Diary of Flying Officer Clifford Timothy O'Riordan, 1942-1943 - Part 7
March
base, found that two Kites had pranged
on the field & we were diverted to Home.
Picked up in a bus from there and brought
to Breighton. Long & tiring trip. Only bright
spot. The skipper after leaving Berlin said
"Ill fly at 150 and save petrol". The bomb.
Aimer, Stan Rickett yelled. "Give her the
gun, Ill pay for the petrol."
Tuesday 2nd Stand down. Party for Lt Smith who
finished his tour last night at hove Inn. Hardly
breathe for smoke in little room. Got back to
mess at 10.30. Heard that a new crew on a cross
country had hit a hill and all wiped off.
Wednesday 3 On leave! Phil Ward drove me to
York and caught the flying Scot for Edinburgh.
Booked in at Nth British at 7.P.M. Went to Royal
British and met Doc Cobb an Aussie with a Scotch
nurse. Went to Havana Club. Asked girl to
dance. The conversation "first time youve been here?
"Yes"! "How do you like it?" "Grand!" "Most people
come here for sleeping partners. "Oh!" "Have
you honey?" "no" "Well! nice to have met you."
With which she hopped off. We hadn't completed a
circle of the floor. Fast workers these Scotchies.
Went to bed early. Meeting Doc & Toots on Friday
night. He was at him same time as me.
March
Friday 5th. Walked around the town and admired the
sights. Pretty tame. Met Doc Coles for a couple
of beers in the evening. Lovely weather.
Saturday 6th. Did Rose St to-day. Its full of
pubs and extends the whole length of Princes
St, In the evening went to a dance
at the North Barbish with Coles. He brought
along a partner for me. Leila Dunlop, small
but pleasant company.
Sunday 7. Went to St Marys in the morning
for midday mass. In afternoon to Porto
Bello & then the Loo. Thoroughly brassed
off so caught the 9 PM. train to London. Very
crowded and stuffy. Arrived in at 6 AM.
Monday 8. Had a sleep at Savoy - (Breakfast 3/6 and
nothing to it) - and went to Coopers at lunch
time. Met a chap named Connolly a Flight
Lieut observer. Went around with him to a place
in Greek St. where we got steak. Thereafter
did a crawl of the clubs. He had a good
looking WAAF in tow & was trying to
shove her onto me. Nothin' doin'. Finished
up on my own at the 400 Club & decided
finally that the place had had it.
Tuesday 9. Went to Coopers after visiting the
bank. Dickson is having his appendix
March
out & Matt Banks is doing the job.
Struck trouble straight away. Wonk walked
in. Up on a 48. Tripps & Bookam were
getting their decorations at Buckingham Palace
& we were going to meet them afterward
at a pub in Mayfair. Never made
it & finished up at Murangas Club.
Wonk had a date so I hopped off
to catch the train. Had dinner first
at a Spanish resturant and caught the
9.10.
Wednesday 10. Back at camp. Standdown to-day
Col Shade came up to visit us. Went
to the Camp pictures. After I got to
bed we had an air raid warning. Got
out to have a look at the search lights
& flak. Piss poor compared to Jerry's
Thursday 11. Ops Stuttgart. not on, as
Camplin is taking a spoof crew for
experience. Colonel Knor, Digger Hammet,
Ron Mould and Geoff Heath were OFM's.
Digger Hammet is at Brighton doing a
Divers course. He & Colonel were put in
charge of the beacon at Lichfield. Got
brassed off after a couple of hours &
went to the local. A plane circled
March
the beacon & called up on the T.R.9. They found
the boys at the pub & took a dim view.
Friday 12. In charge of spare aircraft for
tonight. I put the guns in Z Zebra & got
Sgt Raneland to put the guns in F Freddie.
He was testing the mechanism before putting
in the mid upper guns & a live round went
off, richochetting all over the place & just
missing the 40000 pounder. Eight men were
working on the Kite at the time. Hell of
a stink brewing.
