289
so I told my dad I wanted
to join the air force

98
00:11:04,747 --> 00:11:07,167
and of course he hit the roof.

99
00:11:08,668 --> 00:11:10,646
And I kept nagging my father

100
00:11:10,670 --> 00:11:12,839
to let me join the RAF.

101
00:11:13,339 --> 00:11:16,843
Well, I wanted to be a plotter,
one of Churchill's girls.

102
00:11:18,344 --> 00:11:20,889
Pilots training took anything up to a year

103
00:11:21,347 --> 00:11:25,476
navigators about nine months,
and gunners about eight weeks.

104
00:11:26,227 --> 00:11:27,872
I thought,
"hell, I don't want to miss the war"

105
00:11:27,896 --> 00:11:29,939
so I joined as a gunner.


106
00:11:30,940 --> 00:11:34,194
I think one of the factors
is everyone was relatively young.

107
00:11:34,652 --> 00:11:37,572
And of course, when you're young,
you want to really have a go at 'em

108
00:11:37,655 --> 00:11:40,617
and I think this was the attitude
in many respects.

109
00:11:41,826 --> 00:11:46,206
I was the 39th man
to join the Royal Air Force in Jamaica.

110
00:11:47,165 --> 00:11:48,165
We were shipped out

111
00:11:48,708 --> 00:11:51,669
and I remember leaving Jamaica

112
00:11:53,087 --> 00:11:56,466
in the sunset,
and seeing Jamaica fade away

113
00:11:56,716 --> 00:12:01,012
and I wondered if I would ever return.


115
00:12:13,316 --> 00:12:17,570
RAF fighter command
had saved the country in its hour of need

116
00:12:19,572 --> 00:12:24,827
but in 1941, bomber command
was not yet equipped to play its part.

117
00:12:29,165 --> 00:12:33,836
There was no equivalent of the Spitfire
in the RAF's bomber squadrons.

118
00:12:35,088 --> 00:12:40,051
Those aircraft they did have were slow
and mostly out of date.

119
00:12:40,843 --> 00:12:43,805
We flew in the Wellington bomber.

120
00:12:43,972 --> 00:12:49,310
It had Bristol Pegasus 18 engines
and they were not powerful enough.

121
00:12:51,688 --> 00:12:54,232
So the result was that
if you lost an engine

122
00:12:54,691 --> 00:12:57,360
there was only one way to go
and that was downwards.

123
00:13:01,781 --> 00:13:06,661
Flying at night with no radar,
weather conditions as they were

124
00:13:06,828 --> 00:13:09,414
sometime the winds were...
Perhaps veered a bit

125
00:13:09,497 --> 00:13:12,792
and you could finish 30 miles off course.

126
00:13:14,210 --> 00:13:17,463
Hello Mac, where are we now?
As though you're likely to know.

127
00:13:18,214 --> 00:13:19,841
I can't find where we are.

128
00:13:20,049 --> 00:13:25,013
I'm not surprised at all that a lot
of the bombs were way off target.

129
00:13:25,638 --> 00:13:26,638
Left, left.

130
00:13:27,974 --> 00:13:28,850
Steady.

131
00:13:28,933 --> 00:13:32,895
In 1941, if you bombed a target
and got within five miles of it

132
00:13:32,979 --> 00:13:34,772
you reckon that was a bloody good hit.

133
00:13:37,066 --> 00:13:41,529
And all the time
the German defences were getting stronger.

134
00:13:43,781 --> 00:13:48,202
We went into this knowing
that there was going to be losses

135
00:13:48,786 --> 00:13:53,624
and er, we just hoped
it wasn't going to be us.

136
00:13:56,919 --> 00:14:01,341
We were caught in a cone
of search lights, about 15 lights

137
00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:03,426
and they hammered hell out of us.

138
00:14:06,220 --> 00:14:07,680
My turret was on fire.

139
00:14:08,473 --> 00:14:09,891
Suddenly the navigator said

140
00:14:10,058 --> 00:14:12,268
"look out, Dave, for that fighter
on the port quarter"

141
00:14:12,685 --> 00:14:14,685
and of course, went to swing the gun...
He chuckles

142
00:14:15,104 --> 00:14:16,147
turret wouldn't move.


144
00:14:18,066 --> 00:14:20,151
God, I could have wept with frustration.

145
00:14:20,234 --> 00:14:22,236
Bombs explode
I was useless.

146
00:14:23,654 --> 00:14:25,782
Ok chaps, don't worry.
Everything's alright.

147
00:14:25,865 --> 00:14:27,785
Then we were given the orders to bail out.

148
00:14:27,825 --> 00:14:28,825
Anybody hurt?

149
00:14:28,910 --> 00:14:30,750
The wireless operator's copped it.

150
00:14:34,374 --> 00:14:35,708
Once I landed

151
00:14:35,917 --> 00:14:38,669
I came across some buildings,
and I thought they were farm buildings

152
00:14:39,629 --> 00:14:43,466
and then a door opened,
and a shaft of light shot out

153
00:14:43,716 --> 00:14:45,134
and a voice said "halt!"

154
00:14:45,968 --> 00:14:48,721
And I put my hands up

155
00:14:49,263 --> 00:14:52,975
and it was a building occupied
by searchlight crews.

156
00:14:53,893 --> 00:14:57,480
And we were regaled with cognac and coffee.

157
00:14:58,064 --> 00:15:00,274
And I remember one guy saying

158
00:15:00,358 --> 00:15:06,114
"don't worry, the war will soon be over,
and our fuhrer will ride on a white horse

159
00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:09,700
up to Buckingham Palace
and take occupation."

160
00:15:10,284 --> 00:15:12,370
We said, "wait and see".

161
00:15:16,332 --> 00:15:19,669
David Fraser's captors
did not have to wait too long.

162
00:15:25,967 --> 00:15:30,888
In the works were new aircraft
that could take the blitz back to Berlin.


164
00:15:38,896 --> 00:15:42,150
I suppose, really,
it's ironical that, er...

165
00:15:42,233 --> 00:15:47,113
How the Lanc was developed
almost accidentally.

166
00:15:52,577 --> 00:15:56,539
Two of these new bombers,
the Stirling and Halifax

167
00:15:56,831 --> 00:15:59,333
were already on order for the RAF.

168
00:16:01,210 --> 00:16:03,671
At aircraft builders Avro

169
00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:07,258
chief engineer Boy Chadwick
thought he could do better.

170
00:16:08,259 --> 00:16:10,970
A twin—engined aircraft
called the Manchester.

171
00:16:12,305 --> 00:16:16,517
But its Rolls—Royce vulture engines
were causing trouble.

172
00:16:18,478 --> 00:16:21,814
They were a completely
revolutionary type of design

173
00:16:21,898 --> 00:16:23,483
but it was never successful.

174
00:16:24,901 --> 00:16:27,528
The minute they got airborne
they got problems straight away.

175
00:16:28,112 --> 00:16:30,531
Nothing but engine failures,
one after another.

176
00:16:32,033 --> 00:16:33,951
Although already in production

177
00:16:34,076 --> 00:16:36,787
the fate of the Manchester
hung in the balance.

178
00:16:42,210 --> 00:16:47,548
With the RAF desperate for new bombers,
Chadwick suggested a radical solution.

179
00:16:49,842 --> 00:16:55,389
He swapped the two flawed Vultures
for four proven Rolls—Royce Merlins

180
00:16:56,098 --> 00:16:58,601
the same engine that powered the Spitfire.

181
00:16:59,477 --> 00:17:03,189
And they were so amazed
at the difference in performance

182
00:17:03,439 --> 00:17:08,402
and that's really how the Lancaster
developed almost accidentally.

183
00:17:36,597 --> 00:17:40,560
There were six of us, all trainee gunners.

184
00:17:41,602 --> 00:17:43,813
We were in having lunch

185
00:17:44,438 --> 00:17:50,236
when we were told,
"right, gentlemen, you're all going back

186
00:17:51,237 --> 00:17:53,322
to such and such a hangar

187
00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:58,619
and they'll be a lot
of other air crew there."

188
00:17:58,703 --> 00:18:02,415
And then this was almost
out of Monty Python.

189
00:18:03,541 --> 00:18:06,544
They said "well, gentlemen,
we've all completed our training

190
00:18:06,627 --> 00:18:11,549
and now we've um,
we've got to get together to form crews."

191
00:18:20,516 --> 00:18:22,351
And what we were told then

192
00:18:22,435 --> 00:18:24,228
you pick your own crew.

193
00:18:25,229 --> 00:18:27,523
Well, we thought this was madness.

194
00:18:27,607 --> 00:18:32,320
You had no idea of people's abilities
or their background whatsoever.

195
00:18:33,404 --> 00:18:36,907
And we wandered around looking
at people and looking at their brevets.

196
00:18:40,328 --> 00:18:42,913
From the brevet on your uniform

197
00:18:43,164 --> 00:18:45,916
it indicated what you were in the crew.

198
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:47,501
"N" for navigator

199
00:18:47,585 --> 00:18:51,255
"s" for signals
or wireless operator, etcetera.

200
00:18:52,131 --> 00:18:54,050
So the first thing you think about is

201
00:18:54,133 --> 00:18:57,094
"how do I find a pilot who is going
to get me through the war?"

202
00:18:58,095 --> 00:19:02,183
You had to think a bit about this because
you realise "I'm stuck with these guys".

203
00:19:03,351 --> 00:19:06,729
You would think,
"gosh, I don't fancy him as a pilot!"

204
00:19:08,314 --> 00:19:09,958
You're going to live or die with them

205
00:19:09,982 --> 00:19:12,109
so you made sure you were going to live.

206
00:19:13,152 --> 00:19:15,821
You'd go around saying,
"I'm short of a navigator

207
00:19:15,905 --> 00:19:17,490
would you like to fly with me?"

208
00:19:17,573 --> 00:19:20,576
"We haven't got a rear gunner,
let's see if we can find a rear gunner."

209
00:19:20,785 --> 00:19:24,872
And if you liked who you were talking to,
you'd offer to go in the crew with them.

210
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,460
If I'd handpicked the best,
I couldn't have done better

211
00:19:29,543 --> 00:19:31,671
because we just gelled.

212
00:19:32,046 --> 00:19:35,508
It was like a dating agency in a way.

213
00:19:35,591 --> 00:19:38,052
A little bit of wizardry, I think.

214
00:19:39,595 --> 00:19:41,031
I didn't know it at the time

215
00:19:41,055 --> 00:19:43,516
but I was joining the best crew
in the air force.

216
00:19:43,891 --> 00:19:46,769
Every crew thought they were the best crew.

217
00:19:47,144 --> 00:19:49,146
Everybody got on very well with each other.

218
00:19:49,230 --> 00:19:53,067
That was the great part of it
because after all

219
00:19:53,150 --> 00:19:55,152
the whole thing was about teamwork.

220
00:20:07,081 --> 00:20:11,585
In June 1941,
Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

221
00:20:15,548 --> 00:20:17,425
With the Red Army overwhelmed

222
00:20:17,508 --> 00:20:21,637
it was vital that Britain support
its new ally in the fight against Hitler.

223
00:20:22,930 --> 00:20:25,725
We have offered
to the government of Soviet Russia

224
00:20:25,891 --> 00:20:30,354
any technical or economic assistance
which is in our power.

225
00:20:34,650 --> 00:20:37,153
Churchill knew there was only one way

226
00:20:37,236 --> 00:20:39,405
he could relieved the pressure
on the russians.

227
00:20:45,161 --> 00:20:48,998
We shall bomb
Germany by day as well as by night

228
00:20:49,081 --> 00:20:51,167
in ever—increasing measure

229
00:20:53,502 --> 00:20:57,965
casting upon them month by month
a heavier discharge of bombs.

230
00:20:59,633 --> 00:21:01,093
A few weeks later

231
00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:05,514
the prime minister met the aircraft
that could help him win the war.

232
00:21:08,601 --> 00:21:11,729
It was a prototype of Avro's Lancaster.

233
00:21:21,739 --> 00:21:26,118
Finally he had the means
to take the fight to the enemy.


235
00:21:52,061 --> 00:21:54,146
But this is only a beginning.

236
00:21:54,730 --> 00:21:59,443
From now henceforward,
the main expansion of our air force

237
00:21:59,860 --> 00:22:04,406
especially in heavy bombers,
proceeds with gathering speed.

238
00:22:22,842 --> 00:22:25,010
In February 1942

239
00:22:25,469 --> 00:22:28,430
a new man was appointed
to lead bomber command

240
00:22:28,848 --> 00:22:29,974
Arthur Harris.

241
00:22:31,308 --> 00:22:36,605
His intention was to show the world
what strategic bombing could achieve.

242
00:22:38,107 --> 00:22:40,109
The Nazis entered this war

243
00:22:40,776 --> 00:22:45,030
under the rather childish delusion
that they were going to bomb everybody else

244
00:22:45,614 --> 00:22:47,533
and nobody was going to bomb them.

