Stirling Recovery – any more news?

Thanks Errol. Interesting that an independent report confirms this. When I spoke with Gordon again this week he said he had struggled to hold the aircraft till all were out. It was wanting to stall all the time, and he said he struggled as long as he could.

I guess he may have either not known the crew hadn’t escaped when he jumped, or perhaps his memory is playing tricks, or he is deliberately not trying to bring back the incident in his mind. It is an interesting case where the records state one thing and the man another. I’d like to investigate further but I’ve developed a great fiendship with Gordon and don’t want to upset him either. If I get a chance to look at his logbook again I’ll find as much as I can about the incident as he recorded it, and also his crews he flew with.

In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll all find this of some interest – a combat report that Gordon kept after a raid he went on. This was his first op from memory, or at least his first in a Stirling.

The following report is a compilation made by RAF Intelligence from the statements made by all the members of the crew at their individual debriefings.

Stirling 4 Eng. Bomber
BF 355 of No 15 Squadron
Bourne. England.

Captain: F/Sgt. McMonagle
2nd Pilot: W/O G. Easter
Rear-Gunner: Sgt. Clark
Mid-upper Gunner: Sgt. Warren
Wireless Operator: Sgt. Noonan

To: – 23 Group
From: – INTELLIGENCE, BOURNE.
Date: – 18th December 1942
Combat Report: The NIGHT of 16/17 December 1942

Stirling F/15 (Captain F/Sgt McMonagle) attacking DIEPHOLZ Aerodrome, time 19.25 hours, course 360, one to two miles N of Dummer See, Height 7600 feet, TAS 180

Our Aircraft was gently weaving; no cloud; good visibility and bright moonlight, moon to the SE
Rear-gunner (Sgt Clark) saw trace from unidentified enemy aircraft fired astern, and below from 800 yards approx. He fired back and informed Captain, who dived our aircraft, when E/A identified as M.E.110 appeared dead astern and level about 500 yards. Defensive tactics, diving turn to starboard, when E/A appeared on port quarter. Enemy fighter was firing cannon and machine guns and our aircraft was damaged. Our rear-gunner maintained a long burst as E/A broke away, diving to port. The enemy fighter’s port engine caught fire and the Engineer from Astrodome confirmed it as last seen diving to earth in flames.
CLAIMED AS “DESTROYED”

2nd attack. Meanwhile a second M.E.110 night fighter, first seen 500 yards away, came in from below and passed to starboard at 220 yards. Defensive tactics; Corkscrew.

The Mid-upper gunner (Sgt. Warren) engaged this aircraft and continued firing until the E/A passed behind mainplane. Early in the attack two cannon shells pierced the Perspex of the mid-upper turret scattering Perspex over the gunner and cutting him. The ring sight was broken and the gunner seriously wounded with a lacerated cut over the right eye which injured an artery and bled profusely, another cut in the neck, whilst a piece of shrapnel knocked out a tooth and lodged in his gum. Nevertheless Sgt Warren continued firing and did not report his injuries until the combat was over. He then asked for someone to come into the turret as he could not see for blood from his head injury. Although Sgt Warren did not see the results of his attack the Engineer in the Astrodome saw his tracer strike the E/A and the E/A did not attack again/
THIS M.E.110 IS CLAIMED AS “DAMAGED”

The Air Bomber rendered first-aid to the wounded gunner who lay on the bed, and on landing, walked out of the aircraft before collapsing. He was later given a blood transfusion.

During the combat the pilot (F/Sgt McMonagle) carried out defensive tactics with control from the Engineer, the rear-gunner and the Mid-upper gunner. He was doing diving turns into the attack and “corkscrew”, and at the end of the combat had lost 3000 to 4000 feet.

Almost at the same time as the attack by the E/A accurate flak engaged and hit our aircraft, but there were no S/L. During this attack the rear turret was rendered partly U/S, the inter-com from the rear turret was rendered useless, and there were strikes on the fuselage. Having been damaged the bombs, 1980 x 4lb incendiary were jettisoned on or near to the target, and the Stirling turned for Base. The containers had presumably been hit by flak or fighters, as they were seen to be burning as they fell.