Saturday 13. Think Im getting a cold. Shivering
all day altho' its bright sunshine. Parties
at the Owl and Bunwith, but went to bed.
Sunday 14. Eight new crews arrived. We are
going to have another flight. Had to make
an official enquiry into the letting off of
the live round in F Freddie.
Monday 15. Have another case on my hands.
An airman found under a bed in the
WAAF's quarters at night. Fog is thick
& no ops on. Went with Camp and a
team to the 'dirty duck'. Coming home
Camp decided to go on to the ferry. Goodbody
and MacLaughin hopped out of the transport
at 20 mph. Reckon they're members of the
March
Caterpillar Club now for bailing out.
Bought a Ronson lighter from W/C
Martin for two quid.
Tuesday 16 I've got another case on hand. An
Erk was found under a WAAFs bed late at
night. Saw him being marched from the
Guard house this morning a huge SP on
each side of him with whacking great
revolvers at their sides and this little bloke
looking even smaller than he is in the
middle. Doesn't look the romantic type,
but there you are. Have been
glancing through the line book in the
mess. Some of them are pretty good.
P/O Doubleday overheard at breakfast. ' No I haven't
fallen, but she has, thats the tragedy of it'
P/O Tomafino on returning from leave. " Yes I
belted London round a bit, but most of its still standing."
Sq/Ldr Osborne “Couldn’t keep her from climbing last
night. Just went up & up till we ran out of oxygen.”
S/L Leighton “My crew are so used to smooth landings
that one stepped from the plane while it was still
airborne and broke his leg.”
Section Officer Coppinger to G/C about WAAF under close arrest
“You can have her tomorrow, Sir…. Well you know what I mean!”
March
P/O Keddie. “I’ve just completed my first tour of scrubbed
ops”.
P/O Rust, on way to party at Holme. “Holme is OK
but I’d rather bexx going to Essen.”
F/Lt Frayne our M.O. “Nobody gets it for five days
after my lecture.”
P/O Simpson “I flew so high over Essen the other
night that Jerry had to start poping up the
flak at mid-day.”
P/O Grant. “The Jerry flak didn’t have a chance, we
were going faster than the tracer.”
S/L Osbourne. “ When the King had my cross for me
I wished I was over Hamburg.”
P/O MacWilliam, a few hours before take off for the
Ruhr was reading the paper. Sez he “I wish
this was tomorrows paper."
F/O Drummond discussing the picture “Coastal
Command”. “Yes! The flak is bloody realistic.
I could almost write another op in my
book after seeing that picture.”
P/O Simpson returning from Lorient for third
time in row. “I’m brassed off with these
uneventful cross countries.”
P/O Grenfell after being shot up at Duisberg.
“I was the stooge last night. I was right
down to 17000”.
March
Wednesday 17. Went to Goole Police Court for
two Airmen charged with everything bar
B.O. Got them off with £3 fine. One
of them said to me later. "Gawd sir! You
almost made me cry when you started to
talk about them ^us being so far from home &
the influence of our womenfolk. Went
to pictures & then for a beer before
catching the bus. Met a Chief Engineer
of a 'liberty' boat who fought in the
lightweights in Australia under the
name of Tiger Donnelly. Hes a Canadian.
Thursday 18. There's a stationary front
which has postponed ops, but we went
formation flying during day. We very
nearly hit an 'Airspeed Oxford' down near
Oxford. Gave me a hell of a start. It
came out of the haze right under our wing.
Roy Canvin got a letter from Babe
Richardson who was posted to Whitchurch
Heath. He says it is definitely not the
shot.
Friday 19. The front still here & no ops.
Finished the inquiry and think I've absolved
Bill Rancland. Peter Isaacsons crew
are going home. Lucky devils.
March
Saturday 20. Briefing at 3. St Nazaire the
target. Much jubilation, but when we
were in the aircraft, running up the
bloody red flare went off. Had a quiet
night. Tomorrow is Heroes day in Germany
and that means were a certainty to give
the heroes something to think about in
Berlin.
