The Lancaster Bombers: Why Hitler Feared the RAF's Most Elite Squadrons | Witness | WWII Documentary

[Music] [Music] I'll give a [Music] little right on your [Music] [Music] 500 a.m. in 1942 the day begins early when the world is at War exactly 10 minutes to be dressed as I am outside ready to go for PT these seven young men all descend from second world war flight crews in fact three of their grandfathers flew together on a Lancaster all right here can we separate them in from the boys let's get going the longer we stand around the long we going to our ass the boys have almost no military experience but they volunteer to live as wartime trainees which was of course a mistake because as a Granddad should have told them the first rule of military life is never volunteer [Music] [Music] I'm living in hell and I'm ready to go home I miss my girlfriend I love her to death and I miss her and I'm thinking about her every other second and I'm I'm really ready to just get this done and get out of here it's so hard just getting like 3 or 4 hours sleep at night and then like waking up at like 5:30 and then just doing physical training in the morning it's just like this is the worst possible start today you can possibly imagine yeah the mornings are pretty long they just it's just so hard you have another 10 minutes before you you have to be dressed have everything organized so that you're ready for the inspection move between 1939 and 1944 almost 200,000 young men came to air crew camps like this [Music] the days were long the training tough and unforgiving it had to be the air war was cold brutal and mercilus death by Flack death by fighter death by Collision if these seven recruits really had gone to war three would have died in combat one would have been injured one would have become a p and only two would have come home safe Joe English was part of that fortunate few it's in the back of your mind all the time could could we keep on being lucky you know because we would see different guys U hit by Fighters or or a flag and Jee we we lived a lucky life you know really Joe and his crew flew on 62 five Squadron a battle hardened Lancaster unit based in northern England their mission to strike at the industrial Heartland of Germany again and again and [Music] again the goal was to convince the Germans that we own the skies and that we could more or less do damage to them at wilp wherever we wanted it was an exercise in I don't know applied psychology we do enough of this and we'll shorten the war we did a little of everything we bombed oil refineries we bombed um uh Railway intersections uh that type of thing anything strategic you know right did yall have an opportunity to study your aircraft recognition last night what we're going to do this morning is we're going to conduct a very thorough review of aircraft recognition followed by your aircraft recognition test Harper you seem to be the most switched on here on aircraft recognition did you spend any time with your mates to teach him this stuff last night yes so I did which aircraft is this bottom one measure 110 very good three out of every four air crew recruits were destined for bomber command much of their fate would lie in the hands of one man Arthur Harris known to his Crews as Butch short for butcher history looks on Arthur Harris with two sets of glasses there are those who still believe that he was a butcher a butcher of the enemy there are some who believe that he was a butcher of his own air crew but when you read the files the one thing that's quite clear is that although he sent his crews out night after night after night he did everything possible to try to give them some greater chance of survivability he should be as famous as Churchill in the fact that he knew what was going to win the war he really you know he he was actually had one television about night night AR from boming January 2nd 1945 Harris issues orders for a massive attack on the birthplace of the Third Reich norenberg it will be the first operation for the Joe English crew we had been on the Squadron 10 days 2 weeks and we had done training exercises but this is the first trip we were assigned to go on we were nervous naturally everyone was even the guys that had done 20 trips were nervous I was quite scared as a matter of fact we had a briefing uh to uh go on a trip and it was canceled and it was a good thing because uh I sure didn't have my act together in the briefing room uh so that when it came up next time uh to go on this trip to Norberg uh uh I was a little more settled and I was able to jot down what I needed in in the briefing and such Adolf Hitler called Norberg the most German of all German cities just a few months earlier it had been the site of bomber command's biggest disaster when 96 aircraft were [Music] lost more air crew died on that one raid than were killed in the entire Battle of Britain [Music] nberg was one of the hearts of nazium It's s any reinstall B her films that's where the annual rallies were uh it was a symbol that wasn't going to remain un bombed Joe's Lancaster was one of over a thousand bombers in the air that night the Pathfinders were going in first and they would lay down their flares and they would