At 19:40 hours our aircraft was flying on a westerly course weaving at 4000 feet some 20 miles NE of Lingen when it had another encounter – an M.E.110 coming in from the port quarter and slightly below. Our aircraft dived and turned to port, when the E?A appeared above firing down on our aircraft. The rear-gunner, although his turret was damaged, managed to get in one long and a short burst and the E/A was also engaged by the W/Op (Sgt Noonan) who was in the mid-upper turret. Sgt Noonan had no ring sight, but aimed with his tracer, getting in several long bursts, hitting the E/A as did the rear gunner.

From the three attacks and the flak our aircraft had four large holes in the fuselage, a cannon shell in the starboard wing and another in the port aileron. The rear turret was hit and rendered partially U/S, the inter-com from the rear turret was cut, two cannon shells went through the mid-upper turret Perspex and the Engineer’s instrument panel was broken and falling forward blocked the door to the forward section of the fuselage. The E/A was firing m/g and cannon shells and as the air bomber was going down the fuselage to the rear turret there was phosphorus in the fuselage.

The pilot brought the aircraft back and landed safely at COLTISHALL.

Claims: One M.E.110 “destroyed”
Two M.E.110s “damaged”

Our casualties: Mid-upper gunner (Sgt Warren) seriously wounded
Ammunition Expended:Mid-upper gunner – 10000 rounds
Rear Gunner – 15000 rounds

Gunners: Rear…Sgt Clark Pershore and Basingbourne O.T.U. No.10 G.S.
Mid-upper gunner…Sgt Warren Basingbourne O.T.U.Con. Flight
Marham, No.6.B. &G.S. Mountain Vie. Ontario. A.G. Stormy Down
W/Op…Sgt Noonan Pershore O.T.U.

Note: This is the second combat this crew has been engaged in within a few weeks. On each occasion gunners, captain and everyone else have worked together with coolness, first class discipline, good fighting control and good shooting.

F/Lt. Gunnery Leader,
F/Sgt Captain of Aircraft

Additional Details:
A total of eight Short Stirling bombers from No 15 Squadron, RAF, took part in this raid on Diepholz, Germany. One aircraft was lost. Stirling R9168/T captained by Pilot Officer F.S. Millen RCAF, was damaged by flak, and then was shot down by a night fighter at 20:09 hours. The aircraft crashed at Gortel, 7km SW of Epe. There was one survivor, an RAF Sgt who was captured and taken prisoner. One of the six crew members who died was 25 year old New Zealand air bomber Sgt Robert Hugh McKillop, RNZAF (NZ404389).

The target at Diepholz had been an aircraft park, where 200 to 300 German aircraft were stored in close proximity.

Dave,

Gordon Easter’s bale out on 22 Nov 43 while serving with 1651HCU, as per Archie’s post, is correct apart from the misspelled surname and is confirmed by Caterpillar Club records. The RAAF member’s full name was Norman Ross Hutchins, which ties in with Easter’s description.

Errol

I spoke this afternoon with Gordon Easter again, by phone, and I broached the subject of his bale out once more. He assured me that everyone got out ok, no-one was seriously hurt but one chap landed on a roof and slid down it doing a little damage to himself.

So this cannot be related to the crash in which crewmen died. When I get a chance I’ll go see him again and have a look in his log book. I wonder why the records have seemingly missed his crash though.

He actually said he held the aircraft as long as he could to get “the gang out”, as he referred to his crew, and he spoke of the sensation of falling out of the plane into the black of night. He said he was lucky he had his hand on the ripcord, because the chute pack smacked him in the face due to the rush of air, and then something that he thinks were his knees also hit him hard in the face, and he thinks he must have blacked out. He said he came to just as he touched down, landing on the only rock in a large ploughed field. He said he telegrammed his mother and wife stating “Gordon has been wounded in action, he has a bruised bum!”

Going back to the original query, most of the remaining wreckage from LJ628 was recovered on the 24th Jan.

The have put a few photos on my web site, www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk showing the final preparations the day before the recovery.

For photos of the actual recovery you will have to wait for the Stirling Project to publish a newsletter on their web site.