245
00:22:49,326 --> 00:22:55,332
At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw
and half a hundred other places

246
00:22:55,791 --> 00:22:59,712
they put that rather naive theory
into operation.

247
00:23:01,130 --> 00:23:05,759
They sowed the wind and now
they are going to reap the whirlwind.

248
00:23:08,429 --> 00:23:10,973
That whirlwind was to be unleashed

249
00:23:11,265 --> 00:23:15,269
by the new aircraft being delivered
to RAF bomber stations.

250
00:23:20,316 --> 00:23:22,943
I was posted down to RAF Wyton

251
00:23:23,193 --> 00:23:24,778
which became my base.

252
00:23:25,905 --> 00:23:28,574
And I remember I went to bed

253
00:23:28,991 --> 00:23:32,620
next morning there were
22 brand new Lancasters

254
00:23:32,703 --> 00:23:34,496
all round the perimeter road.

255
00:23:34,580 --> 00:23:36,457
And they'd all been flown in overnight

256
00:23:36,540 --> 00:23:40,336
by women and other people
from the ferry service.

257
00:23:41,712 --> 00:23:43,130
Blokes couldn't believe it.

258
00:23:54,975 --> 00:24:00,105
 When we went to Lancs,
the impression was how cramped it was.

259
00:24:01,690 --> 00:24:05,110
It was obviously a machine made for war.

260
00:24:06,403 --> 00:24:09,114
Noisy, uncomfortable, cramped

261
00:24:09,198 --> 00:24:12,284
difficult to move in,
but did the job.

262
00:24:13,035 --> 00:24:14,954
It was basically a flying bomb—bay,
wasn't it?

263
00:24:16,872 --> 00:24:18,540
When you got in the aircraft

264
00:24:18,791 --> 00:24:23,462
the pilot would go through
with his parachute to sit on

265
00:24:23,629 --> 00:24:27,383
and then the bomb aimer would go
right through so he was down on the floor.

266
00:24:29,134 --> 00:24:32,388
I had the best view in the aircraft
in the bombing hatch

267
00:24:32,805 --> 00:24:34,640
lying prone, looking down.

268
00:24:36,058 --> 00:24:37,601
And then the rear gunner

269
00:24:37,851 --> 00:24:42,731
I would get in and lock him in
and put his parachute outside

270
00:24:42,815 --> 00:24:44,817
because there wasn't room for that.

271
00:24:45,651 --> 00:24:47,695
I was very comfortable in my turret.

272
00:24:47,861 --> 00:24:52,032
I always said I was the first
to start flying and the last to land.

273
00:24:55,202 --> 00:24:57,082
I'm coming from the back
of the Lancaster there.

274
00:24:57,121 --> 00:24:59,957
The rear gunner is back there,
I'm coming further along

275
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,751
and the first thing you get to
is the mid upper turret.

276
00:25:04,962 --> 00:25:08,507
Ken Johnson: It was very limited room
in a mid upper turret

277
00:25:09,091 --> 00:25:12,511
so a small bloke like me were,
it were ideal.

278
00:25:13,679 --> 00:25:16,682
And then I had to get over the main spar

279
00:25:16,890 --> 00:25:20,602
and the wireless operator's sitting there
on the port side.

280
00:25:22,104 --> 00:25:23,856
And there is two sets there.

281
00:25:24,148 --> 00:25:26,984
The receiver and transmitter.

282
00:25:28,444 --> 00:25:30,946
But the side of him had a little passage

283
00:25:31,071 --> 00:25:32,591
and that would be the navigator's seat

284
00:25:32,656 --> 00:25:35,951
so I'd be sitting
facing the port side of the aircraft.

285
00:25:37,745 --> 00:25:43,250
And then flight engineer for the engines
and the pilot next, they were up a bit.

286
00:25:44,209 --> 00:25:45,961
The seat was comfortable.

287
00:25:46,712 --> 00:25:48,088
You got a good view.

288
00:25:48,922 --> 00:25:51,467
All the throttles were nicely put together.

289
00:25:51,550 --> 00:25:54,261
It was... it was um...
Sounds a bit presumptuous

290
00:25:54,344 --> 00:25:56,055
it was a pilot's aeroplane.

291
00:25:56,722 --> 00:26:00,434
It was responsive but very powerful.

292
00:26:05,272 --> 00:26:06,565
I loved the thing.

293
00:26:21,455 --> 00:26:22,932
Lancasters are being built

294
00:26:22,956 --> 00:26:26,794
in several factories in Britain and Canada,
built in terrific numbers.

295
00:26:27,127 --> 00:26:29,838
With every man and woman
engaged in their construction

296
00:26:29,922 --> 00:26:31,381
one thought is upper most

297
00:26:31,548 --> 00:26:35,677
the RAF is depending on them
for Lancasters, more Lancasters

298
00:26:35,761 --> 00:26:37,596
and yet more Lancasters.

299
00:26:49,608 --> 00:26:54,029
Lancasters,
consisting of over 55,000 separate parts

300
00:26:54,446 --> 00:26:59,535
were made in sections in Avro's factories
in Manchester and the north of England.

301
00:27:02,329 --> 00:27:05,499
Most were then assembled
here in Woodford.

302
00:27:10,254 --> 00:27:12,297
It was a vast undertaking.

303
00:27:13,298 --> 00:27:18,011
Six major organisations
employed over 1.1 million people

304
00:27:18,095 --> 00:27:20,889
in 927 separate companies.

305
00:27:22,266 --> 00:27:25,477
Over 7300 of the bombers were built.

306
00:27:31,275 --> 00:27:32,860
As part of their training

307
00:27:33,026 --> 00:27:37,156
some aircrew were sent to Woodford
to learn more about the aircraft.

308
00:27:37,990 --> 00:27:41,076
Coaches came
and took us all to Manchester.

309
00:27:41,451 --> 00:27:43,537
And as we got off the coach

310
00:27:43,620 --> 00:27:45,998
there were loads and loads of girls.

311
00:27:47,708 --> 00:27:50,169
They were coming up to us
and, "hello, I'm so and so"

312
00:27:50,252 --> 00:27:53,255
and this young lady came up,
she was about the same age as me

313
00:27:53,338 --> 00:27:54,965
and she said, "oh, my name's Yvonne".

314
00:27:55,799 --> 00:27:58,594
And I managed to meet her every evening.

315
00:27:59,678 --> 00:28:03,015
Yeah, that was quite a, um...
Enlightening experience.

316
00:28:04,057 --> 00:28:08,687
She taught me more about the facts of life
than they did about the Lancaster.

317
00:28:10,898 --> 00:28:13,192
Well, I've often said, "thank you".


318
00:28:17,738 --> 00:28:22,075
but it was fantastic to see the aircraft
being built at Woodford.

319
00:28:22,951 --> 00:28:27,331
They had hundreds of aircraft there
all in the stage of being assembled.

320
00:28:28,498 --> 00:28:30,709
I can still picture it in my mind now.

321
00:28:44,389 --> 00:28:48,060
Now, with sufficient aircraft and aircrews

322
00:28:48,518 --> 00:28:51,230
bomber command could raise its game.

323
00:28:58,737 --> 00:29:00,614
In May 1942

324
00:29:00,864 --> 00:29:06,036
one of Harris' first moves was
a spectacular operation against Cologne.

325
00:29:07,621 --> 00:29:11,333
I think Harris wanted to draw attention

326
00:29:11,416 --> 00:29:15,087
to the fact that we could put
a thousand aircraft in the air

327
00:29:15,170 --> 00:29:16,630
to bomb Germany.

328
00:29:19,591 --> 00:29:23,303
Amongst those bombers
were Stirlings, Halifaxes

329
00:29:24,513 --> 00:29:29,685
and 73 Lancasters,
their first large—scale use on operations.

330
00:29:36,441 --> 00:29:39,695
The thousand bomber raid
was a major success.

331
00:29:40,570 --> 00:29:42,281
Churchill wrote to Harris

332
00:29:42,823 --> 00:29:46,410
”this proof of the growing power
of the British bomber force

333
00:29:46,493 --> 00:29:52,207
is also a herald of what Germany
will receive city by city from now on. ”

334
00:29:53,292 --> 00:29:56,503
And at the heart of it
would be the Lancaster.


336
00:30:00,674 --> 00:30:04,219
the new strategy was called area bombing.

337
00:30:05,095 --> 00:30:09,516
Cities themselves rather than the factories
in them became the targets.

338
00:30:12,394 --> 00:30:16,231
Night after night,
orders were issued for their destruction.

339
00:30:17,149 --> 00:30:19,860
Telephonists,
messengers, teleprint operators

340
00:30:19,943 --> 00:30:22,779
the orders pass along a chain,
staffed by air women.

341
00:30:23,739 --> 00:30:25,449
I was in signals section.

342
00:30:25,532 --> 00:30:27,844
From command
headquarters to group headquarters

343
00:30:27,868 --> 00:30:29,953
from group to station,
from station to squadron.

344
00:30:30,037 --> 00:30:32,372
Obviously we knew when ops were on

345
00:30:32,873 --> 00:30:34,666
it was just part of our life.

346
00:30:35,709 --> 00:30:39,671
We were connected to headquarters,
to bomber command

347
00:30:39,755 --> 00:30:42,799
and um, you'd get messages of course

348
00:30:42,883 --> 00:30:46,511
which we then had to give
to the ops room or whatever.

349
00:30:53,685 --> 00:30:57,022
So we got ready for our first operation.

350
00:31:00,567 --> 00:31:05,113
Nobody can actually tell you
what it's like to go on ops.

351
00:31:05,197 --> 00:31:07,532
You've got to experience it.

352
00:31:07,616 --> 00:31:10,452
You have to do the on—the—job training,
as it were.

353
00:31:11,912 --> 00:31:14,373
I certainly had butterflies in my stomach.

354
00:31:14,498 --> 00:31:17,334
I began to feel,
"well, this is the real thing now"

355
00:31:17,667 --> 00:31:20,796
we were going to fly
on an operational sortie.

356
00:31:22,547 --> 00:31:24,817
The announcement
came over the loudspeaker.

357
00:31:24,841 --> 00:31:29,471
"Crews number so and so, so, so, so, so,
report to the briefing room."

358
00:31:34,226 --> 00:31:36,561
You were always wondering

359
00:31:36,645 --> 00:31:39,606
what the target was going to be for...
For the night.

360
00:31:41,942 --> 00:31:46,947
We walked in and there is
a curtain drawn across the backboard.

361
00:31:48,615 --> 00:31:51,868
And then in walked the co

362
00:31:52,869 --> 00:31:57,874
and he would be followed
by a whole string of officers

363
00:31:58,417 --> 00:32:04,381
who were all, in theory anyway,
experts in their field.

364
00:32:09,052 --> 00:32:13,306
Then the commanding officer
would pull back a curtain

365
00:32:13,390 --> 00:32:17,477
that was covering the huge map
on the wall of Northern Europe

366
00:32:17,561 --> 00:32:20,689
and he would announce to us

367
00:32:21,231 --> 00:32:25,485
"your target tonight, gentlemen, is..."

368
00:32:30,157 --> 00:32:33,994
It was dramatic, the revelation
when they drew back the curtain

369
00:32:34,077 --> 00:32:36,788
and told you where you were going.


370
00:32:36,872 --> 00:32:39,040
and if it was Berlin or
some of the big ones

371
00:32:39,124 --> 00:32:41,793
there would be a groan
going round the briefing room.

372
00:32:42,377 --> 00:32:44,171
There would be various exclamations

373
00:32:44,254 --> 00:32:45,797
of blasphemy and whatnot.

374
00:32:46,214 --> 00:32:48,258
"Oh Lord, not going back there again!"

375
00:32:48,341 --> 00:32:50,051
"Not that place again!"


376
00:32:52,888 --> 00:32:56,266
there was always an air of suspicion
over the met forecasts.

377
00:32:56,349 --> 00:33:00,020
They were always laughed at
and shouted down, you know?

378
00:33:00,103 --> 00:33:03,273
"Oh, the met man",
cos they could never get it right.


380
00:33:04,816 --> 00:33:09,070
the weather's good, we hope,
so you should have no difficulty

381
00:33:09,154 --> 00:33:12,365
in finding the target,
so prang it and prang it hard.

382
00:33:13,033 --> 00:33:15,118
Alright, chaps? And good luck.

383
00:33:16,745 --> 00:33:22,083
On that first op you were more
in wonder what was gonna happen.

384
00:33:23,001 --> 00:33:26,546
But I did realise that,
from what people had told me

385
00:33:26,755 --> 00:33:28,298
you didn't stand an earthly.


387
00:33:43,355 --> 00:33:46,107
I was young,
18 years old, and I was scared.

388
00:33:47,317 --> 00:33:49,194
Scared, scared, scared.

389
00:33:50,111 --> 00:33:55,700
Cos we was all fresh, but we
were all very confident in our pilot.