give us instructions you know they r or the yellows or the blues there was lots of flack lots of search lights weather was bad it was just not a good trip I was sure we were going to go down you know because the Flack was right even with us perfectly even and uh black spots you can see it boop boop [Music] boop The Raid was a success only six aircraft were lost and the thousand-year-old City was left in Flames Joe and his crew returned safely but their first taste of War had left its Mark yeah I thought of all those people down there you know whether whether they're in homes or garages or underground or whatever I just thought with poor people and here we are dropping these bombs on them yeah yeah The Taking of lives did not come easily to the Joe English crew who were little more than teenage boys when they were sent to kill but the training they had received in classrooms like this stealed them for the task at hand bomber Harris believed his crews could win the war and he had an endless supply of young recruits eager to prove him right it's the BL yeah your part right first three letter right it's done sharply crisply and with lots of energy right military instructors were either respected or feared by recruits get it up there get it up there warrant officer Roger no falls in the second category as a serving member of a Canadian regiment he's determined to make sure Baker flight measures up until they prove their worth you they are semi persons they are not full persons until they prove that they are worthy to be amongst our ranks squad one godfried wake up your hand is way too high it's up here Chris gotfried has become rogers's Whipping Boy he can mark he can salute but Chris can't seem to do both at the same time goded he's a funny guy godfried is just just a riot he's got this funny Spirit about him I mean you just look at him and you got to smile and laugh and I think that's just something amazing H got fre someone who I just want to talk about a bit well he's from Mississippi so his accent definitely gets us he looks like a bit of a goofball sometimes but uh underneath it he's he is sharp as aack Chris comes from a small town in Mississippi his grandfather Harvey was the navigator on the Joe English crew all right now we're in uh my hometown of Olive Branch Mississippi back here and uh we're going to go downtown and uh check out the sides so are you ready Chris is only 19 but he's a young man of strong beliefs here now I've developed some principles and and I think if I was going to go off to war and I might possibly die I mean Every Man Has To Die somehow but maybe Dying With Honor isn't such a bad thing if you're just serving your country hey Mr God you stay there what Chris and Roger no have only known each other a short time but already there's tension he always calls me A Yank and I I told him I'm not a damn yank I'm down from the south a rebel not a damn gank and he he does it to me anyway squad one wake up what is the difficulty over here Mr godfried getting confused sir he said I'm kind of the odd ball and I need to um I don't uh think much of myself he just doesn't know me and he doesn't have any right to be uh trying to act like he knows who I am cuz he doesn't know Jack quick March right wheel means you turn right right away you horrible little man Payday for Yanks in the Royal Canadian Air Force early in the war Canadian recruiting stations were flooded with Young Americans like Chris some chafed under the British style of discipline others flourished Britain's fight is their is too and how they can fly Joe haror was one of those freshman year 3940 and my sophomore year 4041 I kept getting more and more irritated at the way uh Roosevelt and the American people were sort of sticking their heads in the sand and not paying any attention to what was going on in Europe Joe was a 21-year-old Harvard student who came to Canada for one reason to learn how to fight Hitler I really wanted to to fly and to get back at the the Germans for what they were doing to what I sort of considered my second country England following the attack on Pearl Harbor Joe transferred to the US Air Force he'd heard a rumor that he would lose his citizenship if he didn't well uh it turns out later that was a bunch of whoie but uh the Americans made I don't know three or four times as much money as the Canadians made who made three or four times as much money as the RF made and I looked at that and decided Well I could afford to uh join the Americans and make some more money but Joe never flew a single mission for the Stars and Stripes he was transferred game this time to the lowest paying air force of all the RAF there I was in northern England where there weren't very many Americans this this one lone Brown uniform in a sea of blue uniforms up there and the because the Royal Air Force was all around they had airfields all over the place and anything anytime anything went wrong or something they would say it was that American that American which referred to me most of the time Joe flew a courageous 34 operations and was personally awarded the distinguished flying cross by the king but his hero was bomber Harris it said that he stood uh on the uh buildings in London one night