As they plunged through the darkness the crews were struck, and more than a little relived, by how little enemy action there was. No night fighters, only a handful of search lights and just a few bursts of flak. They arrived at Munster and bombed the target, the city looked like it was in flames. On board one of the Wellingtons the pilot of the bomber circled the city so the crew could see what was going on. The pilot was Wing Commander R. P. Widdowson, whom was also the Squadron Commander, and his second pilot was Sergeant James Allen Ward.
Sgt Ward |
Wg Cdr Widdowson threw the plane into a dive to escape, at the same time Pilot Officer A. R. J. Box in the rear turret returned fire. This wild burst scored several hits on the ME110, and it was seen spiralling out of control. When the plane levelled out they followed the course of the Dutch coast to see how the fire would develop. Two of the crew were wounded by shrapnel, the nose gunner and Sgt Ward.
The crew attempted to put the fire out, first they smashed a hole in the side of the Wellington trying to get to the fire with a fire extinguisher, however their efforts were in vain. Next the crew tried throwing coffee from their thermos flasks at the fire, this did improve matters slightly by damping down the fabric around the wing but didn't extinguish the flames.
The damage to the Wellington after it landed at base. |
Sgt Ward's route along the wing of the plane |
The fire from the fuel pipe was now contained. There was nothing that could catch fire near the flames and so Sgt Ward made the difficult journey back to the cockpit. He was so exhausted by his journey he had to be hauled the last foot or so and into the cabin by the rest of the crew. As the Wellington neared the English coast the flames suddenly flared up, a small pool of fuel had collected inside the wing and had caught. Fortunately, this quickly died down again.
The German attack had also damaged the hydraulics which meant the landing gear was stuck and had to be hand pumped down. Instead of landing at RAF Feltwell, Wg Cdr Widdowson decided to land at Newmarket where there was a much longer landing strip. After circling the airfield Wg Cdr Widdowson radioed to the tower "We’ve been badly shot up. I hope we shan’t mess up your flare-path too badly when we land."
The Wellington thumped into the runway, and rolled forwards, it seems likely the brakes were also damaged as she rolled right off the end of the runway and came to rest in a barbed wire perimeter to the runway. Luckily no one was injured.
Sgt Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Unfortunately, Sgt Ward would not survive the war, in September of that year his bomber was shot down by flak and Sgt Ward was killed.
Image credits:
For more on Sgt Ward's exploits, see this page, it contains some new pictures I'd not seen before.