How I was Shot Down

It was Sunday, December 13, 1942. We were flying Handley Page Hampden Torpedo bombers from Leuchars Airdrome in Fifeshire, Scotland. The airdrome is located on the east coast of Scotland, just across the Eden River from St. Andrews Royal and Ancient Golf Course.
We had been at Leuchars since early March 1942, except for a few weeks at Wick during July. Our time had been spent practicing dropping torpedoes, and learning to navigate over the sea. We made a night trip to Christiansand, Norway to attack shipping in the Harbour in August, and had been in Russian north of Mumansk from September 5 to October 20.

I had been sent on a Bombing Leaders Course at Louth in Lincolnshire on my return, and had been promoted to the rank of “Flying Officer”. I had just returned to Leuchars and taken over my duties as Bombing Leader of RAF Squadron 144 when we were sent on the mission on Sunday, December 13.
There  were four planes assigned to the raid on shipping off the coast of Norway. We were supposed to take off so that we would arrive at “The Nez”, a little penninsula on the coast of Norway, at exactly the same time as the convoy of German ships. If we did not see the ships when we arrived at the coast, two of the planes were to turn left up the coast and the other two right to intercept and sink the two ships which were, according to report, accompanied by four Norwegian fishing boats. These had been converted to anti-aircraft flak boats.
Just as were warming up the engines for take-off, one of the pilots came on the radio and told us his right motor was not running well and that he had to go back for service. My pilot, Hugh Bowden, who was in charge of the flight, told the pilot, Wally Hood, to go back and that the other three planes would proceed. So we took off with three planes, one was piloted by an English lad, John Cook; the second by a Canadian, Jack Stillborn and our plane. My crew was Hugh Bowden, pilot, an Australian; Doug Ellesmere, an English chap, wireless operator; and Jack Vosper, another English lad, air gunner. I was the navigator.
I was navigating for the flight, but each of the other navigators had to keep track of each move in case the planes got separated. It was a day with low cloud and we were flying at less than 500 feet altitude. The trip over was uneventful and we arrived at the Nez exactly on time 1:30 pm. Lo and behold, there was the convoy. The two freighters looked to be about 6,000 tons.
Just as we sighted the ships Hugh Bowden said, “We will turn and attack”.  So all three planes went toward the land and turned to make the attack. So all three planes went toward the land and turned to make the attack. When you dropped aerial torpedoes you approached the ship at 40 ft. to 100 ft. above the water, flying straight and level. The torpedoes were dropped between 1,000 and 600 yards from the ship. The torpedoes had little air compressor motors which were activated when it dove into the water. They then motored toward the target at about 40 miles an hour.
As the flight turned to attack, Jack Stillborn’s plane suddenly, dived into the water. He must have been hit with flak because the guns were firing at us. You could see puffs of smoke rising from the ships.
We levelled out and headed for one of the ships. I left the nose of the plane and crawled up on the beam behind the pilot, which was routine procedure. Hugh announced, “Torpedo dropped”. Then he shouted over the intercom, “ I can’t bring the nose up, we’re going in”.  The next moment we hit the water. It was my job to pull the release on the dinghy which was stored in the wing. I can not remember doing it, but the dinghy came out anyway. There was an automatic release on it which worked when the wing was submerged, so perhaps that ejected it out. Immediately, we all scrambled out on the wing and grasped the dinghy. There were just three of us...Hugh, Doug and I. Jack wasn’t there. We looked back at the plane, but it was disappearing under the sea. We couldn’t go back to rescue Jack. What happened, we know not. He was right behind me when we went in. There was nothing we could do.
So there were three men in flying suits, around the dinghy which was upside down. There was a routine procedure for turning it right side up, which we had practised in a swimming pool back in England. You went under the dinghy, grasped the ropes on one side and pulled. It was suppposed to flip over. Doug couldn’t swim so Hugh and I decided to go under the dinghy to turn it over. Just at that moment there was an explosion. I turned to look at the ships. A torpedo had hit one of them and there were boards and debris flying through the air. Hugh and I ducked under the dinghy and pulled the ropes. It flipped over as it was supposed to do. There was a little rope ladder which came over the side with wooden rungs. I tried to climb up it, but the dinghy just buckled in the middle. I remember seeing the compressed ait bottle, which blew it up, floating away. The dinghy had a hole in it somewhere. As long as we were in the water the dinghy would support us, bbut we couln’t get into it.
When Hugh and I came up from under the dinghy we looked toward the ship which had been hit with the torpedo. It was broken in half and the bow and the stern were disappearing under the sea. Seamen from the ship were in the water scrambling to get on life rafts. One of the rafts floated over to our dinghy. It was a tubular, metal life raft with canavass straps running lengthwise and crosswise, like the seats in some lawn chairs. There was a German sailor on the raft and another big fat man with an enormous paunch was trying to get on, but he couldn’t make it. I saw his fingers slip off the slippery metal, tubular frame of the raft. The other sailor had hold of the collar of his coat. Since our dinghy was no good, the three of us in some way got over to the ship’s life raft. Hugh and I climbed on and pulled Doug on. Doug couldn’t swim a stroke. Then we helped the fat German to get on the raft. There we were. Rub-a-dub, dub, five men in a tub.
It seemed no time at all when the other freighter pulled alongside the raft and put down a rope ladder with wooden steps. The two Germans climbed up the ladder and we followed. There was a German soldier in a grey uniform at the top of the ladder with a machine gun, which he kept trained on us. We didn’t resist. Another soldier searched us one by one, and took everything out of our pockets. They took our watches, which were military property, then they took us down below deck to the boiler room.
About that time we all began to notice that we were very cold. The Germans told us to undress and they took our clothes away and gave us blankets to wrap around ourselves. I suspect they searched our clothes thoroughly, but they had also hung them up to dry. We sat around the boiler room, which was of course quite warm, the rest of the afternoon. We were shot down about 1:30 pm. and it was after dark by the time arrived at Christiansand Harbour. About 45 minutes before we arrived the Germans brought us back our clothes. The underwear was quite dry, but the submarine sweater (a beautiful, thick, fine wool turtleneck) and the flying suit were still a bit damp. Then we were taken up to the Captain’s office.
The Captain was a square-headed, rugged looking  chap with light brown hair and a healthy ruddy colour, who really seemed quite a pleasant man. He spoke excellent English. He said “You got one ship, but we shot down two of your planes and I don’t think sthe other one will get back to England. It did get back and the pilot got a Distinguished Flying Cross (D.F.C.) for sinking the ship. Later we met Johnny King, the pilot, in prison camp. He had been shot down in 1943 flying Beaufighters armed with torpedoes in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Germans had also given us some hot cider and German black bread to eat when we were in the boiler room. It was the first black bread that I had ever tasted. It tasted a little sour and was much heavier than the white bread that I had been used to. However, since we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, it was most welcome.