Give Bomber Command's forgotten heroes the recognition they deserve

Even at the age of 98, memories of the Nuremberg raid still haunt Russell “Rusty” Waughman. His recall of the scenes of hell he witnessed from the cockpit of his Lancaster bomber remains pin-sharp. Perhaps it is not altogether unsurprising; the night of March 30, 1944, remains one of the darkest in the history of the Royal Air Force.

In the worst ever night of losses for Bomber Command, 534 aircrew were killed – more than all those lost by Fighter Command during the entire Battle of Britain – and 96 aircraft were shot down. Other planes which managed to limp back were too badly damaged to fly again.

“Every few minutes another aircraft would disappear and you knew you’d never see that crew again,” Rusty recalls.

“How we survived I’ll never know, but we got through without a scratch.”

A fresh-faced pilot aged just 22, he was based at Ludford Magna in Lincolnshire with 101 Squadron, a special duties squadron. With an attrition rate of 60 percent, few expected to live long.

The squadron flew four-engine Avro Lancasters and were often assigned an eighth crew member whose job was to run highly secret ABC jamming equipment, which could also eavesdrop on German night fighter communications.

“In the briefing we were told we would fly 265 miles from Belgium into Germany – including over a giant lake – and there would be plenty of cloud cover,” Rusty recalls. “We would fly past two German radar towers and we knew there would be 240 German night fighters in the area, so we needed that cloud cover.

“But visibility was very good because there were no clouds. They didn’t need radar, they could see us flying over the lake in the moonlight. It was mayhem. I saw some 60 aircraft shot down.We had more than 700 aircraft but we were losing one a minute. It was very stressful but we had to keep going.

“In the chaos quite a few of the bombers lost their way as well. Some were 50 miles off the target but we managed to get to Nuremberg, drop our bombs, and get home. We’d been in the aircraft for more than eight and a half hours, so it was a huge relief to finally get back to base.”

Shortly after, Rusty and his crew learned that of 26 Lancasters which had set off from Ludford Magna for Nuremberg, only 19 had made it back.

“We were numb, too upset to even talk to each other,” he says today. “When we got to the mess the staff were in the restroom crying their eyes out.They had lost so many friends and sweethearts. We’d lost more than 60 crew. There was just a note saying, ‘Help yourself to the food’. We were asked to sit together at one table as they didn’t want to see all the empty seats.

‘Every minutes another would You knew never see again’

“We never saw bodies.All we saw were empty beds. We couldn’t sleep for two nights. We just sat at the end of our beds living like zombies, emotionally drained. Later, there was a lot of drinking.

“We all knew we would have to get back in the Lancasters and fly other operations. You didn’t expect to live long.”

Rusty, who earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his wartime heroics, has been reliving his experiences along with other surviving former aircrew for a new documentary, Lancaster.

Due to be released in cinemas next spring, its makers hope it will lend new historical understanding to what it was like to serve in Bomber Command.

In the meantime, they need to raise £200,000 to finish production and are asking Daily Express readers to support the project. Some of the money is needed to record a specially-composed score and to pay for the licencing of archive footage.

Rusty hopes supporters can be rallied to the cause as he believes the film will, in time, become a valuable piece of history featuring as it does vivid and moving accounts from Bomber Command veterans.

On another occasion, he recalled, he was flying over Antwerp in pitch darkness when a second Lancaster ploughed into his aircraft from the rear, smashing a huge hole in his bomber’s fuselage.

“The other aircraft broke up and fell away,” he says. “We were not far from our target, so we jettisoned our bombs there and headed home. I told the rear gunner to get his parachute hwh and come to the front in case we broke up, but he wanted to stay where he was.

“I thought we would break up but we didn’t, although we did have a crash landing. We skidded across the grass in the semi darkness towards the control tower.

“There was only one casualty – one of the girls in the control tower sprained her ankle when she watched us land. The aircraft was a write-off so we had to get another.

“That was rather sad because I’d painted ‘Wing and a Prayer’ on the nose – that was the name of a popular song back then and we used to sing it.”

The first Avro Lancaster, designed by aircraft genius Roy Chadwick, made its maiden flight 80 years ago, signalling a new era for the RAF. Many of the 7,377 examples of the four-engine type eventually built were used in night bombing raids on German cities. The aircraft could carry up to ten tonnes of bombs with the heaviest weighing 22,000 lbs, which were called Grand Slams.

