Hamburg had been a “good show,” he reflected. There had been perfect flying conditions in the run in over the North Sea and the Germans had jammed the wrong Gee chain so that the navigators were able to get reliable fixes on the target from the radio navigation system. (Let’s talk about something more interesting than the mechanics of bombing.)
After the long journey over the featureless dark of the North Sea it had been a relief to reach the German coast and see the route markers dropped by the Pathfinders, golden candles of fire spilling gracefully and dripping to earth, marking their wicket gate, gathering and shepherding them towards the straight and narrow way of the bomb run. It had been emphasized to them at the briefing that the bomber stream needed to pack itself tightly, not only to concentrate the bombing but also so that Window, which they were using for the first time, could protect as many of them as possible. There had been some scepticism about the mysterious Window and in the briefing you would have thought that the boffins had come up with the holy grail, but in the event the crews were all as pleased as punch with it. Window was their new “secret weapon”—a kind of aluminium chaff.
Some aircraft had already been modified with a special chute, but most, like Q-Queenie, were still using their flare chute to deploy Window. It was a wretched job and Teddy had sent a very resentful Keith down to the freezing fuselage where, hampered by his portable oxygen bottle as well as a torch and a stopwatch, he had to perch next to the flare chute where, every sixty seconds, he had to remove the elastic from the awkward bundles and post them out of the aircraft. But, oh, the beauty of them, those long silvery streamers that fell to earth and snowed up the German ground radar so that their fighters couldn’t be vectored on to the bombers. They could see the searchlights roaming aimlessly around the sky while the blue master beams stood to helpless attention. The German ack-ack guns had nothing to aim at, so as they approached the city itself there was only a barrage of flak sent up in blind hope, like firecrackers on Bonfire Night. They had reached the target without acquiring any real damage.
And what a target—2,300 tons of bombs and over 350,000 incendiaries in an hour. A world record. The first Target Indicators dropped over the city by the Pathfinders were fountains of red and gold, showering the earth below, and they were followed by lovely green ones, so that the overall effect was of jewelled fireworks cascading in the black sky. The coloured lights were joined by the bright quick flashes of the high explosive and the larger, slower explosions of the 4,000-lb cookies, and everywhere there was the enchanting twinkling of white lights as thousands upon thousands of incendiaries rained down on the city.
The intention was for the heavy bombs to blow open the buildings, taking the roofs off so that the incendiaries could fall and start fires, turning the buildings into fiercely burning chimneys. That’s what bombers did, they set fire to whatever was on the earth below them. It was tinder dry in the city, hardly any humidity, perfect conditions for finally showing Hitler (and the British government) what Bomber Command could do.
Q-Queenie had gone in on the second wave, behind the Pathfinders and the Lancasters who had already lit up the target for them.
It was like Christmas, the glitter and sparkle of incendiaries speckling the sky. Red fires were glowing everywhere although they soon began to be obscured by a dark pall of smoke. Keith talked them in, to the centre of this pyrotechnic display, “Left, right, right a bit more—” until Teddy heard him say “Bombs away” and they made for home as another four waves of bombers were still making their unharried way to the target.