Guy Gibson's macabre death

Originally posted by Dave Homewood
Sorry chaps, I had simply made an assumption that Guy had been shot down, I thought he had. She didn’t say how he came down, just that he did and I assumed he’d been shot down.

As for the fact that this other chap’s research says otherwise, I can’t say who’s right or not. Probably the researcher Mr Nesbitt. But of course they could be both right, maybe the foot was all that was left of his body, where there may also have been tatters of his clothing that revealed the laundry receipt. She mentioned that his foot had been placed into the coffin of another chap – I assume his navigators’.

I do recall that she said Gibson was not wearing his dog tags either. Naughty when on active service.

Threre’s always been a lot of speculation about the causes of Gibson’s death. I have seen other reports from eye witnesses telling of the aircraft being seen approaching Steenbergen at low level, making a droning sound with a bright light being seen in the cockpit. Whether the aircraft was on fire or a torch was being shone in the cockpit is uncertain. The engines spluttered, cut and the aircraft dived into the ground, exploding on impact and burning ferociously. This certainly seems like fuel starvation, control being lost while the crew were distracted by the fuel tap problem? There are no records of a Mosquito being attacked anywhere near to where Gibson was on that night so it does seem to be a case of an accident rather than enemy action.

On the issue of dogtags – given that the brass had done their best to keep him off ops as his loss would have been a major propaganda coup to the Germans, maybe he wasn’t wearing them
“in case”. I think that there was virtually nothing left of either crew member – I recall reports of a foot, some scraps of hair and scalp and a hand and what there was was buried in one coffin. Gibson was not identified at the crash scene. Identification was found bearing the name of the nav – Squadron Leader James B. Warwick DFC – and given the lack of remains it was assumed that the pilot had got out and the grave was marked only with Warwick’s name. It was only later that it became apparent that Gibson had also been killed.

Sorry chaps, I had simply made an assumption that Guy had been shot down, I thought he had. She didn’t say how he came down, just that he did and I assumed he’d been shot down.

As for the fact that this other chap’s research says otherwise, I can’t say who’s right or not. Probably the researcher Mr Nesbitt. But of course they could be both right, maybe the foot was all that was left of his body, where there may also have been tatters of his clothing that revealed the laundry receipt. She mentioned that his foot had been placed into the coffin of another chap – I assume his navigators’.

I do recall that she said Gibson was not wearing his dog tags either. Naughty when on active service.

Originally posted by Ant Harrington
He’d also never flown the aircraft to such a distant target, the importance of this being that he’d never had to use the fuel tank selectors behind the seat. Nesbitt’s theory is that Gibson,unfamiliar with the selectors and groping around for them in the dark, selected an empty tank.

Curious to know why Gibson was doing this rather than his observer? Had the observer been injured or killed at this stage?:confused:

I second the opinion: Nesbitt is a very serious investigator. He started by just telling his experiences in Aeroplane M*nthly as a navigator in WWII. Then developed into investigating, and searching archives.

Unfortunately when aircraft hit the ground/sea at near sonic (or other) speeds the outcome is not pleasant. This is true today as in WWII.

“She told me that when Gibson was shot down, the people who were recovering the wreckage (Dutch?) only managed to find one of his feet, and they only identified him by the laundry tag on his sock. Very sad that such a hero had to die so tragically in that way.”

According to an article by Roy Nesbit (former RAF Coastal Command Nav-Beauforts) in Aeroplane around this time last year, Gibson was not shot down. According to Nesbitt, the aircraft may have suffered engine failure through fuel starvation. Gibson had apparently only flown the Mossie a handful of times before the fatal flight, and only once at night. He’d also never flown the aircraft to such a distant target, the importance of this being that he’d never had to use the fuel tank selectors behind the seat. Nesbitt’s theory is that Gibson,unfamiliar with the selectors and groping around for them in the dark, selected an empty tank. Eye witness reports from the time state that a light was seen in the cockpit shortly before the crash and it’s thought that they may have used a torch or switched on an interior light to try and see what position the selectors were in after the engines started spluttering. This in turn would’ve done their night vision no favours, which may also have contributed to the crash.
Nesbitt also says that the ticket bearing Gibson’s name was a dry cleaning ticket found in the pocket of his tunic, so it would appear that more than a foot was found,although it’s true that his true identity and significance weren’t initially apparent.
Having read a number of Mr.Nesbitt’s articles, my instinct is to trust what he says.He is a meticulous researcher with wartime flying experience,so he knows what he’s talking about.

Didn’t John Cleese make a story of the “Chamberlain return”? (Endlessly re-running). Not one his best – maybe more reflecting how it would be handled today?

Web Pilot’s post was interesting in that it shows how cumbersome radio and recording gear was back in 1944 – it needed two people to operate it and the crew had to take on less fuel to accomodate the extra weight.

No “Ipod” nonsense in those days.