390
00:33:59,454 --> 00:34:04,000
 I suppose at that age as well
I was 18, still 18

391
00:34:04,084 --> 00:34:09,089
it was the excitement, I suppose,
of fulfilling all your training.

392
00:34:13,218 --> 00:34:16,012
I was apprehensive from the word go.

393
00:34:16,846 --> 00:34:19,182
I started off more apprehensive
than the rest of the group

394
00:34:19,266 --> 00:34:21,434
cos I think they thought
it was gonna be a doddle

395
00:34:21,768 --> 00:34:24,020
but I thought,
"this isn't gonna be easy".

396
00:34:27,649 --> 00:34:29,568
We were definitely nervous

397
00:34:29,693 --> 00:34:32,404
and I remember the wing commander
coming round in his car

398
00:34:32,612 --> 00:34:33,989
knowing it was our first

399
00:34:34,656 --> 00:34:37,701
and said, "best of luck, boys".

400
00:34:38,243 --> 00:34:40,287
And I remember the ground crew, wonderful

401
00:34:40,662 --> 00:34:44,291
they said to us,
"your uncle will never let you down".

402
00:34:47,502 --> 00:34:50,255
When an aircraft takes off it goes.

403
00:34:51,214 --> 00:34:52,674
There's no room for turning

404
00:34:52,757 --> 00:34:54,759
stopping and looking back.

405
00:34:55,010 --> 00:34:57,804
It goes, so everything gotta be right.


408
00:35:15,530 --> 00:35:17,574
When those four Merlins cough

409
00:35:17,657 --> 00:35:21,411
and you start to hear
the exhaust it's er...

410
00:35:21,494 --> 00:35:25,790
It's like something
that's almost born again.

411
00:35:33,757 --> 00:35:37,969
When it started,
you felt all the noise and the...

412
00:35:38,762 --> 00:35:40,221
In your chest.

413
00:35:41,222 --> 00:35:45,393
The er... the feeling
of the power and the...

414
00:35:46,227 --> 00:35:47,604
Everything about it.

415
00:35:54,694 --> 00:35:56,780
And then the ground crew said, "cheerio"

416
00:35:56,863 --> 00:36:02,494
and you taxied out and you
got into this long chain of aircraft

417
00:36:02,577 --> 00:36:03,995
taxiing round to take off.

418
00:36:08,667 --> 00:36:11,127
I had no fears, I was...

419
00:36:12,587 --> 00:36:14,214
"Get on with the job."

420
00:36:18,218 --> 00:36:19,469
We were at war.

421
00:36:21,930 --> 00:36:25,183
But as far as being
a Christian is concerned...

422
00:36:29,938 --> 00:36:33,775
How could you ask your God
to give you a blessing

423
00:36:34,442 --> 00:36:39,030
when he knows
that you're carrying a load of weapons

424
00:36:39,114 --> 00:36:40,407
that's gonna to kill people?

425
00:36:47,247 --> 00:36:50,917
But I'm afraid,
what was going on in the world...

426
00:36:51,418 --> 00:36:53,128
Something had to be done.

427
00:37:08,268 --> 00:37:13,106
I had no other feelings
but, "get this done".

428
00:38:00,445 --> 00:38:01,780
Target Germany.

429
00:38:02,447 --> 00:38:05,784
These were some of the main centres
of German heavy industry.

430
00:38:06,201 --> 00:38:10,747
Nuremberg, where they made
u boat engines, guns, tanks, bombers.

431
00:38:11,247 --> 00:38:14,334
Berlin, aero engines,
the electrical industry

432
00:38:14,584 --> 00:38:16,002
a great railway centre.

433
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:20,256
The Ruhr,
the heart of German heavy industry

434
00:38:20,590 --> 00:38:23,218
coal and iron, steel and power.

435
00:38:26,387 --> 00:38:27,764
In 1943

436
00:38:27,847 --> 00:38:31,059
every operation we did
on the Ruhr was an epic.

437
00:38:31,142 --> 00:38:32,769
There's no other word for it.

438
00:38:39,150 --> 00:38:41,444
Take the Krupp works at Essen.

439
00:38:42,195 --> 00:38:44,948
Enormous importance to the Germans.

440
00:38:45,865 --> 00:38:49,536
It was an obvious target
that was always gonna be attacked.

441
00:38:58,545 --> 00:39:00,213
I would say that er...

442
00:39:01,047 --> 00:39:04,968
Sixty percent or 70 percent
of our trips were to the Ruhr valley.

443
00:39:07,262 --> 00:39:09,764
Duisburg. Gelsenkirchen.

444
00:39:10,223 --> 00:39:11,683
Dortmund. Wuppertal.

445
00:39:11,850 --> 00:39:13,309
Dusseldorf.
Essen.

446
00:39:13,393 --> 00:39:15,228
Hamm.
Monchengladbach.

447
00:39:15,562 --> 00:39:17,772
Krefeld. Munster.

448
00:39:18,857 --> 00:39:21,734
The whole lot of them,
all the way through, one after the other.

449
00:39:22,277 --> 00:39:23,903
Alarm!

450
00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:30,410
the Ruhr was also known
as happy valley.

451
00:39:31,411 --> 00:39:33,288
It was anything but happy.

452
00:39:35,707 --> 00:39:41,546
It was probably
the most heavily defended area in Germany.

453
00:39:41,796 --> 00:39:44,883
The defences were just unbelievable.


455
00:40:02,442 --> 00:40:05,028
When we were approaching the target...

456
00:40:05,570 --> 00:40:08,865
You could see the fires
and you could see the flak.


458
00:40:11,951 --> 00:40:15,079
The sky is filled with bursting shells.

459
00:40:15,163 --> 00:40:16,539
I really mean filled.

460
00:40:23,463 --> 00:40:25,798
Fireworks. Er...

461
00:40:26,466 --> 00:40:29,844
Now I'm not so keen on fireworks

462
00:40:30,470 --> 00:40:33,806
because it's such a reminder
of what it was like then.

463
00:40:35,016 --> 00:40:39,062
When you look
at the New Year's Eve fireworks

464
00:40:39,145 --> 00:40:40,772
over Sydney Harbour

465
00:40:42,398 --> 00:40:47,612
that is what you're looking at roughly
at the target in Germany.

466
00:40:49,405 --> 00:40:50,907
And you think to yourself

467
00:40:51,824 --> 00:40:54,118
"how the hell are we gonna get
through that lot?"

468
00:40:59,874 --> 00:41:03,461
If the anti—aircraft fire
is getting close to you

469
00:41:04,712 --> 00:41:07,423
you'll know how close it is
cos you'll smell it.

470
00:41:07,548 --> 00:41:08,841
You could smell the cordite.

471
00:41:09,217 --> 00:41:11,678
That's how close they were putting us down.

472
00:41:11,844 --> 00:41:13,805
I know the first time I smelt cordite

473
00:41:13,888 --> 00:41:16,224
I thought,
"Christ, the next one's gonna hit us."

474
00:41:18,017 --> 00:41:22,522
It really only needed a tiny piece
of a shell fragment to hit an engine

475
00:41:22,605 --> 00:41:24,732
which would catch on fire
and that would be it.

476
00:41:25,942 --> 00:41:31,406
So it was alarming but I just ignored it
and got on with my job.

477
00:41:34,534 --> 00:41:36,786
To help increase bombing accuracy

478
00:41:37,078 --> 00:41:42,333
experienced crews were formed
into special squadrons called pathfinders.

479
00:41:44,377 --> 00:41:46,170
Using the latest navigation aids

480
00:41:46,629 --> 00:41:51,801
they dropped coloured flares known
as target indicators on the aiming point.

481
00:41:53,302 --> 00:41:56,472
It meant the bombers coming in

482
00:41:56,556 --> 00:42:01,602
now had visual reference on the ground
that that was the target.

483
00:42:05,606 --> 00:42:08,234
When we get to the target

484
00:42:08,317 --> 00:42:11,446
at a certain distance out
the bomb aimer takes over.

485
00:42:13,322 --> 00:42:18,327
My job was to align the bomb sight
with the target

486
00:42:18,703 --> 00:42:19,871
and drop the bombs.


488
00:42:24,167 --> 00:42:26,961
 I said to Dickie,
"I'll point you in the right direction

489
00:42:27,045 --> 00:42:29,255
and you get it right first time

490
00:42:29,338 --> 00:42:35,011
cos we drop the bombs on the first run,
we are not going round again."


492
00:42:39,265 --> 00:42:42,852
And this is where he is giving you
this, "left, left, right, right

493
00:42:43,019 --> 00:42:44,270
steady, steady, steady."

494
00:42:45,772 --> 00:42:49,025
And when he was over the target
he'd say, "right, bomb's gone".

495
00:42:49,484 --> 00:42:51,986
Bomb '5 gone.

496
00:42:52,236 --> 00:42:54,155
But you didn't escape straight away

497
00:42:54,238 --> 00:42:57,742
because we had to take a photograph
of where your bomb's burst.

498
00:42:59,660 --> 00:43:02,038
And then you put the nose down

499
00:43:02,121 --> 00:43:04,624
pointing to where you were going
as fast as you could

500
00:43:04,707 --> 00:43:05,787
and got the hell out of it.

501
00:43:18,221 --> 00:43:21,891
Harris ' campaign
against the industrial cities of the Ruhr

502
00:43:21,974 --> 00:43:23,810
was devastatingly effective.

503
00:43:25,269 --> 00:43:29,357
But less conventional methods of bombing
were also being considered

504
00:43:32,944 --> 00:43:36,614
one was an idea
from inventor Barnes Wallis.

505
00:43:38,157 --> 00:43:40,910
It harnessed the full capability
of the Lancaster

506
00:43:41,410 --> 00:43:43,913
and would put it on the world stage.

507
00:43:50,962 --> 00:43:53,381
Wallis was developing a secret bomb

508
00:43:53,464 --> 00:43:56,717
to destroy the dams
that powered the Ruhr factories.

509
00:44:00,429 --> 00:44:03,724
A special unit was formed
to carry out the operation

510
00:44:04,183 --> 00:44:05,685
Squadron X.

511
00:44:07,270 --> 00:44:11,440
Squadron X was 617 squadron, eventually.

512
00:44:13,484 --> 00:44:16,821
Its leader was wing commander Guy Gibson.

513
00:44:18,781 --> 00:44:23,327
He was arrogant and a strict disciplinarian

514
00:44:24,579 --> 00:44:29,375
but the true essence of his leadership
comes in the attack itself.

515
00:44:30,001 --> 00:44:32,461
He was no doubt a brilliant attack leader.

516
00:44:32,879 --> 00:44:35,506
That's your main target, the Mohne Dam.

517
00:44:35,673 --> 00:44:40,386
The stay of the attack
was immortalised in the 1955 film.

518
00:44:40,469 --> 00:44:42,197
If you can blow a hole in this wall

519
00:44:42,221 --> 00:44:44,765
you'll bring the Ruhr steel industry
to a standstill

520
00:44:45,141 --> 00:44:46,642
and do much other damage besides.

521
00:44:47,310 --> 00:44:48,370
I'm showing you the targets

522
00:44:48,394 --> 00:44:50,122
but you'll be the only man
in the squadron who knows

523
00:44:50,146 --> 00:44:52,064
so keep it that way.
— very good, sir.

524
00:44:52,148 --> 00:44:53,667
And these are the models
of the two other dams

525
00:44:53,691 --> 00:44:57,528
the Eder and the Sorpe,
but the Mohne is the most important.

526
00:44:57,612 --> 00:44:59,280
I see, sir.
— come along and study these

527
00:44:59,363 --> 00:45:00,364
as often as you like.

528
00:45:03,367 --> 00:45:05,077
Having proved the concept

529
00:45:05,411 --> 00:45:08,539
Wallis had to work out
how to get the weapon on target.

530
00:45:10,708 --> 00:45:14,045
The Lancaster was adapted
to carry the four—ton bomb.

531
00:45:15,254 --> 00:45:17,590
To fly at precisely 60 feet

532
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,010
spotlights measured
the aircraft's height above the water.

533
00:45:21,761 --> 00:45:25,014
A motor was used to spin
the weapon before it was dropped

534
00:45:25,348 --> 00:45:28,184
which would then skip
across the surface of the lake.

535
00:45:31,103 --> 00:45:35,316
No other bomber at that time
was capable of carrying out the operation.


537
00:46:20,653 --> 00:46:21,862
Well, the training's over.

538
00:46:23,781 --> 00:46:26,951
For obvious reasons you've had
to work without knowing your target

539
00:46:27,535 --> 00:46:28,536
or even your weapon.

540
00:46:28,911 --> 00:46:30,579
The AOC was there

541
00:46:30,913 --> 00:46:34,625
station commander,
Gibson, of course, doing the briefing

542
00:46:35,042 --> 00:46:36,294
Barnes Wallis was there.

