Friendly fire WWII

[Dave Wallace]

My father's crew had a friendly fire incident on the approach to Rostock when they were shot up by the Stirling just in front of them, wounding the Pilot in the leg. The Flight Engineer flew the aircraft while my father (the Navigator) who had left medical school for the RCAF, patched up the Pilot who was able to land the aircraft at their home station at RAF Chedburgh. He recalled the incident in a letter to his Pilot, Geoff Shattock, in the 1980's.
"" It was on April 20, and we took off at 21:57 on `N for nuts'. Weather was very good and we could get a landfall as we crossed the coast somewhere around Cromer . Got good Gee fixes for a while then took some Polaris shots when we ran out of Gee range. We were routed a long way north, and crossed the Danish coast pretty well on track at nearly 56 degrees N., at the south end of Rinkabing Fjord. There was some flak, and by this time you had come right down to treetop height. From there on it got quite exciting, probably one of the most exciting times of my life. Having got a good pinpoint at the coast and having no further nav aids, I came up and sat with you prepared to map read us the rest of the way. We could see the tank defences along the coast (mainly big sort of angle iron contraptions). The trees went by in an alarming way, and we could see doors being flung open and even people standing in the light of their homes. Dickie remarked that we could almost tell people we'd been in Denmark rather than over it. We crossed Denmark fairly fast (Jutland , that is), and crossed Fyn, Langland and Lolland. These are what they are called now but I'm not sure they were that on my chart. At one point there was a lot of light flak around and some of it was coming right at us. I should recall that the term `light flak ` refers to the type (Bofors with tracer) rather than to the severity! Hunt was in the front turret and started yelling "Those sons of bitches!", and opened fire on them . Tommy and Dickie joined in and I'm not sure whether we shut them up or just drew attention to ourselves. As we reached the open Baltic Sea, you climbed to about 3000 ft., and all was clear as day. I could see all the land marks and we turned on about 200 T. to Rostock, soon in sight. However, as we drew closer, it was obvious that Jerry had put up a massive smoke screen over the whole area; in fact, the "Bomber Command War Diaries", a remarkable publication, states that as a result, the bombing was scattered. This was no town blitz- we were after the Heinkel Works. As we started our target run as best we could, I saw a Stirling weaving a bit ahead of us. Then there was a rather unpleasant bang, and you said something like "Oh, Jesus Christ!" Then you said `take that!', referring to the control stick. Then you called "Hunt, come up here quick!" As the only even remotely qualified second pilot, he let the bombs go and came up and took over the controls. I gave Hunt a course to steer. I told him to steer 015M for 10 minutes and then turn on 315. Then I went and found a flashlight and got your flying boot off. It was full of blood and there was a hole through your leg below the knee. I got the medical kit and put a shell dressing on it, but didn't try any fancy hemostasis because I was sure it would quit bleeding O.K. All this messing around in the dark took a while, about 20-25 minutes, and when I got back up with Hunt he was still steering 015 - either he hadn't heard me or didn't have a watch. I looked out and could see clearly the Copenhagen area right ahead. So we turned on about 270 and headed for home. In answer to your recent comment, I can't imagine that anyone even remotely thought of bailing out. The trip back was pretty uneventful. You described the amount of pain you had as about equal to a severe toothache. You soon took over the controls and declined any more help. I offered to shoot some codeine into you with some very neat little gadgets in the medical kit, but you were obviously scared it might destroy your razor-sharp awareness. Smitty radioed ahead something like: Pilot wounded; all O.K. When we got to base the Waaf on Flying Control asked: "What is the nature of your wounds?" and you answered that you had a bullet in the calf of your leg. You set it down perfectly and were whisked away to the hospital. Next day the ground crew found that ONE bullet had cut off the cockpit lighting, cut out the hydraulic exactor control of one port engine, gone through your leg, mangled some of my charts, and still had enough zip to make a dent in the armour plating beside my navigation table. It was a bad night for 3 Group (20/04/1943) - we lost 8 of 80 planes and didn't do a good job. Also a lot of people who got back were shot up with some killed including one gunner from 214." (Benjamin Oldroyd, 22, rear gunner in Sgt. Gray's crew - shot in head). They were flying Stirling III BK659 coded "BU-N" of 214 Squadron.
Regards
Dave Wallace