On this op, a Mosquito from Pathfinder Force – the specialist squadrons that carried out target marking for Main Force ops – was marking the target from high level using Oboe (the ground-controlled, blind-bombing system that directed a narrow radio beam towards the target). However, the target indicators it dropped were 350 yards from the centre of the target, and such was 617 Squadron’s accuracy with their new SABS – their average error was less than 100 yards – that, although they peppered the markers with their 12,000-pound bombs, none of them hit the target.
Although unsuccessful, the failure in target marking at Flixecourt did have positive consequences, for it served as the catalyst for Cheshire and his 617 Squadron crews to begin lobbying for a change in the marking system. Deeply frustrated by the failure of the raid, despite the phenomenal accuracy of their bombing, Mick Martin argued vehemently that it was pointless for the squadron to be dependent on markers dropped from height when flying missions that risked, and often cost, the lives of 617’s aircrews. Far better, he said, for himself or somebody else in the squadron to take on the responsibility of marking the target at low level, but at first ‘Nobody seemed to listen,’ one of his crewmates recalled, ‘and I think Mick got sick of volunteering and making his suggestions.’13
However, Leonard Cheshire may already have been thinking along similar lines, and he became an equally fervent advocate of low-level marking. The 5 Group commander, Air Vice Marshal Ralph Cochrane, lent his support to the idea, driven in part at least by his intense personal rivalry with Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, the commander of 8 Group, which included the Pathfinder Force. Cochrane lobbied hard for a trial of the low-level system and also argued forcibly that ‘his’ 617 Squadron could mark and destroy targets that were beyond the capabilities of 8 Group and its Pathfinders. Cochrane’s lobbying eventually proved successful, but if it was to be anything more than a short-term experiment, 617 would have to back up his words with actions.
Attempts to follow up the Flixecourt raid with a series of further attacks on V-weapon sites that December were aborted because of bad weather and poor visibility, but such conditions were, of course, no deterrent to the construction of the unmanned V-1 flying bombs that would eventually strike London.
The squadron strength for the ongoing war against the V-weapon sites was boosted in January 1944 by the arrival of several new crews. Among them was one lead by an Irish-American pilot, christened Hubert Knilans but always known as Nick, and so inevitably nicknamed ‘Nicky Nylons’ by his crewmates (nylon stockings, obtainable only across the Atlantic, were a rare commodity during the war, and a welcome gift for women); his good looks and American accent made him a magnet for the English girls. He came from a farming family in Wisconsin, but in 1941 was drafted for US military service. He wanted to be a pilot, not a soldier, but knew that the USAAF required all pilots to have a college degree, so, without telling his parents, he packed a small bag and set off for Canada. He arrived there literally penniless, having spent his last ten cents on a bus ticket from Detroit to the border, but he was following such a well-trodden path that the Canadian immigration officer merely greeted him with ‘I suppose you’ve come to join the Air Force?’ and directed him to the RCAF recruiting office, where he signed on to train as a pilot.14
He soon developed a taste for the practical jokes that all aircrew seemed to share. In the depths of the bitter Canadian winter, Knilans and a friend would slip out of their barracks at night, sneak up on their comrades pacing up and down on guard duty and, at risk of being shot by trigger-happy or nervous ones, they then let fly with snowballs. The sudden shock caused some of the more nervous to drop their rifles in the snow, and one even collapsed as he whirled round to face his attacker.
After completing his flying training, he sailed for England with thousands of other recruits on board the liner Queen Elizabeth. So eager was Britain to receive these volunteers that the medical and other checks they went through were often rudimentary. One New Zealander boarding his ship passed ‘a friendly chap at the gangway asking him how he was as he passed by’.15 The ‘friendly chap’ turned out to be the medical officer giving each man boarding the ship his final medical examination!
After a bomber conversion course, Knilans joined 619 Squadron at Woodhall Spa in June 1943. He flew his first operational mission on the night of 24 July 1943 as Bomber Command launched the Battle of Hamburg, including the first-ever use of ‘Window’ – bundles of thin strips of aluminium foil now called ‘chaff’. Window was dropped in flight to disrupt enemy radar by reflecting the signal and turning their screens to blizzards of ‘snow’.
Informed in October 1943 that he was to be transferred to the USAAF, Knilans refused, insisting on remaining with 619 to complete his tour. His eagerness to fly almost cost him his life later that month when his aircraft was targeted by a night-fighter during a raid on Kassel. A stream of tracer shattered the mid-upper turret, temporarily blinding the gunner with shards of Perspex, and another burst fatally wounded the rear gunner, leaving the Lancaster defenceless. Both wings were also hit, but Knilans threw the aircraft into a vicious ‘corkscrew’ that shook off the fighter. It was a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching manoeuvre, especially for rear gunners who, facing backwards, were thrown upwards as if on an out-of-control rollercoaster as the Lancaster dived and then plunged back down as the pilot hauled on the controls to climb again.
Despite the damage to his aircraft, the loss of his gunners, and damage to one engine, Knilans insisted on pressing on to bomb the target, before sending some of his crew back to help the wounded gunner. ‘I knew that in an infantry attack, you could not stop to help a fallen comrade,’ he said. ‘You had to complete your charge first. Bomber Command called it “Press on, regardless”.’
Despite damage to his undercarriage, including a flat tyre on the port side, Knilans eventually made a safe landing back at Woodhall Spa, using brakes, throttles, rudders and stick as he battled to keep the aircraft on the runway. He then helped the ambulance crew to remove the blood-soaked body of his rear gunner from the rear turret. He had almost been cut in half by the cannon shells that killed him. The squadron doctor issued Knilans with two heavy-duty sleeping pills so that his sleep would not be disturbed by those horrific memories, but he gave them instead to the WAAF transport driver, a good friend of the dead gunner, who was overcome with grief and unable to drive.
Awarded the DSO for his courage, Knilans wore that medal ribbon on his uniform, but not the other British, Canadian and American medals to which he was entitled. ‘I thought it would antagonise others on the same squadron,’ he said, ‘or confirm their prejudices about bragging Yanks.’
Although he had pressed on to the target on that occasion, on another, while flying through a ‘box barrage’ from heavy anti-aircraft gun batteries over Berlin, with flak bursting all around them and fragments from near-misses rattling against the fuselage, his bomb-aimer told him, ‘Sorry Skip, the flare’s dropped into the clouds. We’ll have to go round again.’
‘You can still see the lousy flare,’ Knilans angrily replied. ‘Now drop the bombs!’ The bomb-aimer got the message, ‘saw’ the flare and dropped the bombs, and they then ‘departed in haste’.
Knilans was a popular figure on his squadron, even though he had made a deliberate decision not to become too closely involved with his crewmates. ‘I would have liked to have met their families, but I decided against it. If the crew members became too close to me, it would interfere with my life or death decisions concerning them. A kind welcome by their families would add to my mental burden. It could lead to my crew thinking of me as unfriendly, but it could lead to their lives being saved too.’
By January 1944, Knilans had decided:
I did not want to go on bombing civilian populations. There were few front-line soldiers and the flak-battery operators were women, young boys and old men. The cities were filled with workers, their wives and children … This type of bombing had weakened my reliance on my original ideal of restoring happiness