543
00:46:38,838 --> 00:46:42,591
You're going to attack
the great dams of western Germany.

544
00:46:45,011 --> 00:46:47,471
Gibson explained that he would take off

545
00:46:47,555 --> 00:46:51,225
with two others in three formation
and they would head for the Mohne

546
00:46:51,309 --> 00:46:56,063
and once it had been breached,
they'd go over to the Eder and attack that.

547
00:46:58,065 --> 00:47:00,192
Five crews were briefed for the Sorpe

548
00:47:00,276 --> 00:47:01,986
and that had to be different.

549
00:47:02,445 --> 00:47:05,489
They had no towers,
so there's no sighting means of it

550
00:47:06,032 --> 00:47:10,036
and it was so placed in the hills
that it couldn't be attacked head on.

551
00:47:12,246 --> 00:47:15,875
Instead we were briefed
that we had to fly along the dam

552
00:47:16,125 --> 00:47:19,920
and to drop the bomb as near as possible
as you could estimate

553
00:47:20,004 --> 00:47:21,339
to the centre of the dam.

554
00:47:22,923 --> 00:47:25,885
It meant we weren't going to use
any of the bombing techniques

555
00:47:25,968 --> 00:47:26,968
we'd used in training.

556
00:47:31,557 --> 00:47:32,892
As the film showed

557
00:47:32,975 --> 00:47:38,939
the operation was bold, daring,
and extremely dangerous.

558
00:48:10,930 --> 00:48:12,932
As we crossed the coast

559
00:48:13,766 --> 00:48:19,271
we had to fly down at low level
to avoid enemy fighters.

560
00:48:21,565 --> 00:48:25,528
Our pilot Joe McCarthy saw a couple
of sand dunes on the coast

561
00:48:25,611 --> 00:48:27,071
and went down between them.

562
00:48:29,573 --> 00:48:32,827
At zero feet, our biggest problem
was the guns down there.

563
00:48:39,750 --> 00:48:42,086
We got to, eventually, the Sorpe.

564
00:48:44,130 --> 00:48:47,675
The first thing that we saw
was on the side of the hill

565
00:48:47,758 --> 00:48:49,677
down which we were supposed to attack

566
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:53,931
there was a church steeple,
which I don't remember seeing on the model.

567
00:48:59,186 --> 00:49:02,982
And so Joe decided
to use that as a marker.

568
00:49:07,820 --> 00:49:09,196
Not an easy thing.

569
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,907
We'd had no practice
at that sort of attack at all.

570
00:49:12,450 --> 00:49:15,286
If I wasn't satisfied, I
called, "dummy run."

571
00:49:15,744 --> 00:49:20,833
If he wasn't satisfied, he just pulled away
before we hit the hills on the opposite side.

572
00:49:29,341 --> 00:49:32,011
And after about the
sixth or seventh of these

573
00:49:33,137 --> 00:49:37,558
a voice from the rear turret,
"won't somebody get that bomb out of here?"

574
00:49:38,225 --> 00:49:42,521
And I had to realise I had become
the most unpopular member of crew

575
00:49:42,605 --> 00:49:43,689
in double quick time.

576
00:49:52,656 --> 00:49:55,910
I'm sure Joe thought that the lower we got

577
00:49:56,577 --> 00:50:00,164
the easier it would be
to estimate the dropping point.

578
00:50:02,708 --> 00:50:06,670
So on the tenth run,
we were down to 30 feet

579
00:50:06,879 --> 00:50:08,380
and when I said, "bomb gone"

580
00:50:08,464 --> 00:50:11,300
"thank Christ" came
from the rear turret just like that.

581
00:50:17,056 --> 00:50:22,228
And he estimated that that tower of water
went up to something like a thousand feet.

582
00:50:23,687 --> 00:50:28,442
We had crumbled the top of the dam
for a distance of about ten yards.

583
00:50:30,778 --> 00:50:32,446
So then we set course for home

584
00:50:32,988 --> 00:50:35,741
and that for me
was the highlight of the trip.

585
00:50:37,910 --> 00:50:40,037
It took us over the Mohne.

586
00:50:40,371 --> 00:50:43,082
We knew by radio that it had been breached.

587
00:50:44,291 --> 00:50:46,335
There was water everywhere.

588
00:50:46,710 --> 00:50:51,674
It was just like an inland sea
and it was still coming out of that dam

589
00:50:52,132 --> 00:50:55,844
even what, 20 minutes, maybe half an hour
after it had been breached.

590
00:50:58,847 --> 00:51:01,475
But my God, what a loss.

591
00:51:03,060 --> 00:51:04,353
Eight aircraft.

592
00:51:05,145 --> 00:51:09,024
Fifty—three aircrew killed
and three taken prisoner.

593
00:51:09,817 --> 00:51:15,489
What a devastating result for one squadron
on one night's operation.

594
00:51:33,132 --> 00:51:38,971
I went back to the mess where the
waitresses, some of them were crying

595
00:51:40,055 --> 00:51:44,685
because of the number of empty seats
there were in the mess, the dining room.

596
00:51:45,811 --> 00:51:49,898
And the chief said,
"I think you better go back to bed, girls.

597
00:51:50,441 --> 00:51:53,027
Come back in the morning,
you might feel a bit better."

598
00:52:00,784 --> 00:52:01,869
Was it worth it?

599
00:52:03,245 --> 00:52:04,288
I wonder.

600
00:52:04,955 --> 00:52:09,001
But that was, of course, was the loss side.

601
00:52:09,752 --> 00:52:12,796
There was a gain side
which was more important.

602
00:52:22,514 --> 00:52:25,517
We all thought what a magnificent effort

603
00:52:25,601 --> 00:52:27,102
had been made, you know?

604
00:52:27,394 --> 00:52:31,565
Er, these chaps going in over water

605
00:52:31,982 --> 00:52:36,528
flying at 240 miles an hour at 60 feet.

606
00:52:37,488 --> 00:52:39,782
Just spellbound by it

607
00:52:40,783 --> 00:52:44,995
wondering whether we could ever
have done the same thing.

608
00:52:51,210 --> 00:52:54,963
Whatever it achieved was to our advantage.

609
00:52:55,923 --> 00:52:59,468
It proved to Hitler
and the German hierarchy

610
00:53:00,094 --> 00:53:02,262
that what they thought was impregnable

611
00:53:02,763 --> 00:53:05,516
the Royal Air Force
could get through and destroy.

612
00:53:13,148 --> 00:53:16,944
When people saw this and read about it

613
00:53:17,486 --> 00:53:22,241
I thought, "well, what a marvellous thing
that the RAF has done

614
00:53:22,825 --> 00:53:26,620
and is this a sign
of what they can do in the future?"

615
00:53:29,248 --> 00:53:31,834
Perhaps its greatest effect

616
00:53:32,334 --> 00:53:35,671
was on the morale
of the people in this country.

617
00:53:36,630 --> 00:53:40,008
It raised the thought,
"we're winning something.

618
00:53:40,467 --> 00:53:42,636
Is this a turning point in the war?"

619
00:53:43,137 --> 00:53:45,180
It may have been, I'm still not sure.

620
00:53:45,806 --> 00:53:47,891
But at least it didn't get worse than that.

621
00:54:02,906 --> 00:54:06,160
The dams raid caused great destruction

622
00:54:06,702 --> 00:54:09,830
but enemy engineers were quick
to repair the damage.

623
00:54:10,456 --> 00:54:13,459
Despite these setbacks at home
and on other fronts

624
00:54:13,917 --> 00:54:16,336
Germany remained a formidable enemy.

625
00:54:22,050 --> 00:54:26,388
Morale in bomber command
was very low indeed

626
00:54:26,472 --> 00:54:28,474
because the losses were building up

627
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:31,643
and we didn't seem to have any positive way

628
00:54:31,727 --> 00:54:37,608
of getting over these defences that
the Germans were improving all the time.

629
00:54:39,067 --> 00:54:41,278
The most effective of these defences

630
00:54:41,361 --> 00:54:44,031
was the Luftwaffe's night fighter force.


632
00:54:48,660 --> 00:54:51,163
flying heavily armed, twin—engined aircraft

633
00:54:51,246 --> 00:54:54,875
like the Messerschmitt
110 or the Junkers 88

634
00:54:55,292 --> 00:55:00,380
radar—equipped night fighters accounted
for the bulk of bomber command's losses.

635
00:55:03,342 --> 00:55:07,846
Now, a night fighter was guided
by a ground radar operator.


637
00:55:11,850 --> 00:55:16,980
and once he picked up your blip,
he would then guide the aircraft on to you.


639
00:55:20,776 --> 00:55:23,362
That's how most aircraft got shot down

640
00:55:23,445 --> 00:55:24,947
was between that team.

641
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:26,323
It was very efficient.

642
00:55:29,117 --> 00:55:30,369
Very efficient indeed.

643
00:55:34,873 --> 00:55:38,585
But British scientists
came up with a deceptively simple device

644
00:55:38,669 --> 00:55:40,587
to counter the enemy's radar.

645
00:55:42,172 --> 00:55:44,424
It was codenamed ”window”.

646
00:55:46,927 --> 00:55:49,596
Window was a strip of metallic paper

647
00:55:49,972 --> 00:55:52,724
which we scattered from the aircraft

648
00:55:53,517 --> 00:55:56,395
and it gave the impression
to the German radar

649
00:55:56,770 --> 00:56:00,732
of an enormous amount of planes so
they couldn't pick up an individual plane.

650
00:56:02,651 --> 00:56:06,822
The German defences
were poleaxed in a way

651
00:56:07,114 --> 00:56:09,241
because they just didn't know
what they were doing.

652
00:56:12,411 --> 00:56:16,456
In July 1943,
using window for the first time

653
00:56:16,540 --> 00:56:20,878
Harris planned four attacks on the heart
of German y's shipbuilding industiy.

654
00:56:27,926 --> 00:56:29,595
With the defences blinded

655
00:56:29,887 --> 00:56:32,639
the bombers were targeting
not just the shipyards

656
00:56:33,432 --> 00:56:35,434
but the workers' housing too.

657
00:56:36,101 --> 00:56:39,897
We went to Hamburg to bomb that place.

658
00:56:41,356 --> 00:56:46,111
After the first night,
place was still burning.

659
00:56:54,745 --> 00:56:56,038
On the second night

660
00:56:56,121 --> 00:57:01,585
hot and dry weather conditions combined
with the blazes started by the bombing

661
00:57:02,002 --> 00:57:05,672
created a firestorm
that swept through the city.

662
00:57:12,554 --> 00:57:18,518
The second night,
I remember asking my navigator

663
00:57:18,602 --> 00:57:19,686
to come and have a look.

664
00:57:21,146 --> 00:57:26,610
He didn't like to see towns burning,
and yet that's what our task was.

665
00:57:36,578 --> 00:57:38,330
You could see it from a long way off.

666
00:57:39,206 --> 00:57:43,710
The whole city on fire,
and it's quite an alarming sight.

667
00:57:44,169 --> 00:57:46,088
And you're adding to it.

668
00:57:47,714 --> 00:57:51,093
And the bomb aimer has the best view
of them all as you can imagine

669
00:57:51,176 --> 00:57:53,345
through the front perspex.


671
00:58:03,772 --> 00:58:04,815
I can see it now.

672
00:58:04,898 --> 00:58:08,110
The firestorm was started
on the submarine pens

673
00:58:08,193 --> 00:58:10,570
went right the way through,
right up the river Elbe

674
00:58:10,654 --> 00:58:15,075
right to the other side
and Hamburg was literally wiped right out.

675
00:58:28,839 --> 00:58:32,175
I was sorry that we had to do
so much damage to it.

676
00:58:37,848 --> 00:58:40,517
Bombers
of the Eighth United States Air Force

677
00:58:40,642 --> 00:58:42,561
taking off from aerodromes in England

678
00:58:42,686 --> 00:58:46,690
continue their round the clock devastation
of war plants in Nazi Germany.

679
00:58:51,611 --> 00:58:55,574
America had come
into the conflict in December 1941

680
00:58:56,324 --> 00:58:58,994
and now it too
was taking the war to Germany.

681
00:59:00,704 --> 00:59:02,539
The daylight raid on Hamburg

682
00:59:02,706 --> 00:59:06,001
was the first time US bombers
joined the RAF in the attack.

683
00:59:07,377 --> 00:59:11,256
In broad daylight,
mighty squadrons roar across the North Sea.

684
00:59:11,590 --> 00:59:15,010
Over Hamburg,
tons of bombs rain from the skies...

685
00:59:15,677 --> 00:59:20,182
The allied raids shattered
the city and rocked the Nazi leadership.

686
00:59:20,265 --> 00:59:22,585
Aerial photographs show the results...

687
00:59:23,060 --> 00:59:28,648
40,000 people were killed
and 1.2 million flied for the countryside.

688
00:59:30,067 --> 00:59:32,152
The Germans were absolutely shattered

689
00:59:33,028 --> 00:59:37,657
but war is war,
whichever way you look at it.

