183 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca On October 12, 1943, he was posted to #82 Operational Training Unit in Ossington where they were crewed up. The Pilot was a W/O, Navigator F/O, Wireless Op W/O, Rear Gunner Sgt., and James was P/O as Bomb Aimer, an allCanadian crew. They did a lot of cross country flying and high-level bombing. They also did a “nickel raid” dropping propaganda leaflets over France at Fountain-Bleu, south of Paris. On this trip, their navigator removed their oxygen mask and consequently was unable to provide courses for the pilot to follow. James was the only one free to move around the aircraft. They had oxygen bottles to clip on their oxygen masks, so the pilot asked him to go back to the navigator’s position to see what was wrong as he couldn’t get any sensible answer from him.When he got there, the navigator was sitting at his desk with his oxygen mask off, grinning, and not making sense, suffering from lack of oxygen. By this time, they didn’t know where they were except that they were over France somewhere. So, they dropped their leaflets and the pilot turned to fly a westerly course and then they turned north, hoping to come back over England. They flew over Cherbourg. The Germans sent up flak, but they weren’t hit. Then they flew over England, broke radio silence, and made contact. They got back to base alright. The navigator was sent back to Canada, and they never saw him again. They were then posted as a crew to #1666 Conversion Unit to fly four engine Lancaster bombers. Quite a step up from Wimpy’s. They were assigned a new Navigator (RAF) plus a Flight Engineer (RAF) and a mid Upper Gunner (RCAF). They flew 9.5 hours day flying and 17 hours night flying and carried out bombing exercises and fighter affiliation. He was on MKXIV Bomb Sights for the first time, formerly on #9 Bomb Sights. On March 30, 1944, they finished at #1666 C.U. and were posted as a crew to #408 Goose Squadron at Linton-onOuse. After a bit of familiarization, they started flying on operations over enemy territory. He was certainly frightened enough on many occasions. Their first Op was over the St. Ghislain, France, a four-hour trip. Uneventful. A bombing raid on target. Their third Op was over Dortmund, Germany, part of the Ruhr Valley. They lost their Wing Commander and several other of their aircraft. They had about 12-15 aircraft in this Op. Their losses were about 5%. They went over their target in waves about one minute apart. One hundred aircrafts in a wave, 400-500 bombers took part. Precise timing over the target area was vital. Suddenly, they were attacked by a German ME110. No direct hits, no damage. This was a fearful experience. Anti-aircraft was intense. As soon as they got away from their target, the Luftwaffe fighters came up after them. Through it all, they managed to return safely to base. At this time, their raids were mostly at night. Returning from one trip over France, they found England was engulfed in very dense fog. They were then diverted to Northern Ireland. Their navigator liked to travel light; he didn’t have a map of Ireland. Through a hole in a cloud, James caught sight of an aero dome in western England. They got permission and landed. When the fog cleared, they returned to base. One night, they were speeding down the runway loaded with bombs on their way on a raid. Part of the leading edge of their aircraft hadn’t been properly locked. It flew up and acted like a brake on that side of the aircraft at just about air speed. The whole aircraft shuddered and shook. The engineer, who was sitting beside the pilot, took off back to the rest area with the rest of the crew and refused to go up to his position beside the pilot, so James had to go up. The pilot was having trouble controlling the aircraft and he didn’t know what was wrong. When they got about 200 feet up, and with all power on, whey climbed to about 900 feet. An urgent decision had to be made as to how to jettison their bomb load and execute a safe landing. They decided they couldn’t open the bomb bays as they were just about at stalling speed, so decided they would have to land with bomb load on board. They flew straight ahead to Marston Moore aerodome, and they came down there with eighteen 500 lb bombs and 1,700 gallons of fuel. As soon as they touched down on the runway, the under-carriage collapsed, the fuel tanks broke, and the fuel caught fire. They skidded to a stop. Minutes after the whole crew scrambled out, the aircraft blew up and, once more, they never saw the engineer again. He was gone. James thought they were all going to die for sure. They were lucky and survived. One of their trips over France to bomb a V-1 site, the target had been previously attacked many times but never hit. The V-1 was a device mounted back at the tail of the bomb. It was made airborne at an angle and kept going until it ran out of fuel (an early cruise missile). The Allies called them “doodlebugs” and “buzzbombs”. The V-1’s were (continued) PROVEN, James Frederick (continued)
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