Bomb Aimer over Berlin: The Wartime Memoirs of Les Bartlett DFM

157 Pages·2008·2.44 MB·English

by  Les Bartlett

BOMB AIMER
OVER
BERLIN
BOMB AIMER
OVER
BERLIN
The Wartime Memoirs of
Les Bartlett DFM

by

Peter Jacobs
with
Les Bartlett
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Copyright © Peter Jacobs 2007

ISBN 978-1-84415-596-5

The right of Peter Jacobs to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
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recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Palatino by
Phoenix Typesetting, Auldgirth, Dumfriesshire

Printed and bound in England by
Biddies Ltd, King’s Lynn

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation,
Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History,
Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.

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To Les Bartlett DFM and all the other brave men
who served with Bomber Command during
the Second World War.
Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank Les Bartlett, the main subject of this book,
for allowing me access to his diary and material over so many years. Without his
cooperation and that of others, authors such as myself would not be able to pass on
the stories and experiences of the gallant men of Bomber Command during the Second
World War. I must also thank the two other surviving members of Les’s wartime crew, Reg
Payne and Sir Michael Beetham. Reg, in particular, has proved to be an excellent second
source of information and has always provided me with material and information in a
most timely manner.
There are many other former members of Bomber Command, far too many to mention
them all, who have helped me with their stories and photographs over the years; my
thanks to them all. I would also like to thank the staff at the Air Historical Branch at
Bentley Priory, in particular Graham Day and Mary Hudson for their help and cooperation
over so many years. Finally from my side, I would like to thank Peter Coles at Pen &
Sword. I know how much this book means to Les and without Peter’s full support it would
not have been possible.
Both Les and I would like to thank Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt for allowing
the use of facts and figures from their excellent reference work Bomber Command War
Diaries; if anyone is not familiar with this work, I fully commend it to you. Les would
also like me to record his thanks to Dahlia Hill for typing his diary, Mark Chisnell, Patsy
Ledger and Charlie Campbell of the Southampton Branch of the Air Crew Association for
their continual encouragement over the years, and David Dowdell, who was Les’s guiding
light with computers. Finally, Les would also like me to record his thanks to his daughter
Christine, and to his late wife, Margaret, who always insisted that he should not throw
away his diary but sadly died before she could see his story told.
Foreword

Iwas still at Stockton Secondary School when a friend of mine told me that some
aeroplanes had arrived at nearby Thornaby airfield over the weekend. That was enough
for me. On the following Saturday morning I jumped on my bike and rode the 6 miles
in record time. I found a hole in the hedge and got a glimpse of the Westland Wapitis of
No. 608 (North Riding) Auxiliary Air Force; they were beautiful. It was June 1930 and I
was still only twelve years old, but my mind was made up and the Royal Air Force would
be the life for me.
Sixteen years later I returned to Thornaby once more. By then I was a flight lieutenant
and was coming to the end of my time in the RAF. I was soon to be demobbed but I
thoroughly enjoyed my short time back at the airfield where, for me, it had all begun.
Much had happened to me in those sixteen years, some of which I would never forget.
Although my five years in the RAF did not particularly change the overall pattern of my
life (I was in pharmacy before I joined up and returned to my profession at the end of the
war), my time in Bomber Command certainly changed my outlook and the memories of
my tour of operations during the winter of 1943/4 remain unforgettable. There was never
an easy time to complete a tour of operations but that particular winter was a hard one and
the Battle of Berlin was a difficult campaign. Ten of my operational sorties were flown
against the ‘Big City’ and the name ‘Berlin’ became part of my life.
Anyone who survived a tour of operations with Bomber Command will appreciate how
lucky we were. The odds were not good, as the list of more than 55,000 men killed or
missing confirms. Now, more than sixty years after the end of the Second World War, I am
glad that I had the presence of mind to record the events of my life during those difficult
years. More recently, I always wondered whether I would get the chance to tell my story;
not because I wanted people to know about me but because I wanted people to understand
what it was like to serve in Bomber Command during the war. However, after too many
unsuccessful attempts I felt about ready to give up. Then my close friend Peter Jacobs
offered to help and here we are with this book, and I am so grateful to Peter and to the
publishers Pen & Sword for telling this story.
Contents

Introduction
1 A Willing Volunteer
2 South Africa
3 So Much to Learn
4 The Big City
5 Operations at Last
6 To Berlin and Back, Again and Again and Again…
7 A New Year But The Same Old Story
8 On the Edge
9 Not Berlin Again!
10 A Change of Emphasis
11 Life Would Never be The Same Again
Appendices
1 Bomber Command Order of Battle, November 1943 to the Battle of Berlin
2 Major Bomber Command Raids on Berlin November 1943–March 1944
3 Operational Sorties Flown by Les Bartlett
Index
Introduction

Les Bartlett’s wartime experience, and indeed his life, would have been so different
had he stayed in the world of pharmacy. Having qualified as a pharmacist soon
after the outbreak of the Second World War, he was in a reserved occupation and
exempt from military duty. The idea behind reserved occupations was that certain jobs and
skills across the country were considered too valuable to the overall war effort and a male
workforce was held back rather than being called forward for service in the armed forces.
However, the increasing number of casualties as the war progressed soon led to the
situation being reviewed. By the end of 1940 more than 5 million women were in
employment all across Britain. Whilst most of these were employed in occupations such
as factory work, working on the land or driving vehicles, the precedent had been set and
the door opened for Les. Like many young men, he was keen to join up and ‘do his bit for
King and Country’ and so he volunteered for service as aircrew in the Royal Air Force
during 1941.
Les completed his tour of operations as a bomb aimer with No. 50 Sqn Bomber
Command during the long, hard winter of 1943/4. Based at RAF Skellingthorpe near
Lincoln, he began his tour as a sergeant and ended it as a pilot officer, having been
awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for gallantry along the way. Ten of his
operational sorties were flown against Berlin during the bombing offensive that later
became known as the Battle of Berlin.
Statistically there was never an easy time to do a tour of operations with Bomber
Command. Its offensive against Germany lasted from the opening day of the Second
World War and continued without rest until the end of the war in Europe. During that time
Bomber Command lost over 55,000 men dead, the majority of whom were killed on
operations; taking the number of wounded and prisoners of war into account, the total
number of Bomber Command casualties was nearly 74,000. This is extremely high when
one considers that 125,000 aircrew served in Bomber Command during the Second World
War; in other words, each individual faced a 40 per cent probability that he would be
killed or a 60 per cent probability that he would be killed, wounded or taken as a prisoner
of war.
Les was one of the 40 per cent who survived unscathed, apart from having memories of
those who were not so lucky, and after the war he returned to pharmacy, the profession he
had left when he volunteered for active service. By contrast his pilot, Mike Beetham,
stayed in the post-war RAF and went on to become Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir
Michael Beetham GCB CBE DFC AFC.
I had a chance meeting with Les one Sunday morning in June 1989. At the time I was a
flight lieutenant navigator instructor at Finningley. Having finished a tour on the Phantom