690
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:41,828
The hard facts are we had a job to do
and we had to get on with it.

691
00:59:42,871 --> 00:59:46,666
There were no ifs and buts that er,
"well, perhaps we shouldn't do this

692
00:59:46,750 --> 00:59:48,126
or we shouldn't do that."

693
00:59:49,127 --> 00:59:50,670
We were given the target

694
00:59:50,754 --> 00:59:54,424
we were told why we were taking
that particular target

695
00:59:54,966 --> 00:59:56,635
and we had to get on with it.

696
00:59:56,718 --> 01:00:02,641
It was taking the war to Germany
by the only means possible at that time

697
01:00:03,141 --> 01:00:07,104
and nobody, in arguing against it

698
01:00:07,395 --> 01:00:09,439
has come up with another solution

699
01:00:09,523 --> 01:00:11,483
for carrying the war to Germany.

700
01:00:20,075 --> 01:00:22,410
But RAF reconnaissance had revealed

701
01:00:22,828 --> 01:00:28,542
that Germany had new and terrifying ideas
about carrying the war to Britain.

702
01:00:33,505 --> 01:00:37,175
V2 rockets,
the world's first ballistic missiles

703
01:00:37,509 --> 01:00:41,138
were being developed
at a secret location on the Baltic coast

704
01:00:43,765 --> 01:00:47,519
carrying a one—ton warhead
at three times the speed of sound

705
01:00:48,353 --> 01:00:50,564
there would be no defence against them.


707
01:00:59,781 --> 01:01:04,369
the site had to be destroyed
before they could enter service.

708
01:01:08,999 --> 01:01:12,794
Well, the first thing we noticed
when we got to the briefing room

709
01:01:13,211 --> 01:01:18,842
was that there were more RAF police
on the door than was normal.

710
01:01:22,846 --> 01:01:25,307
We thought, well, you know,
"what's going on?"

711
01:01:26,016 --> 01:01:27,475
And of course when we got in

712
01:01:27,559 --> 01:01:31,021
and sat down and they
drew the curtains back

713
01:01:31,563 --> 01:01:33,440
we couldn't believe what we were seeing.

714
01:01:35,901 --> 01:01:39,654
The ribbon going all
the way up the North Sea

715
01:01:40,238 --> 01:01:44,367
across Denmark to a tiny place

716
01:01:45,035 --> 01:01:46,328
called Peenemunde.

717
01:01:48,079 --> 01:01:50,081
It was a strange feeling

718
01:01:50,165 --> 01:01:55,253
to know that we were going
a little bit into the unknown.

719
01:02:00,634 --> 01:02:04,221
Peenemunde was... it was a long journey.

720
01:02:06,514 --> 01:02:07,724
Full moon.

721
01:02:08,600 --> 01:02:10,977
To try that over Germany...

722
01:02:11,770 --> 01:02:12,896
Suicide.

723
01:02:21,404 --> 01:02:25,325
So we went low level across the North Sea.

724
01:02:31,790 --> 01:02:37,254
We were told that it was
a very, very important target

725
01:02:37,629 --> 01:02:41,800
which could affect the outcome of the war.

726
01:02:43,468 --> 01:02:47,097
And if we didn't do the job that night

727
01:02:47,764 --> 01:02:49,432
we'd go back the following night

728
01:02:50,016 --> 01:02:53,270
and the night after,
and the night after that

729
01:02:54,020 --> 01:02:55,814
until it was obliterated.

730
01:03:08,451 --> 01:03:13,957
And then arriving at the target,
you could see everything quite clearly.

731
01:03:16,459 --> 01:03:22,465
A brilliant, lovely night,
and yet we were there to destroy and kill.

732
01:03:40,859 --> 01:03:42,902
When we went in on our bombing run

733
01:03:43,361 --> 01:03:45,947
there was a bit of flak, not too serious

734
01:03:46,364 --> 01:03:49,617
and we were able to bomb and get out

735
01:03:51,286 --> 01:03:53,246
without too much trouble.

736
01:03:55,707 --> 01:03:59,961
You could clearly see the ground
and what you were trying to hit.

737
01:04:03,131 --> 01:04:06,176
But of course
it was a brilliant moonlight night.

738
01:04:07,093 --> 01:04:11,181
When the fighters got there,
they had a bit of a field day.

739
01:04:16,144 --> 01:04:18,938
We lost over 40 aircraft.

740
01:04:24,110 --> 01:04:27,447
245 RAF aircrew were killed

741
01:04:28,531 --> 01:04:31,618
along with approximately
700 people on the ground

742
01:04:34,329 --> 01:04:37,832
but the raid delayed development
of the rockets by many months.

743
01:04:41,127 --> 01:04:44,964
It was enough to ensure that the V weapons
would not be the war winner

744
01:04:45,048 --> 01:04:46,466
that Hitler hoped for.

745
01:04:49,677 --> 01:04:53,973
We were quite proud
to think that we'd taken part in that

746
01:04:54,349 --> 01:04:59,396
and of course very much relieved
that we didn't have to go back

747
01:05:01,940 --> 01:05:03,149
cos that was...

748
01:05:04,317 --> 01:05:08,822
Well, we thought that that would be it

749
01:05:09,197 --> 01:05:10,365
if we had to go back.

750
01:05:11,950 --> 01:05:15,245
That that would... that would be...
That would be the chop.

751
01:05:20,041 --> 01:05:22,794
So that was a huge sigh of relief.

752
01:05:24,546 --> 01:05:26,214
We were stood down.

753
01:05:33,179 --> 01:05:35,974
The most atmospheric place you can ever be

754
01:05:36,057 --> 01:05:37,684
is in a bomber station.

755
01:05:37,892 --> 01:05:42,355
If there's been a stand down for two days,
there's a station dance

756
01:05:42,439 --> 01:05:45,733
and every station had got
a dance band of some sort.



759
01:05:57,495 --> 01:06:00,457
 They used to use the hangars,
they'd push the aeroplanes back

760
01:06:00,540 --> 01:06:04,752
there's a bar, there's the station band
belting out Glenn Miller.

761
01:06:08,256 --> 01:06:09,632
It's... it's electric.

762
01:06:10,884 --> 01:06:12,010
Electric.

763
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:20,685
We laughed and joked with each other

764
01:06:20,768 --> 01:06:22,479
and some paired off.

765
01:06:24,314 --> 01:06:27,859
Some were a bit naughty and... you know.

766
01:06:30,195 --> 01:06:32,655
These boys became very precious.

767
01:06:32,739 --> 01:06:33,823
Very precious.

768
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:35,742
They were bomber crew.

769
01:06:36,409 --> 01:06:40,371
Just to hold hands
or hug a boy was magic.

770
01:06:45,543 --> 01:06:47,462
Beer and girls.

771
01:06:48,046 --> 01:06:49,255
And this was the...

772
01:06:49,506 --> 01:06:52,425
We drank an awful lot,
even when you weren't flying.

773
01:06:52,884 --> 01:06:54,761
Six, eight pints a night was nothing.

774
01:06:55,053 --> 01:06:57,180
You never knew the guy
that you were drinking with

775
01:06:57,263 --> 01:06:58,908
whether he's going
to be there tomorrow or not.

776
01:06:58,932 --> 01:07:00,266
We took it for granted.

777
01:07:04,354 --> 01:07:06,481
You didn't sit in the mess and dwell

778
01:07:06,856 --> 01:07:08,274
you just got on with living.

779
01:07:11,319 --> 01:07:14,364
And the girls were
so affectionate and so lovely.

780
01:07:14,614 --> 01:07:15,657
Charles, look.

781
01:07:16,533 --> 01:07:18,076
Who's that smasher over there?

782
01:07:18,660 --> 01:07:22,121
One of my friends said,
"thank God for sex, it's kept me sane".

783
01:07:22,205 --> 01:07:24,005
What would you say
if I asked you for a dance?

784
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:26,292
I should rather be saying... yes.
— lovely.

785
01:07:28,336 --> 01:07:29,336
Well, I'm damned.

786
01:07:32,882 --> 01:07:34,634
Well, I met this young man

787
01:07:34,717 --> 01:07:39,264
his name was Bruce,
he was a pilot in a Lanc.

788
01:07:40,348 --> 01:07:42,350
And he asked me to dance

789
01:07:44,018 --> 01:07:46,896
and I mean, we just...

790
01:07:47,522 --> 01:07:49,941
You know, we fell in love really.

791
01:07:52,151 --> 01:07:55,280
We used to meet whenever he wasn't on ops

792
01:07:56,030 --> 01:07:57,574
or I wasn't on duty.

793
01:07:59,284 --> 01:08:00,952
So that was just wonderful.

794
01:08:06,916 --> 01:08:11,212
And yet we never spoke about what he did.

795
01:08:11,838 --> 01:08:13,381
We didn't talk about it.

796
01:08:14,007 --> 01:08:15,967
And in a way it was right really.

797
01:08:16,759 --> 01:08:17,759
That was done.

798
01:08:19,012 --> 01:08:20,597
And then it was on to the next one.


800
01:08:52,837 --> 01:08:55,557
The green light flashes on the control tower.

801
01:08:55,590 --> 01:08:59,510
It's our turn to go now
as we start to slowly gather speed

802
01:08:59,594 --> 01:09:02,263
down the mile—and—a—half—long runway.

803
01:09:13,900 --> 01:09:16,903
For eight months from August 1943

804
01:09:17,612 --> 01:09:20,615
one in three
of bomber command's major operations

805
01:09:20,990 --> 01:09:23,076
were against Germany's capital.

806
01:09:26,537 --> 01:09:28,039
Harris said to Churchill

807
01:09:28,748 --> 01:09:34,420
”we can wreck Berlin from end to end if
the US Army Air Force will come in on it.

808
01:09:35,338 --> 01:09:38,716
It will cost between
us 400 to 500 aircraft.

809
01:09:39,676 --> 01:09:42,845
It will cost Germany the war. ”

810
01:09:47,725 --> 01:09:50,205
We're crossing the coast in good company.

811
01:09:50,687 --> 01:09:55,024
Another Lancaster away
and over our broad starboard wing.

812
01:09:56,234 --> 01:09:59,862
Right before us now
is the darkness and Germany.

813
01:10:00,363 --> 01:10:03,866
It was a long way, four hours to Berlin

814
01:10:03,950 --> 01:10:06,327
and then you had to get four hours back.

815
01:10:06,994 --> 01:10:08,639
At the back of your mind you were thinking

816
01:10:08,663 --> 01:10:11,708
"well, Berlin is gonna be
very heavily defended"

817
01:10:12,250 --> 01:10:16,879
so you were a bit apprehensive
as to what you might expect.

818
01:10:18,297 --> 01:10:20,466
The Germans became very adept, of course.

819
01:10:21,259 --> 01:10:23,219
Our bombing techniques improved

820
01:10:23,845 --> 01:10:27,598
but also German technique
of shooting us down improved.

821
01:10:29,934 --> 01:10:34,647
I'm just glancing
back now, I can see our mid upper gunner

822
01:10:34,731 --> 01:10:38,484
his turret moving,
searching in the darkness.

823
01:10:40,611 --> 01:10:42,697
We're in the land of the night fighter.

824
01:10:45,742 --> 01:10:47,827
The first thing would be
the thunder of guns.

825
01:10:47,910 --> 01:10:49,829
Fighter coming in port quarter, skipper!

826
01:10:50,079 --> 01:10:52,165
I screamed, "corkscrew starboard go!"

827
01:10:55,877 --> 01:10:58,212
The evasive manoeuvre was corkscrew.

828
01:11:01,090 --> 01:11:02,759
You put full aileron on

829
01:11:02,842 --> 01:11:06,137
you pushed the stick right down
to 360 miles an hour.

830
01:11:06,345 --> 01:11:07,472
When you get to the bottom

831
01:11:07,555 --> 01:11:10,600
with some physical effort,
you pull the bloody thing like that

832
01:11:10,683 --> 01:11:12,185
and pull it up the other side.

833
01:11:12,393 --> 01:11:16,814
You dived down and climbed up
and you're flying this corkscrew pattern.

834
01:11:20,151 --> 01:11:22,528
Down goes the nose of the Lancaster.

835
01:11:24,864 --> 01:11:27,241
We feel like as if we've been flung around.

836
01:11:27,533 --> 01:11:30,661
A furious angle,
up comes our starboard wing.

837
01:11:31,579 --> 01:11:35,082
And then you repeat the operation
by which time either you're dead

838
01:11:35,166 --> 01:11:36,667
or he's shoved off.

839
01:11:38,044 --> 01:11:41,714
First thing
we can see now is a stream of red sparks.

840
01:11:41,964 --> 01:11:45,384
Away to the starboard,
tracer from night fighters.

841
01:11:46,844 --> 01:11:50,723
I saw a tracer
and I'm like "where is the so and so?"

