The new Type A Magnesium-Iron Flare Bombs had been arriving at the bomb dump over the past few days, and now it was time to use them in earnest. The CO opened the briefing in the time-honoured manner — "Gentlemen, your target for tonight is Duisburg!" — before going into the details. The target was a clutch of foundries at Duisburg-Meiderich; the scattered damage they'd received in the city's last raid, in June, appeared to have been long since repaired.
"Now I know you've all heard this once already," Gibson went on, "but I'd like to hand over to Groupie — I beg your pardon, Station-Commander — to Group Captain Rowe, who will go over the new method we're trialling tonight."
"Thank you, Gibby." (A few chuckles from the assembled aircrew.) "Now as you all know, the low cloud and industrial haze in the Ruhr valley is a devilish nuisance, and a big part of the reason you boys keep coming back with photos of open fields instead of the target. The AOCs are hoping that tonight's experiment will solve that problem."
Each aircraft, the Station-Commander explained, was carrying (in addition to its normal bombload, which for this raid was 12,000lb) two of the flare bombs. These devices, weighing 250lb each, held a series of 'candles' filled with a slow-burning powder which would give off a bright white light for around six minutes. The candles were joined together with cables, so that — having been ejected from the bomb case while still in the air — the 'string' of candles would fall slowly to earth and then drape itself across whatever it might land on, ensuring illumination of the surroundings "even if you navigators manage to find a built-up area to drop them on".
The first flare would be dropped at the start of the bombing run; all aircraft were to approach on the same heading of 040°, meaning that a cluster of flares should form around Krefeld-Uerdingen, where the sweeping curves of the Rhine would hopefully give a navigational fix. The second flare would be dropped a few seconds after the bomb load, hopefully lighting up the Aiming Point for following bombers.
The raid, which was being made entirely by 5 Group, was to be concentrated in time to ensure a sufficient density of flares; all aircraft were supposed to bomb within a 30 minute period, a timespan which would of course be unthinkably short if the entire Command were to attack the target. But with just the Group's twenty-odd Mitchells, a similar number of Manchesters, and some 50 Hampdens (which were carrying the smaller 100lb Type B flare bombs, owing to their smaller payload), there would be a manageable three aircraft per minute at the target.
The aircrews, however, did not share the AOCs' enthusiasm. "Typical armchair thinkers," grumbled one sergeant-pilot to his nav. as they left the briefing-room, "always some crack-pot idea."
"You won't be saying that if it works," countered the navigator.
Zero Hour, and the first aircraft loads were going down. For the first few minutes, the flares were scattered and straggly, but two rough clusters quickly formed. Much to the aircrews' alarm, however, these did not render ground features clearly visible. Instead, the haze and mist scattered the flare light, carpeting the surface in a soft white glow. Not only did this serve to further obscure the ground, it also meant the bombers were silhouetted, clearly visible to fighters above. And fighters there were: four Bf110s patrolling nearby had abandoned their Himmelbetts to freelance over the target, and were now taking advantage of the conditions.
F-Freddie's W/op, manning the waist guns, called out a warning over the intercom. "Fighter, three o'clock low. Twin-engined." Kershaw flung the Mitchell into a diving starboard turn. As he levelled off, "I think we lost him."
The rear-gunner corrected: "No, he's still with us, seven o'clock, waiting just out of range."
"Here he comes again." A climbing turn this time. As the fighter passed, it fired on the bomber and the W/op fired back. "Ok, he's slipped away now." The fighter pilot had obviously chosen to go in search of less watchful prey. To the bomb-aimer: "Sorry for ruining your aim."
"Never mind, skip, can't see a bloody thing anyway." He dropped the load at random into the glowing haze; his second flare followed, but the string of lights caught on the wing of some poor sap down at about 4,000 feet. Who knew what he was doing so low — maybe he lost height evading a fighter. From their vantage point high above, the crew of F-Freddie could see another fighter diving towards the low-flying bomber, drawn by the bright lights trailing behind it. The panicked manœuvres of the other bomber — a Hampden — finally caused the lights to slip off and fall away, granting the bomber a lucky escape from the fighter's attentions.
Meanwhile, F-Freddie closed its bomb doors and departed the target at maximum airspeed, while Kershaw polled his crew for damage reports. A fuel tank was holed, but there was no fire and — according to the flight-engineer's calculations — they had still enough petrol to get home, though they would have to throttle back once clear of the target area.
Behind them, the next few aircraft were running the gauntlet and laying their own flares. One was hit, a sickening trail of fire plunging earthward. Kershaw cursed all brass hats and their 'clever ideas'.
A somewhat battered-looking F-Freddie bounced heavily onto the grass runway. It was the last of No. 106 Sqn's aircraft which would be returning; of the sixteen that took off from here, two remained unaccounted for. A further tragedy was brought home by the CO: attacked over the target, his aircraft was hit from behind and his rear-gunner, Trevor-Roper, killed. After entrusting the body to the care of the station padre, Gibson made for his office and began writing letters to next-of-kin. Besides Trevor-Roper, twelve of his men, good men, were dead, "and," he thought to himself, "I don't suppose they even saw the target." This would have to change.
The interrogation (debriefing) of F-Freddie's crew, like that of many of their comrades after this raid, was somewhat heated. Mildly put, the aircrew were not pleased with the night's experiment, and while not actually insubordinate, they certainly registered their disapproval of the flare system. This particular experiment was not likely to be repeated, and the design and usage of RAF pyrotechnics would have to be rethought if they were to make another appearance in bombing tactics.
Later, the BBC news reported on the raid; although they tried to sugar-coat it (and claim more damage to the target than the photographic analysis will support), there was no denying that of 96 aircraft sent to bomb Germany, 8 were lost.
Diary of Air Marshal Sir Richard Pierse, entry dated Oct 16
Fuss is beginning to die down, the rumours that I might be replaced don't
seem to have much currency today. Position still pretty tenuous though,
have to make sure not to let another fiasco like that happen.
Three priorities–
* conserve forces
* keep experiments small
* pray for a miracle
Later– Carr sent letter arguing failure proves him right, we should have
bombed from high altitude & would have avoided losses. May be right.
Ministry of Aircraft Production briefing paper, 18/10/1941
The Mitchell B. Mk IA has completed its trials at the A&AEE, who report it
is satisfactory. The engine cowling change has yielded the hoped-for
performance improvement, notably in raising the max. take-off weight.
Production is to switch over to the new variant immediately, using the
serial number ranges previously allocated for the B.I.
Suitable addenda to the Pilot's Notes have been provided by Supermarine's
and will be distributed to operational units shortly.