At a quick glance through Bomber Command Losses for the dates mentioned above I can’t see anything that ties in although there was a 15 Sqdn Stirling on Air Test that came a cropper 29th Dec. but your man is not mentioned on the crew.

Have to go out now and won’t be back until tomorrow evening but will have a closer look then if nobody else has come up with anything.

Gentlemen, I may have made a mistake on this one. Going by the tape, the crash was after Gordon was at Waterbeach and had gone onto his next posting to No. 15 Sqn because he states they took off from Bourne, which is where he was based. He was at Bourne from 12 Dec 1942 to 11 Jan 1943. So I now think this is not the same crash as you kindly detailed.

Another thing is he says one of the crewmembers was a chap called Ross who was an Aussie, who baled out. That doesn’t seem to correllate with the Aussie on the crash detailed above because the Aussie in that was injured. See below.

The crash, if he took off from Bourne, had to be during the dates 12 Dec 1942 to 1 Jan 1943 because he then went into hospital and when he returned to 15 Squadron they were now at Mildenhall.

Here is the transcript of what Gordon told me, as we sat talking and he looked through the log book:

“There was one, silly one. We had to bale out. That was from Bourne too. Somewhere around here [searching log book]”
I asked “Was it over Britain?”
“Yeah, over Britain. We were just testing new Gee equipment. Navigational equipment. And we went up north over Scotland way, and around the back down the Irish Sea. We were coming back across Wales, and everything went bloody wrong. We had a runaway prop, where the thing wouldn’t feather, it was going up to about 5000 revs, then down to about 100 revs, REEEEEE errrr [mimicking noise of the engine]. I wsih the aircraft was feathering! I could vaguely keep it going at about 180 miles per hour downhill. But soon as you started to ease at it, a bit of flap and a bit this this and a bit of that and tried everything, and it wouldnt hold. And I went from about 900 foot down to about 4000 foot in about 2 minutes. So I said to the crew, “Get out”

It was nighttime, black as hell, you couldn’t see anything. So I got them all out, and I finally went out in the end. And I landed in a ploughed field, one side of a hill, and the aircraft landed the other side. I landed with my feet slightly apart, and hit the only bloody rock that was in the ploughed field! And I had the biggest bruise on my bum that you’ve ever seen. [laughing] And I sent a wire to my mother and my wife saying that “I’ve been injured on operations – I’ve got a bruised bum.” Ouch, it was sore!

“A funny thing about it, one of the crew members, an Aussie character, he was a real hard nut. Old Ross. And Ross was always short of cash, always borrowing money off me and so on. And he’d landed on the top of a house in a village, a mile away from the place where I landed. And he said that when he landed, he finally got down, slid off the house, and he decided to go and put his parachute on a post to let everybody know he was all right, you see. But, the parachute disappeared – and next thing Ross had all the money in the world, and all teh local girls had silk undies!! And I got my money back too that he’d borrowed from me! “

he says that he discovered shortly afterwards that Ross was nightblind. They were walking back to barracks after an op, and Ross walked into a pole. The night was starry and bright but he didn’t see it. He then walked into a second one, so Gordon told him to see a medic, He was nightblind, and was taken off ops. He went onto Air Sea Rescue boats.

So, can anyone put two and two together and find the details of this scenario then? His Stirling might still be on that hill…

On another raid, by the way, he said of twelve crews, ten had to turn back over the channel because most ofthe crews developed food poisoning and all six in his aircraft began to throw up! He said he just managaed to touch down, and he shut the aircraft down on the end ofthe runway. He couldn’t get any further. They were all pulled from the plane and carted to hospital in ambulances! I wonder how often this sort of thing happened. Interesting tale. The other two aircraft presumably made the target ok.

This has got me curious now, and I have just dug out the tapes to find the story. This may take a while, I recorded two full 100 minute audio tapes of his memories from when he was a school kid here in Cambridge right up till his postwar exploits as a Transport Command pilot. His memory is as sharp as a tack, and he has a great way of telling a story (after leaving the RAF he became a radio DJ here in NZ!)

So, when I find the piece of story, I’ll translate it here for the record.