842
01:11:50,807 --> 01:11:52,934
And all of a sudden he's appeared

843
01:11:53,643 --> 01:11:56,270
and I just kept my fingers
on the triggers.


845
01:11:58,731 --> 01:12:02,193
and then I saw licks of flames
coming off his wings.

846
01:12:02,443 --> 01:12:05,154
And all of a sudden he turned over
and went down in flames.

847
01:12:05,238 --> 01:12:06,614
I got him! I got him!

848
01:12:07,740 --> 01:12:10,743
And I thought to myself then,
"I hope my bullets have killed them"

849
01:12:11,077 --> 01:12:13,955
cos there's nothing worse
than to die by fire.

850
01:12:16,999 --> 01:12:18,959
Look! Look! They've got him!

851
01:12:20,378 --> 01:12:22,964
The boys, they make it a Junkers 88.

852
01:12:28,803 --> 01:12:30,471
I only did two berlins.

853
01:12:32,974 --> 01:12:35,977
We did four trips on Berlin altogether.

854
01:12:38,145 --> 01:12:41,023
I think I did six if I remember rightly.

855
01:12:43,234 --> 01:12:47,280
I think I made seven raids on Berlin.

856
01:12:50,032 --> 01:12:51,617
We went there eight times.

857
01:12:52,243 --> 01:12:53,619
Eight trips to Berlin.

858
01:12:55,162 --> 01:12:59,667
So we knew the way,
we knew what it was gonna be like.


860
01:13:12,430 --> 01:13:14,015
There was a tremendous explosion.

861
01:13:14,223 --> 01:13:15,558
Tremendous, woof!


863
01:13:16,976 --> 01:13:18,144
port outer engine's on fire!

864
01:13:18,227 --> 01:13:20,062
Everything happened in slow motion.

865
01:13:20,146 --> 01:13:21,898
I mean ultra—slow motion.

866
01:13:22,857 --> 01:13:26,527
You felt yourself going,
you went down like a sack of bricks.

867
01:13:27,820 --> 01:13:29,405
And as you were going down

868
01:13:29,739 --> 01:13:34,285
you saw sparks going above the cockpit.


870
01:13:36,829 --> 01:13:42,585
what I thought was sparks were in fact
tracer shells from an ME 110

871
01:13:42,668 --> 01:13:44,378
that was attacking us and I didn't know.


873
01:13:46,881 --> 01:13:48,721
and I could hear the screams
of the bomb aimer.

874
01:13:50,927 --> 01:13:54,388
So I went to the nose of the aircraft
and well, dreadful sight.

875
01:13:54,472 --> 01:13:57,391
I... actually, I vomited.

876
01:13:58,601 --> 01:13:59,602
He was dead.

877
01:14:02,730 --> 01:14:06,192
And then the wireless op,
he died on the way back in fact.

878
01:14:10,279 --> 01:14:12,615
For some unaccountable reason

879
01:14:13,574 --> 01:14:15,534
perhaps I resigned myself to my fate

880
01:14:15,618 --> 01:14:17,703
or perhaps I was too busy
working out the fuel

881
01:14:17,995 --> 01:14:18,995
I wasn't frightened.

882
01:14:19,038 --> 01:14:21,838
That was the only time I wasn't
absolutely petrified. I don't know why.

883
01:14:24,794 --> 01:14:27,630
Couldn't raise the bomb doors,
couldn't lower the under carriage

884
01:14:27,713 --> 01:14:29,048
couldn't use the flaps.

885
01:14:30,758 --> 01:14:34,929
And we descended quite rapidly
until we reached the coast.

886
01:14:35,888 --> 01:14:37,574
Our first sight of England

887
01:14:37,598 --> 01:14:43,104
a little light from a beacon flashing up
to us from the darkness below.

888
01:14:52,113 --> 01:14:56,033
We all here heed a
heartfelt sigh of relief.

889
01:14:59,161 --> 01:15:02,206
We landed, I was the first one out

890
01:15:02,748 --> 01:15:06,043
and the thing I remember vividly
was kissing the ground.

891
01:15:11,298 --> 01:15:13,175
Well, I used to ring him every day

892
01:15:13,259 --> 01:15:18,097
but you had to ring before 12 o'clock
because once they'd had the first briefing

893
01:15:18,180 --> 01:15:19,181
you couldn't.

894
01:15:20,683 --> 01:15:24,645
And this particular day,
I didn't get to the phone in time

895
01:15:25,563 --> 01:15:27,440
and I didn't speak to him.

896
01:15:29,316 --> 01:15:34,321
And next morning, I knew the moment
I walked in that he hadn't come back.

897
01:15:40,119 --> 01:15:41,537
I was devastated.

898
01:15:42,621 --> 01:15:47,293
And I was so, so, so devastated
I wasn't able to say

899
01:15:47,376 --> 01:15:48,919
"goodbye, darling. God bless."

900
01:15:51,297 --> 01:15:53,132
I felt it was almost my fault.

901
01:15:56,886 --> 01:15:57,970
But that was war.

902
01:16:00,639 --> 01:16:01,639
Yes.

903
01:16:09,190 --> 01:16:11,776
He was only 22 when he died.

904
01:16:24,121 --> 01:16:26,957
The battle of Berlin was in its final phase

905
01:16:27,917 --> 01:16:32,296
but it had not, as Harris had promised,
cost Germany the war.

906
01:16:33,881 --> 01:16:38,511
RAF losses continued to mount,
yet in March 1944

907
01:16:38,594 --> 01:16:42,473
Harris insisted on one last operation
in the campaign

908
01:16:43,474 --> 01:16:45,726
despite being advised against it.

909
01:16:50,022 --> 01:16:53,234
However, the final trip was not to Berlin

910
01:16:53,818 --> 01:16:57,863
but Nuremberg,
symbolic home of the Nazis.

911
01:17:00,282 --> 01:17:01,784
The weather forecast was

912
01:17:01,867 --> 01:17:04,245
"you're gonna be in cloud
all the way to the target

913
01:17:04,620 --> 01:17:06,038
and the target's gonna be clear."

914
01:17:07,164 --> 01:17:10,584
But a freak wind came up
and blew all the cloud away

915
01:17:11,293 --> 01:17:14,213
and when you had a clear night
with this lovely moon

916
01:17:14,296 --> 01:17:15,840
it was like flying in daylight.

917
01:17:27,685 --> 01:17:29,145
Very bright moon that night.

918
01:17:30,688 --> 01:17:32,773
Another Lancaster moved across.

919
01:17:34,483 --> 01:17:36,610
And suddenly, with no warning whatsoever...

920
01:17:37,903 --> 01:17:38,903
Boom! Gone.

921
01:17:41,699 --> 01:17:44,827
The Germans had sent 240 night fighters

922
01:17:44,910 --> 01:17:46,662
right into the bomber stream.

923
01:17:47,121 --> 01:17:48,706
We saw them flashing past

924
01:17:48,998 --> 01:17:52,376
but we'd see aircraft
just blowing up and disappearing

925
01:17:52,626 --> 01:17:55,045
others literally
just falling out of the sky.

926
01:17:57,506 --> 01:18:01,468
We saw over 40 aircraft, separate aircraft

927
01:18:01,552 --> 01:18:03,721
reported by the crew as going down.

928
01:18:07,600 --> 01:18:10,936
We were sitting ducks shot to buggery.

929
01:18:11,437 --> 01:18:15,816
The last 200 miles was just
a straight run in to Nuremberg.

930
01:18:19,612 --> 01:18:23,574
But instead of being clearer,
it was cloudy over Nuremberg

931
01:18:24,283 --> 01:18:27,286
and most of the aircraft missed the target.

932
01:18:28,162 --> 01:18:30,456
So the raid was a failure.


934
01:18:38,797 --> 01:18:42,092
When we'd landed and got out the aircraft

935
01:18:42,885 --> 01:18:47,806
normally you were chatty and a bit
exuberant, but that night we never spoke.

936
01:18:48,515 --> 01:18:51,185
Just said "hello", "alright?"

937
01:18:53,020 --> 01:18:54,146
Well, how do you get on?

938
01:18:54,271 --> 01:18:56,398
And then we had to go to be debriefed.


940
01:19:02,029 --> 01:19:05,824
We actually saw 50 plus aircraft shot down.

941
01:19:05,908 --> 01:19:07,076
We actually saw it.

942
01:19:07,534 --> 01:19:10,287
But when we landed back at base,
they wouldn't believe us.

943
01:19:10,371 --> 01:19:12,390
They said,
"well, you saw it, you saw it, you saw it.

944
01:19:12,414 --> 01:19:14,124
That's only one aeroplane, not three."

945
01:19:14,208 --> 01:19:15,501
The crew were a mad lot.

946
01:19:15,584 --> 01:19:18,128
They used to have a little kitty
in between them

947
01:19:18,212 --> 01:19:22,716
and the one who guessed most accurately
the number of aircraft shot down

948
01:19:22,841 --> 01:19:23,926
got the kitty.

949
01:19:24,176 --> 01:19:28,681
And curly, cos he was looking out
all the time, said "ooh, 60 to 100".

950
01:19:29,181 --> 01:19:30,975
And he won the kitty that night

951
01:19:31,183 --> 01:19:34,979
because 96 aircraft
were shot down over Germany.

952
01:19:36,230 --> 01:19:37,606
Ninety—six.

953
01:19:38,899 --> 01:19:40,776
In one night.

954
01:19:43,821 --> 01:19:49,743
That's 672 empty chairs at breakfast.

955
01:19:58,127 --> 01:20:01,255
Empty chairs at empty tables.

956
01:20:02,756 --> 01:20:06,302
That's where John used to sit,
that's where Harry used to sit.

957
01:20:09,054 --> 01:20:12,766
Bomber command
lost more aircrew on that one night

958
01:20:13,100 --> 01:20:16,812
than fighter command
during the entire battle of Britain.

959
01:20:19,023 --> 01:20:21,608
At night you could see other aircraft

960
01:20:21,692 --> 01:20:24,737
and you could certainly see them
being shot down.

961
01:20:25,529 --> 01:20:29,533
We all saw them and our attitude was
"it's not our turn tonight".

962
01:20:30,367 --> 01:20:33,329
You know, you sympathise,
you're sorry to see them go

963
01:20:33,412 --> 01:20:36,248
but your attitude is,
"well, it's not our turn.

964
01:20:36,332 --> 01:20:39,001
It might be tomorrow night,
but it's not our turn tonight."

965
01:20:42,087 --> 01:20:46,592
We never thought
that anything was going to happen to us.

966
01:20:46,967 --> 01:20:48,844
When I look back, it's crazy.

967
01:20:48,927 --> 01:20:53,599
I mean, the odds were staring you
in the face.

968
01:20:56,268 --> 01:20:59,313
In the mess, if anybody disappeared

969
01:20:59,897 --> 01:21:02,775
we'd just shout "hard luck! Hard luck".

970
01:21:03,692 --> 01:21:05,277
Tom's gone. "Hard luck!"

971
01:21:05,736 --> 01:21:07,321
That's the only way we could do it.

972
01:21:11,408 --> 01:21:12,910
When somebody got the chop

973
01:21:12,993 --> 01:21:16,538
you used to go down to the mess and say,
"here's to good old so and so

974
01:21:16,622 --> 01:21:18,207
and here's to the next one to die."

975
01:21:18,791 --> 01:21:21,251
And you just accepted
you weren't gonna live.

976
01:21:25,547 --> 01:21:27,257
One accepts certain things in a war

977
01:21:27,341 --> 01:21:29,927
that you don't accept in life,
and you don't think about it.

978
01:21:30,969 --> 01:21:33,389
It's sad to talk about these things.

979
01:21:33,972 --> 01:21:37,476
Very... um, moving.

980
01:21:42,189 --> 01:21:44,858
According to
bomber command's official history

981
01:21:45,150 --> 01:21:47,653
the Battle of Berlin
was more than a failure.

982
01:21:48,862 --> 01:21:49,988
It was a defeat

983
01:21:51,990 --> 01:21:54,535
questions were asked of Harris' leadership

984
01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:58,789
and a week after the Nuremberg raid,
he threatened to resign.

985
01:22:00,165 --> 01:22:02,042
His superiors backed down.

986
01:22:04,253 --> 01:22:06,422
But change was in the air.

987
01:22:13,971 --> 01:22:16,181
In the spring of 1944

988
01:22:16,265 --> 01:22:19,184
bomber command was put
under temporary new management

989
01:22:20,894 --> 01:22:22,980
allied generals needed the heavy bombers

990
01:22:23,063 --> 01:22:25,858
to pave the way
for the liberation of Europe.

991
01:22:28,068 --> 01:22:29,379
The German gunners

992
01:22:29,403 --> 01:22:31,697
and coast defence troops
along the Seine bay

993
01:22:31,864 --> 01:22:34,575
were called very early
on the morning of June 6th

994
01:22:34,908 --> 01:22:37,619
by 8500 tons of bombs

995
01:22:37,703 --> 01:22:40,873
dropped upon them by Lancasters
and Halifaxes of bomber command

996
01:22:41,165 --> 01:22:44,293
Fortresses and Liberators
of the United States Air Force.