I’ve seen on board film of Mike Hawthorn taking a D-Type Jaguar around Le Mans on a practice session in 1957. The microphone he is using looks like someting from His Master’s Voice ( a plastic horn arrangement) which is bolted to a wooden box which in turn is strapped to his chest by means of a harness. The sound quality is actually quite good, and the film is a hoot, especially as the road is still open to the public and numerous French cyclists are seen taking avoiding action as Mike barrels towards them at 150 mph plus.

Cheers Webpilot, that was very interesting.

Of course another very good reason why it wouldn’t have gone out live, even if they could have done so technically, is that no-one would have been listening to it as the raid was in the very early hours of the morning.

Roy must have been on 153 Sqn before switching to 106 Sqn. He was killed on 106. Here is his CWGC page if anyone is interested:
http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2073968

Originally posted by Eric Mc
I do not think that the BBC would have carried out “live” broadcasts from such missions. What they used to do was supply their correspondents with a wire reel to reel tape recorder into which they carried out a “live” commentary on the scene and then broadcast an edited (and no doubt censored as well) version later on.

Just so:

With Dimbleby aboard John Gee

‘The army was bogged down about 10 or 15 miles short of the Rhine. February came and they were anxious to break out because V2’s had been bombing the south of England. The armies were going to make their final push to get across the Rhine, and Bomber Command was asked to knock out a number of targets in front of the army. Cleve was one of them.

Cleve was a little town about 4 or 5 miles west of the Rhine, 10 miles from Nijmegen. There were 295 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitoes from B Group, and we had to bomb this target because it was thought to be a road and rail junction. The town had been virtually destroyed anyway, but it was a place where Panzer reinforcements might be brought up to resist the army push. Cleve was only just in front of our own front line troops, so we had to be jolly careful that we didn’t bomb our own troops.

The weather forecast was good. There was no cloud about. Richard Dimbleby came up to Scampton that day, along with his engineer and his recording equipment. As I was the senior officer flying from 153 Squadron that night I was nominated to take him. I had two extra bodies on board which made us quite a lot overweight, so to reduce it we ditched some gallons of petrol. I was tickled pink to have him with me. He came up to the squadron and we sat with him and had a meal before we took off. He was a big chap, and of course when he sat alongside me the flight engineer. who would normally be there, had to stand behind and operate all his gauges and things. We were a bit pushed. You couldn’t really get past in the fuselage with all the recording gear. He had an engineer to operate it. He had to squat down in the fuselage. I can’t imagine anything worse than squatting in a Lancaster for 4 or 5 hours waiting to operate equipment for probably no more than 5 minutes.

It was only when we got near the target that he started to make his commentary. We were flying at 11,000 feet and couldn’t see a thing I thought, “What are we going to do? We can’t drop our bombs on our own troops. “Suddenly we heard the Master Bomber calling us down below 4,500 feet. If you can imagine 295 Lancasters coming down from 17,000 to 4,500 feet through cloud. Why there was no collision I just don’t know. Now they talk about a near miss if an aircraft goes within 10 miles of another. There were 295 near misses there all at one time.

There below us was Cleve, and the target was marked by the Pathfinders and searchlights were reflected off the cloud – it was like daylight. And you could see the Lancasters coming out of the cloud like darts. Then we had to bomb the target from 4,500 feet. The bombs were exploding and the aircraft was being bounced all over the place. Richard Dimbleby made his commentary, which was broadcast the next day on BBC radio. We knocked Cleve out completely, so much so that when the army advanced the next day there were so many bomb craters and so many broken roads that it quickly came to a halt.’

John Gee,
Bomber Command pilot

Recording techniques were quite crude back then. Studio recordings were made direct to wax master discs. Recordings in the field were made on wire recorders. The Germans (BASF) had already invented magnetic tape by then but I don’t think they were in a position to supply any to the BBC in the 1939-1945 period – for obvious reasons.

Wouldn’t it have been great if the BBC had been able to make a video recording of Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938. If you look carefully at the newsreel film footage, you’ll see a BBC TV camera in place at the foot of the steps of the aircraft. His return was obviously broadcast live on TV.

BBC did not obtain any magnetic video taping facilities until 1957.

Yes I guess that is a very fair point Eric, it probably won’t have been a live broadcast. It’s hard to know what they ‘really’ did, after all we now know that all of Winston Churchill’s most famous wartime speeches were not actually Winston Churchill!

We’ll fight them on the beaches, etc. His real speeches were never recorded as they went out in parliament where recording was illegal, and he was too busy to record them for the BBC so they got actor Norman Shelley to record them.

Winnie later recorded them himself after the war, which are the genuine ones we here now, whereas the genuine wartime ones a re not ‘genune’.:confused:

I do not think that the BBC would have carried out “live” broadcasts from such missions. What they used to do was supply their correspondents with a wire reel to reel tape recorder into which they carried out a “live” commentary on the scene and then broadcast an edited (and no doubt censored as well) version later on.

Another recording of a similar nature is Wynford Vaughan-Thomas’ crossing of the Rhine in 1944.

Does anyone know if the radio broadcast of the Luftwaffe raid on Dover made during the Battle of Britain was broadcast live? Technically it would have been possible as it would have been broadcast on home soil but may not have been for security and censorship reasons.