The Fly by Nights: RAF Bomber Command Stories 1944-45

234 Pages·2007·2.88 MB·English

by  Feesey

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright © Donald W. Feesey, 2007
9781783460571

The right of Donald W. Feesey to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

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Acknowledgements
My acknowledgements and thanks go firstly to Jim Wright whose excellent publication
On Wings of War – (A History of 166 Squadron) was of enormous assistance to me. My
thanks also to Anne and David Lee, and to Ron Hales and Peter Turley, the two air
gunners in my crew, for their vigilance during our many excursions, and for their
continuing friendship and cheerfulness. I must also thank the other members of my crew
who are no longer with us – George Lee, “Nobby” Clarke, Ray Forbes and Max Leversha
– for their loyalty, trustworthiness and dedicated contributions to our many safe returns.
My wife, Daphne, has my deep love and thanks for her understanding of the hours
(years ?) spent compiling this work, and her forbearance on the masses of papers which
for so long littered our rooms.
Finally, in view of the headings to some of the chapters in this book, my apologies to all
exponents of latin, and my thanks to those having a gsoh.

Don Feesey, 2006

Preface
This book is about the lives of airmen who flew in World War II and, particularly, about
the aircrews of Bomber Command as they embarked in complete darkness on their
terrifying nightly missions over Germany in 1944 and 1945.
When war was declared in September 1939, the author, Don Feesey, was only sixteen
and was studying for a career in The Civil Service. Two years later he volunteered for
RAF service as a pilot. Having experienced the German air raids on London in 1940 he
felt it his duty to train as a fighter pilot to defend his country. He had no wish to kill
German civilians or to destroy their cities by bombing them. The RAF, however, assigned
him not to the defensive role he sought, but to an attacking one in Bomber Command.
In all, he made thirty-four successful, long distance sorties over Germany in a four-
engined Lancaster bomber. In 1944/45 the aircrews of Bomber Command operated almost
entirely on dark nights, usually in dense cloud with no visual navigation to guide them.
They were, indeed, the ‘fly by nights’.
Few raids were without incident, and in the course of his tour of operations the author
lost quite a number of his squadron colleagues, and he saw several aircraft around him
blown to pieces or spiralling to their doom.
Here, he describes not only the fears, excitement and tragedies of his crew and others,
but also the less well-known months of intensive classroom training, tests and
examinations they underwent before qualifying for their wings.
The RAF motto ‘Per Ardua Ad Astra’ (By Hard Work to the Stars) seemed to the
trainee aircrews to be ‘Per Ardua Ad Infinitum’! It was quite an achievement just to
survive training. Thereafter, survival was largely a matter of luck.

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Preface
CHAPTER ONE - Per Ardua Ad Domesticus
CHAPTER TWO - Bellum Ova Britannicus
CHAPTER THREE - Per Ardua Ad-Justera
CHAPTER FOUR - Tempus Grandioso
CHAPTER FIVE - Per Ardua Labore, Aqua et Dis-con-tent
CHAPTER SIX - Per ‘(B) Ardua’ Domicilum et Rank Injustice
CHAPTER SEVEN - Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
CHAPTER EIGHT - A Tiger in the Meadow
CHAPTER NINE - Elizabeth Regina Molto Sic(k) Transit
CHAPTER TEN - A Land of Milk and … Maple Syrup
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Landing In Trouble
CHAPTER TWELVE - Short Cuts
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Beware of the Bull!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Bull and Beef
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Per Ardua Ad-Verse City
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Off Home and Off Balance
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Unwanted and Unpaid
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - All Fouled Up
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Daphne
CHAPTER TWENTY - Crews: Cruise: Cruse
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Ditching and Getting Ratty
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - No Room at the Inn
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Per Ardua Ad-Renalin
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - A Bastard Kangaroo
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Initiation to Ops
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Eau Dear Cologne
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Going Through the Roof
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Operational Procedures
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Raiders: Four-engined: Four-footed: For Fuel
CHAPTER THIRTY - Heartbreak
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Not Easy, Getting the Willies
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Who’s for the High Jump?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - An Agonizing Decision
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - The Willy Vibrator
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Christmas Dinner and Bombe Surprise
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - The CO Gets Plastered at Christmas