Sunday 21. Fronts all over Europe. No ops
Doc Frayne produced some steak and eggs —
enough for sin. He raffled them & I was
one of the lucky ones. Ive got another
case on the table. Sam McNeil† a P/O observer
is on a general court martial for a bit
of a drunken xx brawl in Scunthorpe. Darn
unfortunate. Nothing to it but if they
proved that he knocked the policeman who
arrested him it means cashiering. Hes
a bloody fine type. Played union for
NSW. Went to Leary with himself and
his wireless operator P/O Talkenmire† and
I think I can see a way of getting
him out.
Monday 22. Operations St Nazaire. The
W/C decided he wanted to go so our
crew not on. Rotten weather. Waited
March
up for the boys, but at 1.AM. a general
diversion was sent out & I went to bed.
Tuesday 23. Whites crew landed down South.
Crashed and burnt, but all got out OK. They
had been shot up by an 88 on the
way to the target & carried on. Good show.
Went to the De Grey rooms in York.
Macwilliams & Rusty turned up with some
old boys.
Wednesday 24. Heard to-day that Torpedo
Jones had got a flying course at OTU.
He was torpedoed on the way over &
captured by the wops. Later, in an
exchange, he was swopped for two
whores and six gallons of petrol! Valuable
man. White and his bomb aimer
have been given immediate DFMs. Haven’t
heard the full story yet.
Thursday 25. Over to Holme for Ct Martial
of AC. Lee. He was A.W.L. for 40 days
but the prosecution made an awful
balls of the case & although the court
announced ‘no finding’ I think he may
get off scot free. Went to Howden with
Alec Sanders a gunner, who used to
be a champion amateur xxx rider in S.A.
March
Friday 26. Operations Duisberg. Shorty Grenfell
got shot up a bit and his engineer was
wounded. Told me that they had him in a
box barrage and also set up another a
thousand feet below & to port to catch the
usual diving turn to port. Shorty turned
to starboard and got out. Wilson’s crew
are missing. That breaks our run of good
luck.
Saturday 27. Four more new crews in. Put
the gunners through their paces as MacLauglin
is away on a course. Briefing at 3.
Bruce Rust is coming with us and Ivan
Keddie is our WOP. Steve Macullagh is
finishing his tour with Grenfell, as his
navigator is u/s. At the
briefing room, I saw Keddie looking anything
but cheerful. I said “Hello Ivan, what’s
the score?” He grinned and said “I’d rather
have a red capstan!” I knew then
that it was to be deep in the heart of
Texas — Berlin again. The route is
better than last time, but met' looks
fierce. Strato-cu up to 20000 in parts
with icing all over. The only bright
spot — no moon. We were airborne
March.
at 3.P.M. in ‘N Nuts’ the Kite Grenfell got
shot up in. They patched it up in
a hurry. We crossed the enemy coast
at Tenel – thought of the old tune “Deep
in the heart of Tenel!” - and had
a straight route to the target. Lots
of searchlight & flak activity on either
side, but Rusty took us through
the lane like the cracker navigator
he is. We were at 20000 most of the
time and it was painfully cold in
the turret. We arrived at the target
at zero hour, just as the marker flares
were dropping. Looked like a pretty
good show. Plenty of flak and searchlights
but we didn’t run into any trouble.
Jack Panos our bomb aimer made a
long run with about another minute
for pictures. Once we hit a slip stream
& it felt like flak. Camp dived her
away from the target, but wasn’t getting
the speed on the clock expected. Found out
after we were out of the defences that
the bomb doors hadn’t been closed.
We weaved our way out and saw all the
hot spots on the way. Hanover, Osenabruck,
March
Lubeck and Rostock. Whenever Camp put her
straight and level I chipped him to keep on
weaving. After a while I made up a
little poem – not that I was relaxing
for a moment. Camp was most amused.
Junk! Camp junk! Junk with care.
Junk in the presence of the air-gunnaire
And if you junk this piece of junk,
Then I shall see my little bunk,
Preceded by a cup of tea,
And cheery words from the G.C.
