[RodM]

Hi Nigel,

further to my previous post, here is a narrative summary of the combats endured by the crew of 103 Squadron Lancaster RA500, taken from the East Kirkby Station ORB (AIR 28/256):

Flying in moonlight with many other aircraft of the bomber stream clearly visible the trip was uneventful until shortly before passing through the Karlsruhe-Mannheim gap. At this position (4914/0809 2320 hours, 19,000 feet) a Halifax was seen approximately 500 yards starboard beam with an Me.410 dead astern closing in to attack. The Halifax appeared quite unaware of its position, took no evasive action and made no reply to a long burst from the Me.410 which apparently entered its wing. Our Rear Gunner opened fire on the Me.410 at 400 yards and was followed by the M/U/G at 300 yards, the latter firing manually owing to an electrical failure in the Mid Upper turret. Hits were observed in the mainplane of the Me.410. The Halifax turned to port with the Me.410 still following and passed under our aircraft. Almost immediately the M/U/G reported a Ju.88 on the starboard quarter closing in from 1000 yards. The Ju.88 opened fire at 600 yards and both gunners fired (mid upper again manually). The Ju.88 broke away port quarter down and then was in again from port quarter again opening fire at 600 yards scoring hits on the cabin (one cannon shell passed diagonally across the cabin behind the pilot's head) the port main plane (holding the port inner tank) and the port inner engine. Oil pressure on this engine dropped to 35 and strong petrol fumes indicated the probability of a tank having been hit. Two more approaches were made by the Ju.88 but it was eventually evaded and the turn made on to the last leg down to the target where the marking was already seen to have started. The port inner engine was now running extremely rough but the oil pressure had remained within limits at 35 so the engine was not feathered. However, shortly afterwards it went into fully fine pitch. An attempt to feather had no effect and the engine was switched off but continued to windmill.

Nachtjagdgeschwader 6 flew under the control of 7. Jagddivision. I suspect [but have no direct proof] that night fighters under the control of Jagdabschnittsführer Mittelrhein [airfields at Mainz-Finthen, Rhein-Main, Zellhausen, and Biblis] made the attacks around Speyer.

Ofw. Bahr took off from Groß-Sachsenheim airfield [16 km NW of Zuffenhausen] in Bf110 2Z+IH at 23.05 hrs. It is a question whether or not he could have climbed up to 18,000 - 20,000 feet and shot down bombers around Speyer (at least 50 km away from the airfield) in the space of 25 minutes.

Planquadrat [Luftwaffe grid square measuring 38 x 28 kms] "AR", mentioned in some of Bahr's combat reports was roughly bounded by the area encompassing 49 00 N, 09 00 E - 49 00 N, 09 30 E - 48 45 N, 09 30 E - 48 45 N, 09 00 E.

Halifax NP768 crashed in Planquadrat "US 1" - roughly 36 km NW of the top, left-hand corner of Planquadrat "AR". Lancaster PB638 crashed in Planquadrat "TS 3" - roughly 43 km N of the top, left-hand corner of Planquadrat "AR".

Regards

Rod