Easton is shown (probably) as pilot, yet you say Easter has a Caterpillar Club badge.
Would be interesting to find out what happened…

Flood

I am certain this will be the same plane, and the records have got his name wrong.

Gordon Easter went on with his crew to No. 15 Sqn too, and then he contracted an illness for a bit and while in hospital his crew was taken out by another pilot and all ailed to return. He worked upa second crew, and just got them sweet, then the C.O. borrowed his crew for an op (Because he was required to do one a month and would just select a crew) and they were all killed. Gordon had to work up a third crew, and he did a few ops with them, totalling 8 including his OTU ops on Wellingtons and those on 15 Sqn Stirlings.

He was then offered a new job, a tour on Liberators in India. He wanted something new so took it. The RAF sent him to India, and when he arrived he was told he was meant to be sent to the USa, to pick up his B24!! So they scrapped that job too. He eneded up being made an MT officer for a year, before returning to NZ and serving in the Pacific on C47’s with No. 40 Sqn. He then became an Air Traffic Controller in NZ and Fiji, and after the war returned to the RAF where he did 20 years in Transport Command (on Yorks incl. Berlin Airlift, and Washingtons including dropping a nuclear bomb of at Christmas Island and watching it go off!!)

He is an incredible man, full of amazing stories. Sadly he won’t be round much more because he has emphasema which he blames on the Air Force because they actively encouraged aircrews to smoke for their nerves.

To this day he seems bitterly disappointed that he only did eight ops, and was cheated out of his crews and his B24 tour. I think perhaps he also feels very fortunate to be still here when those crews aren’t.

So, yes, that will almost certainly be him, you can adjust your records. I remember him saying now that some stayed with the plane. When I get the tapes transcribed I can let you see the full interviews I did (eventually).

He is Gordon K. Easter, RNZAF. He’d have been pilot, or prhaps second pilot. He was at the Conversion Unit between October and December 1942. I haven’t further details just to hand, but if that is not enough to go on, I can find more I hope.

There is a Sgt CK Easton RNZAF…
22/11/1942 in Stirling I BF333 -R. Starboard inner failed on a cross counrty exercise from Waterbeach, and as the aircraft lost height two bailed out but, according to Chorley, the rest remained on board and were not seriously injured when the aircraft crashed near Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire.
Easton is shown at the top of the list, which usually indicates pilot. I can’t imagine the pilot bailing out but others staying aboard so maybe there are several mistakes (spelling/handwriting, or just from compiling the records) that weren’t known or spotted when the book was being written?

Flood
Ha – I see Archieraf was working on it too!

Dave, the nearest I can find to the name you gave in the timescale is this:

22 Nov 1942 1651 HCU Stirling I BF333 -R took off Waterbeach for a night x-c, during which the starboard inner failed. As the bomber lost height, two of the crw baled out but their colleagues remained aboard and were not too seriously hurt in the ensuing crash landing, at around 0140, a mile of so NNE of Portabello Farm on the Old Roman Road, one and a hlaf miles WSW from Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire. Three, Sgts Banyer, Pattison and Jennings went, eventually, to 15 Sqdn where they joined another RNZAF Pilot, P/O J H Stowell. Sadly all three died (as did their skipper) on 4-5 May 1943.

Crew:
Sgt C K Easton RNZAF (sic)
SGt E Kirby
Sgt J B T Williams inj
Sgt J Banyer
Sgt L H Pattison inj
Sgt W Jennings inj
Sgt N R Hutchins RAAF inj

As you can see, there is no Easter on the crew, but I wondered if Chorley may have been working from poorly printed documents and has taken G K Easter to be C K Easton?

Do the other details tie in with the info you already have? I’ll make the correction to the name in my copy of the book if they do.

He is Gordon K. Easter, RNZAF. He’d have been pilot, or prhaps second pilot. He was at the Conversion Unit between October and December 1942. I haven’t further details just to hand, but if that is not enough to go on, I can find more I hope.

Dave, if you can give me a date or the name of the airman I’ll look up HCU losses by W R Chorley and let you know if it has a crash location (it should certainly have the a/c no).