But if you don’t, we’re sure to have a
Barney with the old Luftwaffe
And then, instead of bags of gongs,
Leave in London, beer and songs,
We’ll find ourselves completely stuffed
By being shoved in Stalag Luft
So junk Camp, junk! And Junk with care.
Junk in the presence of the passing air.
We got back without incident, but I nearly fell
asleep at interrogation. Seven and a half
hours in the intense cold is not my idea
of a white Christmas.
Sunday 28 Rested most of the day and in
the evening cycled to the Seven Sisters. Won
March
sixteen bob on my new lighter, backing it
against the various flame throwers the boys
carry.
Monday 29 Ops again. We are not on.
Berlin again. Met looks terrible and I
was freely offering 5/1 against take off and
no takers, but at 9.30pm the first aircraft
took off. All of them were quickly
airborne. Holme only got one off and
recalled that.
Tuesday 30 Two crews didn’t come back.
Shorty Grenfell’s and Charlick’s. Poor old Steve
Macullagh, Falkenmire and McNeil.
McNeil won’t have to worry about the
court martial any more. Went to
Howden in bus with the boys and finished
up at the local hop. Imagine my
surprise when dancing around with an
old bag to find W/C Martin beside me
dancing with another.
Wednesday 31 Another standdown. Three
crews on fighter affiliation. Ron Mould
has been made Flight Lieut in charge of
signals. One of the boys gave me a
Goole newspaper. In a small corner
they announced the death of Cardinal
March
Hinsley, but the middle of the front page was
taken up with headlines ‘Australians in
Trouble” – “R.A.A.F. officers plea for men”.
Big time, eh? A.C. Lee whom I
defended at the Holme ct martial got 28 days
detention.
Thursday 1st Got a lovely letter from Mrs Lee the wife of
the airman I represented at Holme. Weather still u/s
so went to York to the pictures. A liberty bus
was in, and I went around with Peter Coldham and
his observer Pete. Gordon Coldham finished his law course
at Melbourne before joining up. Nice chap.
When we got to the bus, heard that two of the lads
were in clink. Went around to the gaol
and found White’s rear gunner Smith & McGregor
Gordon, Giles’ bomb aimer were being charged with
stealing a large ornamental barrel for holding
pot plants. Usual souvenir job. Don’t
know how they got it out of the pub. Tried
to get them bail, but the police refused. They
were both pretty full and went to sleep in
the cell. Told the cops that they weren’t being
very fair in not allowing bail.
Friday 2nd Fresher op on St Nazaire for five new
crews. Sergeants mess party. Smith & Gordon both
got fined 10/- and the beaks couldn’t stop laughing.
April
In the mess later, had a great argument with
Mocketty about ‘Larwood and Jardine’ and
body line. The only trouble was none of us
were sure if England won the ashes or not
that year.
Saturday 3 Did a test in ‘L’ London with
Camp'. Ops Essen. I’m on duty as G.L. for
Mac. While waiting for the boys to come
back, went for stroll with P/O Hudson DFC. Just
arrived here for his second tour. Told me of
his first six trips – two aircraft burnt,
another crash & shot up twice! Says he
felt there was no future in it for awhile.
Later at the interrogation the crew of London
called up. Hydraulics all gone, bomb doors
wouldn’t open to jettison the 4000 pounder.
No flaps either. They decided to land.
The tarnby warned everyone to get off the
aerodrome. We waited for the crash.
She came in fast, touched down and then
ground looped. Miracle they all walked out
of it. The aircraft was riddled with
lanwing tabs shot away and jammed elevator
central. They had a punctured starboard
tire which caused the ground loop.
Evidently they ran into trouble just
April
before the target. Later they tried to jettison.
Tried to fill the hydraulics with coffee and unsure
urine but it would not hold.The bomb
aimer, Gordon, cut a hole with the axe into
the bomb compartment & tried to crawl into
the bomb bay to de-fuse the 4000 pounder.
They go off with the least encouragement.