997
01:22:44,710 --> 01:22:49,465
We were told that we were going to be sent

998
01:22:49,548 --> 01:22:52,843
to a beach off the coast of Normandy

999
01:22:53,260 --> 01:22:57,139
and bomb a target, five naval guns

1000
01:22:57,556 --> 01:23:03,061
and no one knew that it was in fact,
the run up to D day.

1001
01:23:12,321 --> 01:23:14,698
So we were to cross and to drop

1002
01:23:15,115 --> 01:23:18,619
probably 1800 thousand pound bombs

1003
01:23:18,702 --> 01:23:22,331
on an area less than
a city block, for sure.

1004
01:23:26,877 --> 01:23:29,630
And it just wiped out the whole place.

1005
01:23:29,713 --> 01:23:31,924
We took half the cliff
and the gun emplacements

1006
01:23:32,007 --> 01:23:33,008
everything else away.

1007
01:23:44,394 --> 01:23:46,605
And as we turned to come home

1008
01:23:47,189 --> 01:23:50,484
I'm sure we all just went, "ahh".

1009
01:23:56,949 --> 01:24:00,327
It was a sight
that will never ever be seen again

1010
01:24:01,203 --> 01:24:05,207
because the first of the landing ships
with the troops on were coming in.

1011
01:24:06,542 --> 01:24:08,001
That was the start of  D Day.

1012
01:24:11,713 --> 01:24:13,674
As we come across the channel

1013
01:24:14,925 --> 01:24:19,346
we looked down,
you couldn't see the sea for boats.

1014
01:24:19,805 --> 01:24:22,766
All the landing barges
and everything was going in

1015
01:24:23,976 --> 01:24:28,522
the gliders were going in
with the airborne divisions

1016
01:24:29,189 --> 01:24:31,817
and it was a magnificent sight.

1017
01:24:34,152 --> 01:24:36,280
I reckon I could have put my wheels down

1018
01:24:36,363 --> 01:24:37,363
and taxied home

1019
01:24:37,406 --> 01:24:40,367
because there was just not a piece
of the channel left for us.

1020
01:24:40,450 --> 01:24:42,369
It was just all covered with ships.

1021
01:24:56,300 --> 01:24:57,926
The war was not won

1022
01:24:58,176 --> 01:25:00,012
but the tide was turning.

1023
01:25:01,847 --> 01:25:04,057
After four years of flying at night

1024
01:25:04,308 --> 01:25:06,977
bomber command resumed
daylight operations.

1025
01:25:08,895 --> 01:25:11,231
With the allies in control of the air

1026
01:25:11,398 --> 01:25:17,070
the Lancaster and her crews would prove
that precision bombing was now possible.

1027
01:25:24,036 --> 01:25:26,455
Our job was to be the heavy artillery.

1028
01:25:28,624 --> 01:25:33,295
The German troops and tanks
assembled at the Caen area

1029
01:25:35,005 --> 01:25:37,507
and we bombed very, very accurately

1030
01:25:39,843 --> 01:25:42,054
which bomber Harris
didn't think we could manage.

1031
01:25:45,932 --> 01:25:48,727
That pinpoint bombing
was taken a step further

1032
01:25:48,810 --> 01:25:51,438
by the lifting capability of the Lancaster.

1033
01:25:53,065 --> 01:25:55,817
Barnes Wallis had developed
two new bombs

1034
01:25:55,901 --> 01:25:58,070
that only the Lanc could carry.

1035
01:25:59,237 --> 01:26:02,407
One was the tallboy at 12,000 pounds

1036
01:26:03,408 --> 01:26:08,455
and the other was the grand slam
at 22,000 pounds, the ten ton bomb.

1037
01:26:10,582 --> 01:26:12,417
So immediately after  D Day

1038
01:26:12,834 --> 01:26:16,797
the squadron found itself
equipped with the tallboy.

1039
01:26:20,717 --> 01:26:25,138
And the first operation
was on a major rail tunnel.

1040
01:26:25,430 --> 01:26:27,641
German troops had been sent
through that tunnel

1041
01:26:27,724 --> 01:26:30,352
heading towards the Normandy beaches

1042
01:26:30,477 --> 01:26:33,522
and therefore it was essential
to knock it out, which we did.

1043
01:26:39,611 --> 01:26:43,323
So we were achieving
great accuracy with our bombing.


1045
01:26:49,079 --> 01:26:51,123
Yet despite these achievements

1046
01:26:51,373 --> 01:26:56,253
bomber command was still directed
to continue area attacks at night

1047
01:26:57,921 --> 01:27:01,675
in February 1945, the stage was set

1048
01:27:01,842 --> 01:27:04,594
for the most notorious bombing raid
of the war.

1049
01:27:08,890 --> 01:27:11,768
My father got me into a school in Dresden

1050
01:27:12,102 --> 01:27:15,605
which was about 50 miles away

1051
01:27:15,689 --> 01:27:18,400
from my hometown, Chemnitz.

1052
01:27:20,485 --> 01:27:24,406
Most of the war we felt safe
and we were safe

1053
01:27:24,489 --> 01:27:26,825
because we were so far east.

1054
01:27:27,367 --> 01:27:30,620
In those days they didn't have
enough fuel or whatever.

1055
01:27:30,996 --> 01:27:32,247
They didn't come to us.

1056
01:27:33,540 --> 01:27:34,875
Until later on.

1057
01:27:38,962 --> 01:27:40,839
With the Russians advancing

1058
01:27:41,047 --> 01:27:47,053
Churchill was keen to assist and baste
the Germans as they retreat from Brest.

1059
01:27:48,513 --> 01:27:52,768
Four cities in front of the Soviet push
were selected as potential targets.

1060
01:27:53,727 --> 01:27:57,647
Of those cities,
the bed army requested that Dresden

1061
01:27:57,731 --> 01:28:00,901
as an important transport hub,
be bombed

1062
01:28:00,984 --> 01:28:04,780
to disrupt German reinforcements
coming into the battle area.

1063
01:28:09,659 --> 01:28:13,038
And Dresden was full of refugees

1064
01:28:13,121 --> 01:28:16,458
who had run away
from the Russian army coming.

1065
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:21,213
They all came
because, well, that was safe.


1067
01:28:29,387 --> 01:28:33,558
The attack was planned
as a deliberate effort to destroy morale

1068
01:28:33,892 --> 01:28:36,394
and create chaos behind the front line.

1069
01:28:41,566 --> 01:28:44,402
I was born in Stoke—on—Trent

1070
01:28:45,028 --> 01:28:47,239
commonly known as the potteries

1071
01:28:48,698 --> 01:28:52,911
so Dresden to me was Meissen pottery.

1072
01:28:55,622 --> 01:28:58,917
That... that did affect me at the briefing

1073
01:28:59,501 --> 01:29:01,962
that I thought, "this is rather like...

1074
01:29:04,005 --> 01:29:06,091
Bombing Stoke—on—Trent."

1075
01:29:10,428 --> 01:29:12,347
The briefing was no different

1076
01:29:12,430 --> 01:29:13,723
to any other target.

1077
01:29:14,474 --> 01:29:17,811
We were told to Mark the marshalling yards
and that sort of thing

1078
01:29:17,894 --> 01:29:19,396
in the centre of the town

1079
01:29:19,729 --> 01:29:24,150
and we were told it was
to help the Russian advance.

1080
01:29:27,612 --> 01:29:30,115
People think that we bombed a little town

1081
01:29:30,198 --> 01:29:32,826
that was full of shops
selling Dresden China.

1082
01:29:33,410 --> 01:29:36,121
It wasn't, it was full
of ammunition factories.

1083
01:29:36,246 --> 01:29:41,001
It was also a staging point
for the people defending Berlin.

1084
01:29:44,754 --> 01:29:47,424
This was bomber command
at the height of its power.

1085
01:29:48,675 --> 01:29:51,177
One thousand six hundred heavy bombers

1086
01:29:51,261 --> 01:29:55,515
three quarters of which were Lancasters,
in 73 squadrons.

1087
01:29:57,684 --> 01:30:01,271
And Dresden would be
an all—Lancaster operation.

1088
01:30:01,980 --> 01:30:06,067
796 of the aircraft
were launched against the city.

1089
01:30:10,113 --> 01:30:12,365
I remember at the time we thought...

1090
01:30:13,241 --> 01:30:15,035
Well, I don't know what's the right word

1091
01:30:15,118 --> 01:30:20,790
very privileged to be going
on such a big raid

1092
01:30:21,249 --> 01:30:23,376
at such an important stage.

1093
01:30:31,468 --> 01:30:33,929
And then on the 13th of February

1094
01:30:37,057 --> 01:30:41,269
I was at home in Chemnitz on half term.

1095
01:30:43,438 --> 01:30:45,148
I was then 16

1096
01:30:46,358 --> 01:30:50,779
and we could hear
the Lancaster squadrons above us coming.

1097
01:30:53,740 --> 01:30:56,785
You could hear it on the glass vibrating.

1098
01:30:56,993 --> 01:31:00,163
Such big squadrons coming over.

1099
01:31:00,705 --> 01:31:01,705
So many.

1100
01:31:03,875 --> 01:31:07,545
The sound of it alone made you frightened.


1102
01:31:22,936 --> 01:31:25,105
And we thought, "that must be Dresden."

1103
01:31:25,271 --> 01:31:28,400
That's the direction, you know?
"That's Dresden.

1104
01:31:28,483 --> 01:31:31,361
They got... they gone...
They're bombing Dresden."

1105
01:31:42,247 --> 01:31:46,167
We were dropping
a target indicator on Dresden.

1106
01:31:49,629 --> 01:31:52,674
We were pathfinders,
we were one of the first.

1107
01:31:53,925 --> 01:31:57,303
We were about three or four minutes
before main force

1108
01:31:58,013 --> 01:32:01,808
and it gave us a little bit of leeway.

1109
01:32:03,560 --> 01:32:06,479
Main force were then called in to bomb.


1111
01:32:24,831 --> 01:32:29,002
 We got to a point where
the bomb aimer took over for the run in

1112
01:32:29,085 --> 01:32:31,463
and I could see out of the dome.

1113
01:32:32,255 --> 01:32:35,884
I can't relate to anything

1114
01:32:35,967 --> 01:32:38,595
where the fire and the destruction

1115
01:32:38,678 --> 01:32:42,265
was so vast over an area as Dresden.

1116
01:32:50,523 --> 01:32:52,525
And it was such an inferno

1117
01:32:53,109 --> 01:32:57,405
that we saw it on the sky
going red at night.

1118
01:33:05,246 --> 01:33:07,999
As the rear gunner, coming out of Dresden

1119
01:33:08,166 --> 01:33:11,669
all I could see was one
massive great red sky

1120
01:33:12,420 --> 01:33:15,715
and I could see those flames
over a hundred mile away.

1121
01:33:15,924 --> 01:33:17,444
You could see the big glow in the sky.

1122
01:33:18,676 --> 01:33:22,347
Every single way you looked
was red with flames.

1123
01:33:24,224 --> 01:33:26,452
As daylight broke
on the returning Lancasters

1124
01:33:26,476 --> 01:33:28,937
a huge force
of American fortresses and liberators

1125
01:33:29,020 --> 01:33:30,605
were rising from British airfields.

1126
01:33:31,606 --> 01:33:35,151
For 450 of them,
the target was again Dresden.

1127
01:33:35,860 --> 01:33:38,905
The beauty of these aircraft in flight
is in curious contrast

1128
01:33:38,988 --> 01:33:41,616
to the unavoidable ugliness
of their essential mission.

1129
01:33:41,908 --> 01:33:43,660
Well, of course I lost my school.

1130
01:33:43,743 --> 01:33:44,953
I never saw it again.

1131
01:33:45,495 --> 01:33:47,080
Nobody ever went back.

1132
01:33:48,998 --> 01:33:51,251
It was a terrible destruction

1133
01:33:51,960 --> 01:33:56,339
and the dead just lying around in heaps.

1134
01:33:57,799 --> 01:33:59,801
Mountains of dead people

1135
01:34:02,762 --> 01:34:04,389
which had burned to death.

1136
01:34:06,182 --> 01:34:07,934
It was really terrible.

1137
01:34:13,356 --> 01:34:16,359
Approximately 25,000 people were killed

1138
01:34:16,442 --> 01:34:18,069
in the attacks on Dresden.

1139
01:34:21,698 --> 01:34:25,493
For lads 19, 20, 21...

1140
01:34:28,454 --> 01:34:30,540
We'd never known maturity

1141
01:34:31,499 --> 01:34:35,253
because we'd lived in a strange world.