Powered by four 1,460 horsepower Merlin engines they could fly a bomb load 1,660 miles at 200mph.With a wingspan of 102 feet and 69 feet long, they were a fearsome sight in the night sky.

For protection against enemy fighters they had four machine guns in a tail turret, a turret in the nose and another turret on top of the fuselage called the mid-upper.

Although they were best known for the Dam Busters raid in May 1943 when socalled “bouncing bombs” were used in successful attacks against the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe hydroelectric dams, Lancasters played a crucial role in defeating the Nazis.

Rusty’s own 101 Squadron flew more raids than any other Bomber Command unit with crew losses of 1,176. Overall 55,573 young men from Bomber Command were killed during the war. Joint independent film directors Anthony Palmer and David Fairhead have interviewed 38 veterans for their film. The success of their first film, Spitfire, encouraged them to make Lancaster. As part of the production, cameras were fitted to the last airworthy Lancaster in Britain, attached to the RAF Memorial Flight, to allow audiences an aircrafteye view of flying.

Bomber took a criticism. wasn’t for have worse “That footage was shot between gaps in lockdowns, so we were pleased to get that in the can,” says David. “Audiences will get a good sense of what it was like to be up in one. “We also fitted cameras to a special mount in a helicopter which allowed us to get amazing air-to-air shots of the Lancaster. “This is a very emotional story. These men are in their late 90s and they can still remember stuff which can bring you to tears.”

Anthony added: “Many of the veterans felt very badly treated by the politicians. One said Churchill was great when he wore a tin hat but terrible when he wore a bowler hat.”

The film addresses controversies over the bombing of Dresden and the role of Bomber Command chief Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, including a letter from Harris to Churchill calling for end-to-end bombing of Berlin after successes in the Ruhr and Hamburg.

“Harris wrote that bombing Berlin would cost four to five hundred aircraft, but would cost Germany the war,” David added.

Berlin was hit 19 times over eight months in raids of up to 800 aircraft. More than 600 aircraft were lost but Harris’ stated aim – to knock Germany out of the war with so-called area bombing – was never achieved.

JackWatson, 97, has an incredible record of 77 Lancaster operations, 11 with 12 Squadron and 66 with the Pathfinder force, 156 Squadron.

Pathfinder Lancasters had a dual role, dropping markers on targets for other bombers and then circling before dropping their own payloads. As a flight engineer, Jack had many roles, acting as bomb aimer while also monitoring fuel usage and instruments.

“I had 15 months of continual operations and on each trip we usually had a 4,000 pounder,” he recalls today. “I remember doing a daylight raid and there was so much flak coming up I could have walked on it, but we got through it. We were hit a lot of times, but not enough to knock us out of the sky.We were unbelievably lucky.

“Bomber Harris took a lot of criticism but he was given the targets by the politicians. If it hadn’t been for people like him, we would have been a lot worse off.

“A friend of mine flew in the raids on Dresden. He was a rear gunner and he could see the flak coming up at him.The danger was very real. There were a lot of munitions factories and troop movements in and around Dresden. There were hairy moments but we kept our sanity and kept going.”

It is now believed 25,000 civilians died in raids on Dresden in February 1945. After the war Jack resumed his training as a printer, but admits to finding it difficult to settle back into civilian life. Even now when he puts his head on his pillow at his home in Eastbourne, visions of flak and explosions sometimes disturb him.

A memorial to Bomber Command at London’s Green Park was unveiled by the Queen in 2012 following a fundraising campaign generously supported by Daily Express readers. Now the producers of Lancaster are appealing to Express readers to support their documentary.

“Having raised most of the existing budget with our valued production partners Haviland Digital, Trevor Beattie Films, British Film Company and Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association, we are still looking for an additional £200,000,” explains David.

“The additional funding will be used to complete the film, record the musical score and licence rare archive film amongst other things. A lot of the veterans have told us that after the war people sort of turned their backs on them. They say war is a dirty business and they were doing what they were asked to do. Making the film has been a creative challenge against the backdrop of Covid, but we owe it to the Bomber Command veterans to get it completed.”

To find out more and donate visit www.facebook.com/lancasterdoc