Fortunately he didn’t succeed. Probably
a posthumous VC. The bomb doors
dropped open on landing. It was only the
electric circuit that was gone, which
prevented them from dropping the bomb &
if he’d got in the bay he’d probably have
jettisoned himself. No room for a parachute.
A pretty good show all round, and they
say the raid was a great success. 21 of
our aircraft missing. They are using the
cone system there and it’s pretty effective.
Once you are coned, your chances are not
so good, as the hundreds of flak guns pump
a continuous stream of steel and fire up
to the apex of the cone. Rust went
with Moore † & he saw three Kites
shot down this way. Going to bed
at 4am, saw large flashes in Goole direction
and a lot of searchlights. Jerry must be
getting annoyed with us.
April
Sunday 4th Operations Kiel. Seven on and one missing.
Bruce Rust went with Shorty Grenfell ^P/O Moore DFC. Only had
two trips to do. Darn shame. The general
opinion is that he was one of the best
navigators in Bomber Command. Stumpy Lee† & Gooding
^also in crew. Ron Gooding was in my original crew at OTO.Forest Monday 5 The game, she is on again.
Ten Kites on and one of the new crews missing.
Got a signal from Group that I’m to defend
P/O Williams, the chap who was with McNeil on
the beer up, on his court martial.
Wednesday 7 Stand down. Ron Mould and I are
asst adjutants during the Adj’s leave. Have
found out a lot of interesting facts from
the correspondence. The new Doc
arrived in the evening. Doc Frayne is going home
the lucky devil. When Doc Roberts arrived
the mess was full of crocks. Chaps with
bandaged heads, arms in slings and legs in
splints welcomed him with left hand shakes.
The cream of the joke came, when Mort
our barman, came up to Camplin resting
on the sofa and yelled in his ear ‘Here’s
your beer sir!’. Camp didn’t notice him
for a moment & then said Ok thanks
Mort! Who did you say was here?
The Doc was visibly amazed, but someone
April
laughed and he caught on. Had a bit of a party.
Later on Mort came in. Doc reckons that
in 18 months he’s never yet seen Mort affected
by liquor. He’s a typical discreet gentleman’s
gentleman. Anyhow he must have been
having a party in the pantry, because
he insisted on singing a song of his
own composing to the tune of Ilkla Moor
L’alit ‘at’! ‘We are the boys of four
six-ty! On Bre-ee-ee-ee-eitons moors
b’ah ‘at’. His inspiration left
him after that, but the one line did for
the whole song. He kept on saying
‘Yon old bugger Keddie – sorry sir!’ and
addressed the doc as ‘kid’. It was one
of the funniest shows I’ve seen.
Thursday 8th Operations Duisberg. After getting
the spare aircraft ready I went
to Selby to the pictures. Saw Judy
Canora in Sleepy time Gal. Best
wise crack “never go round with a girl
unless you can go two rounds with
her husband”. Got back in time
for interrogation, but had a beer
first at the bowling Club & met
Maurice Leyland the cricketer. Hes
April
a Lieut in the Pioneer Corps.
At the interrogation learned that Ball’s
crew were missing. Our good run has
slumped with a vengeance.
Friday 9. Duisberg again tonight.
Our crew were on at 10, off at eleven,
on again at half past and off again
at twelve. Paddy Boyle finished
last night, and we had a party at
the New Inn & the sergeant’s mess with
Lackie and six other Aust journalists.
The galloping Greek was very full &
took charge of things. Boyle was threatening
to make his nose flatter than it was,
& when we went to the lavatory
together, told me how much he loved
the old Greek. Panos was yelling
in the Winco’s ear “why don’t youse
cunts sing?” McLaughlan sang
the new verse to ‘Bless em all’.
There’s a Wimpey just leaving Cologne
Bound for old blighty’s shore
Heavily laden with terrified men
Bound for the land they adore
There’s many a Messerschmidt roaming the sky
And many a junkers too
April
They’ve shot off our bollocks
And f—d our hydraulics
So what are we going to do. –
Wimpey Breighton was another
one. Must get the words. MacDonald’s
crew didn’t come back from the op.