1142
01:34:37,547 --> 01:34:39,215
One where we would go out

1143
01:34:39,799 --> 01:34:43,970
and we would have killed
hundreds of people that night

1144
01:34:46,389 --> 01:34:48,600
and not known a thing about it.

1145
01:34:51,603 --> 01:34:54,063
War's a dirty business, isn't it?

1146
01:34:58,735 --> 01:35:00,361
A month after Dresden

1147
01:35:00,862 --> 01:35:05,200
Churchill sent a draft memo
to Charles Portal, head of the RAF

1148
01:35:05,491 --> 01:35:07,452
critical of bombing policy.

1149
01:35:08,661 --> 01:35:12,415
Although it was later re— written,
lasting damage was done

1150
01:35:12,498 --> 01:35:16,127
to both bomber command's
and Harris ' reputations.

1151
01:35:17,712 --> 01:35:20,381
I'm pretty sure politics came into this

1152
01:35:20,548 --> 01:35:24,552
cos Harris, obviously he wasn't
the easiest bloke to get on with

1153
01:35:25,470 --> 01:35:29,515
but his instructions came
from Air Ministry and the Government.

1154
01:35:30,433 --> 01:35:35,271
Churchill sent to the Portal
a list of targets

1155
01:35:35,355 --> 01:35:36,439
which had to be bombed.

1156
01:35:36,522 --> 01:35:38,566
When he wore his tin hat he was good.

1157
01:35:39,359 --> 01:35:42,237
When he put his bowler on, he was
a different man altogether, wasn't he?

1158
01:35:42,320 --> 01:35:44,030
He was more interested in politics

1159
01:35:44,405 --> 01:35:46,407
and winning an election
than the war, wasn't he?

1160
01:35:46,491 --> 01:35:48,493
And he wanted to wash his hands of Dresden.

1161
01:35:48,576 --> 01:35:50,787
Well, he couldn't because he ordered it.

1162
01:35:50,912 --> 01:35:55,750
He was afraid of the consequences,
that he'd ordered this slaughter

1163
01:35:56,459 --> 01:36:00,463
and when it had been accomplished
he didn't want to know.

1164
01:36:01,005 --> 01:36:04,175
So poor old Harris was blamed

1165
01:36:04,467 --> 01:36:07,053
for what the politicians
had told him what to do

1166
01:36:07,262 --> 01:36:08,930
so he carried the can.

1167
01:36:28,741 --> 01:36:33,579
The war in Europe
ended on May 8th, 1945.

1168
01:36:35,999 --> 01:36:39,127
I still think that it was necessary.

1169
01:36:41,170 --> 01:36:44,257
We lost a lot of men,
we lost women and children

1170
01:36:44,340 --> 01:36:46,050
and so did the Germans.

1171
01:36:47,510 --> 01:36:51,264
But then, wherever you go,
war is war, isn't it?

1172
01:36:51,931 --> 01:36:56,185
And it's always the civilians
that cop it the worst.

1173
01:36:59,063 --> 01:37:04,277
I suppose one could say
that it was futile really

1174
01:37:04,694 --> 01:37:09,866
but what would have happened
if we hadn't have gone to war with Germany

1175
01:37:10,825 --> 01:37:12,118
and did what we did?

1176
01:37:17,915 --> 01:37:20,668
We know now
that they killed six million Jews.

1177
01:37:24,881 --> 01:37:30,803
Any country which can sanction that
deserves any punishment that they can get.

1178
01:37:33,431 --> 01:37:37,101
If we hadn't have bombed Germany,
we wouldn't have won the war.

1179
01:37:40,813 --> 01:37:44,984
So I think that that saved a lot of lives

1180
01:37:45,276 --> 01:37:47,278
and in the concentration camps.

1181
01:37:52,450 --> 01:37:54,577
There wasn't
much left of Berlin, was there?

1182
01:37:55,787 --> 01:38:01,918
Or Cologne or Frankfurt,
or Bremen or Munich in the south.

1183
01:38:03,211 --> 01:38:04,712
I know it was terrible

1184
01:38:04,796 --> 01:38:09,967
but I mean to say, what could you do here
in England fighting the Germans?

1185
01:38:10,051 --> 01:38:13,429
That was the way they fought each other,
was bombing each other.

1186
01:38:14,389 --> 01:38:15,389
I mean

1187
01:38:15,598 --> 01:38:18,810
I didn't think that,
well, I was too young then

1188
01:38:18,976 --> 01:38:22,230
but now I think,
"what else could they have done?"

1189
01:38:45,795 --> 01:38:47,755
The world that we live in today

1190
01:38:48,881 --> 01:38:53,219
owes a lot to what those guys did
75 years ago.

1191
01:38:55,346 --> 01:38:57,890
This aircraft is a living memorial.

1192
01:38:59,434 --> 01:39:04,147
It has an emotional effect on people,
probably down to what she represents

1193
01:39:04,856 --> 01:39:10,027
because of
125,000 bomber command aircrew

1194
01:39:10,111 --> 01:39:13,030
of whom all were volunteers

1195
01:39:14,282 --> 01:39:18,411
55,573 is the official figure

1196
01:39:18,494 --> 01:39:19,579
for those that were lost

1197
01:39:19,662 --> 01:39:22,373
and that does not include
life—changing injuries

1198
01:39:22,457 --> 01:39:24,125
that we would possibly count today.

1199
01:39:27,003 --> 01:39:31,090
So there are very few families
in this country

1200
01:39:31,174 --> 01:39:34,552
who don't know someone
who was involved in some way

1201
01:39:34,635 --> 01:39:35,803
with bomber command.

1202
01:39:44,562 --> 01:39:48,024
The greatest feeling you get
when boarding the aircraft

1203
01:39:48,107 --> 01:39:51,277
and making your way to your seat
and sitting there

1204
01:39:51,360 --> 01:39:54,363
is thinking about the guys
who did this before you

1205
01:39:54,447 --> 01:39:58,201
and you can't help but think
how the mixture of emotions

1206
01:39:58,284 --> 01:40:01,829
must have been affecting
these much younger chaps than us

1207
01:40:02,163 --> 01:40:05,958
as they climbed on board to carry out
the task that they were given.

1208
01:40:12,423 --> 01:40:14,509
But also we have a tradition

1209
01:40:14,592 --> 01:40:16,552
that every time we get
on board the Lancaster

1210
01:40:16,844 --> 01:40:20,264
we have a memorial plaque
to the rear of the aircraft that we touch

1211
01:40:20,348 --> 01:40:22,099
and the idea is that by touching this

1212
01:40:22,183 --> 01:40:24,352
we're taking some
of those guys along with us.

1213
01:40:24,977 --> 01:40:27,688
We all do it and all think about them
when we get on board.

1214
01:40:29,815 --> 01:40:31,067
Switching off. Got that!

1215
01:41:04,225 --> 01:41:05,476
At the end of the war

1216
01:41:06,102 --> 01:41:11,232
all the top politicians didn't seem
to want to know about us

1217
01:41:12,858 --> 01:41:14,610
even Churchill himself

1218
01:41:15,653 --> 01:41:18,656
which was a... a bit of a blow.

1219
01:41:19,115 --> 01:41:23,244
I really was upset about Churchill

1220
01:41:23,327 --> 01:41:26,497
the fact that he sort of
turned his back on us

1221
01:41:27,164 --> 01:41:30,459
when we'd previously done
such a good job for him.

1222
01:41:40,011 --> 01:41:43,639
After the war
we just got used to not thinking about it

1223
01:41:43,723 --> 01:41:46,475
and never even talked about it.

1224
01:41:46,559 --> 01:41:47,560
Nobody asked us.

1225
01:41:47,977 --> 01:41:50,438
And so it went on, time went on.

1226
01:41:57,194 --> 01:41:58,946
I'd been married 35 years

1227
01:41:59,030 --> 01:42:02,533
and it was only at our first reunion
when we got together

1228
01:42:02,825 --> 01:42:04,035
and my wife said to me

1229
01:42:04,368 --> 01:42:07,705
"you never told me any of this.
I didn't know this."

1230
01:42:08,706 --> 01:42:11,208
I said,
"well, we haven't talked about it".

1231
01:42:11,292 --> 01:42:15,254
Nobody... bomber command,
if you mention you was in bomber command

1232
01:42:15,338 --> 01:42:18,174
you were looked at
as though you were a murderer.

1233
01:42:26,057 --> 01:42:29,018
We didn't realise
that people wouldn't like us

1234
01:42:29,101 --> 01:42:30,728
after all we'd gone through.

1235
01:42:30,978 --> 01:42:32,480
We just couldn't understand it.

1236
01:42:33,022 --> 01:42:35,608
And I can remember
one poor chap saying to me

1237
01:42:35,983 --> 01:42:37,485
"was it all in vain?"

1238
01:42:38,069 --> 01:42:41,322
And it wasn't until later on

1239
01:42:41,405 --> 01:42:43,783
when the bomber command memorial
was built

1240
01:42:44,617 --> 01:42:47,995
that the public had a better understanding
of what we'd done.

1241
01:42:55,461 --> 01:42:58,756
We worked hard doing all sorts of things

1242
01:42:58,839 --> 01:43:00,716
for ten years, I think it was

1243
01:43:00,800 --> 01:43:03,969
to get enough money to build that memorial.

1244
01:43:05,971 --> 01:43:09,975
It was built by us,
not by the government, any government.

1245
01:43:11,852 --> 01:43:13,396
It's a wonderful memorial.

1246
01:43:28,786 --> 01:43:30,538
I was asked to do the reading

1247
01:43:30,621 --> 01:43:31,872
and that touched me.

1248
01:43:34,750 --> 01:43:35,918
It still does.

1249
01:43:41,841 --> 01:43:44,885
"As the father is tended
towards his children

1250
01:43:44,969 --> 01:43:48,139
so was the Lord tended
to those that fear him

1251
01:43:48,889 --> 01:43:51,642
for he knows of what we are made.

1252
01:43:52,435 --> 01:43:55,229
He remembers that we are but dust.

1253
01:43:58,774 --> 01:44:00,735
We are but grass.

1254
01:44:03,154 --> 01:44:05,823
We flourish like a flower of the field.

1255
01:44:06,490 --> 01:44:09,618
When the wind goes over it, it is gone

1256
01:44:10,411 --> 01:44:13,581
and its place will know it no more.

1257
01:44:14,248 --> 01:44:19,587
But the merciful goodness
of the Lord endures forever and ever

1258
01:44:19,962 --> 01:44:22,465
amongst those that fear him."


1260
01:44:57,750 --> 01:45:00,628
It's so different,
Lancaster was so different.

1261
01:45:01,295 --> 01:45:04,298
It was always the best aeroplane
you ever flew.

1262
01:45:07,676 --> 01:45:10,095
But when you finished
your operational flying

1263
01:45:10,179 --> 01:45:14,934
you realised how bloody lucky
you must have been to survive, you know?

1264
01:45:15,351 --> 01:45:17,603
When you think of all the friends
that you've lost.

1265
01:45:18,687 --> 01:45:20,940
This affected you
for the rest of your life.

1266
01:45:22,399 --> 01:45:25,986
At night now when I go to bed
and tonight going to bed

1267
01:45:26,070 --> 01:45:27,613
talking about all this during the day

1268
01:45:27,696 --> 01:45:29,865
when I go to bed,
put my head down on the pillow

1269
01:45:30,991 --> 01:45:34,119
I can see flak bursting,
little red lights, flak bursting.

1270
01:45:34,203 --> 01:45:35,923
But it doesn't bother me,
I know what it is.

1271
01:45:35,996 --> 01:45:41,293
It's alright, no problem whatsoever,
but these memories are still there.


1274
01:46:08,654 --> 01:46:16,654
  we are the heavy bombers  

1275
01:46:16,871 --> 01:46:24,871
  we try to do our bit  

1276
01:46:25,838 --> 01:46:33,838
  we fly through concentrations  

1277
01:46:34,847 --> 01:46:42,847
  of flak, we signed for it  

1278
01:46:43,856 --> 01:46:51,856
  and when we drop our cargoes  

1279
01:46:52,865 --> 01:47:00,865
  we do not give a damn  

1280
01:47:01,749 --> 01:47:09,749
  the eggs may miss the goods yard  

1281
01:47:10,716 --> 01:47:18,716
  but they muck up poor old hamm  

1282
01:47:37,743 --> 01:47:45,743
  And when in adverse weather  

1283
01:47:46,335 --> 01:47:54,335
  the winds are all to hell  

1284
01:47:55,219 --> 01:48:03,219
  the navigator's ballsed up  

1285
01:48:04,061 --> 01:48:11,860
  the wireless ballsed as well  

1286
01:48:12,653 --> 01:48:20,653
  we think of all the popsies  

1287
01:48:21,662 --> 01:48:29,662
  we've known in days gone by  

1288
01:48:30,254 --> 01:48:38,254
  and curse the silly effers  

1289
01:48:39,346 --> 01:48:47,346
  who taught us how to fly