Saturday 10 Ops again and we are on.
Ron Friend is coming as navigator. When
I heard the petrol load – 1750 gals I knew
the worst or thought I did. Hell! four
times to that Place is enough for a
while and this makes the fifth.
However, at briefing found that the
target was Frankfort. Much better,
but a long stooge. Four and half
hours over enemy territory. Take
off is not till midnight which
will bring us back for breakfast.
Checked over my gear and wrote to
Niki. Only seven Kites on tonight
from Breighton, and the mess is
very deserted. Maybe going on leave
on Tuesday, perhaps, maybe, I hope.
Not the most restful thing in
the world waiting all night for take
off and no beer to drink.
April
Sunday 11 Airborne at 11.55. vis excellent
& met forecast good. First thing I
found when we were climbing was that
my oxygen inlet had no bayonet fitting.
Yanked the fitting from the flare chute
position & rigged up a temporary job.
Bloody cold at 10000 when we crossed
a Dungeness. Lots of stuff coming
up from the French coast. Ron had
a good fix and we stooged in between
it. It was ten tenths all the
way. The only way we could pinpoint
ourselves was by the flak coming up,
and the glow of the searchlights under
the cloud. Saw a pinpoint of light
to starboard when in the fighter belt.
It glowed larger & then raced to
earth with increasing speed. Just
before it entered the cloud the flames
covered the whole aircraft & lit up
the sky like a dozen searchlights.
It crashed with a terrific explosion
– a cookie I suppose, and the cloud
glowed for an extraordinary area with
the fiercest white light I’ve seen.
We got weaving smartly and kept
April
our eyes skimmed. There were about seven
explosions from the fire at short
intervals after that & it gave the
appearance on the cloud of a town
on fire. There was no flak
around at the time, so it must have
been a fighter that got him. Near
the target there was widespread intense
flak. It stretched for miles. Frankfort,
Mauntz, Mannheim & all the other
German cities on the Rhine were
very annoyed. Large fires were
burning, but we couldn’t see through
the cloud. When nearly over the
target we went so close to buying
it, that there were some shaky voices
on the intercom for some time
afterwards. I saw a black shape
suddenly loom up on the port
beam swinging in on us. I
yelled to Camp & at the same moment
he flung the old L London into a
cl terrific dive. A Halifax weaving
in the dark passed over us with
only a few feet to spare. It
was probably more, but I felt that
April
I could have touched it by elevating
my guns. The dive was so steep
that Camp had a job trimming
her out of it. The engines cut momentarily
and picked up. Everything inside
the kite was thrown around. We
weaved through the target area at
13000 looking for the PFF flares but
didn’t see any. Nipped out of the
flak and made an orbit for a
second run. Saw a ME109F
underneath us but he was on
a reciprocal & didn’t bother us.
Mitchell went down to prepare
the flare & found that it was
out of the flare chute near the
step, bent and battered about. He
jettisoned it instantly. We made
another run across the target & seeing
no flares bombed the largest concentration
of fires. Just after ‘bombs gone’ we
were nearly hit by one of Jerries
cascade flares. On the way out
we saw another aircraft go down in
flames. Near Amiens saw an air
combat with lots of tracer being
April
exchanged but no visible results. Another
poor devil hit the deck a little later.
Ron got a fix and we found we
we down near Paris. Thought to
myself if we have to jump, this is
the place for it. I’ve still got an
address in the Rue St Anne. Came
out south of Boulogne & got to
base without incident. Landed at
6.47. There’s a party in the mess tonight
to farewell Doc Frayne.
- COLOGNE
- ESSEN
- BREMEN
- DUSSELDORF
- BREMEN
- DUISBERG
- DUSSELDORF
- FRANKFORT (T.B)
- TURIN (T.B)
- BERLIN
- BERLIN
- ST NAZAIRE
- BERLIN
BERLIN- FRANKFORT
3DRL/4164
[AWM2016.775.1]
M/W 2/3
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