when the London was terribly burning in 1940 at 41 and said to somebody next to him they have swn the wind and now they shall reap the Whirlwind and I thoroughly agreed with him and I wanted to be part of the [Music] Whirlwind right in this period we will be covering bombing but before we can actually get into the whole situation we must first be able to do basic mathematics Dr get up here solve this problem for us of you solve it on paper the air war was a technical war and math skills were highly regarded recruits who couldn't do high school math were out stand beside the equation there God so everybody can see you done he who else has the answer hman what's your answer 12332 sir exactly what Godfrey has Harper what's your answer I got an answer sir why not I'm a little bit Rusty on um this format of math sir how r Rusty as Rusty as Rusty can be so goty and Hillman and Stevenson all have the same answer they can do basic mathematics the rest of you cannot do basic mathematics if you cannot do basic mathematics in the Air Force you will not be in the Air Force very long you will be sent to the Infantry where you'll be used as Canon father it'll be nice to know how to do it but it's just like the thing is like when when says right work out the equation I'm just like I'm sitting there just going I have not got a clue what to do military training is all about the pecking the numb squad one one and Martin Harper is on the bottom run don't move you okay there Harper fine sir why are your hands shaking again Martin dropped out of school to become a musician two his Rock and Roll Lifestyle has not impressed Roger no hyper sit down remove your headdress you can put your headdress on my desk my assessment of you you're a very smart young man you can be anything you want to be in life but we do have to work on making your body go right when it's supposed to go right and left when it's supposed to go left Martin has been fighting his body since the moment he [Music] arrived the physical demands have been Relentless and after a few days of training Martin's body simply gave [Music] out well for inspection today it was really hot in the barracks and plus we had to do uh about 16 or 17 push-ups in there and then I guess after that the heat just got to him I'm just overheating I'm just feeling really faint his his bed just got thrown all over the floor and I think he took that pretty hard it's just too much just losing all control I think also possibly the amount of cigarettes he smokes doesn't help him either I just lost every every bit of control and I was my head was wavering and I started to see spots and and start to black out and now let's talk about your your your your your civilian life before you came on the first day you were here your hands were shaking so badly that we couldn't even light your cigarette but then you since explained to me that it was your rather intense social life that caused you to have these sporadic bodily malfunctions you're an incredibly Keen mind you can do anything you wish in life but you have to develop some sense of self-discipline and I can't let my buddies drag me down the spiral of misery with them right he was telling the truth my social life at home is uh you know it's got his problems you know I've got my certain ways of life and um you know I think this whole thing has really cleansed my soul my cleansed my mind as well and you know I'm really looking forward to going back home with a different outlook on life you know rather than getting in the same old rut that I normally do back at home for Chris gotfried it has been another bad day then he faces one more humiliation you have a problem all right there's more things you can do besides medication how a the recruits have been fed an authentic second world war diet and the spam and beans has shut down his system but in the military there are no problems only challenges and every challenge has a solution even constipation for Chris it's the good old-fashioned 1940s remedy plums I'll have your plumbing back to normal in no [Music] time going to turn into a damn Plum all done P te tomorrow you will feel it some's in life are constant beans and bowels always have and probably always will be an endless source of humor for men really run the whole way you just better hope you near cuz if you are his drill I say if we see him running we all run to the was and get him before I just did not like the food the uh cabbage they had uh well it like it had been boiled for 3 [Music] days and I sure didn't think much of that prune juice my favorite would you like me to chug him s [Music] all right thr those PR [Music] everybody what the hell is these markings how many times you today today I 15 times 15 times tomorrow I'm going to try to break the record [Music] all right as you can see what we're going to cover in this period is the Lee Enfield 303 unlike their grandfathers few of the recruits have ever handled a gun today this will change the weapon of choice an original second world war Lee Enfield 303 10 lb of wood and steel accurate within a mile Sid Stevenson can shoot he's a 17-year-old Manitoba Farm Boy with an openness that belies the cynicism of his generation like they were giving up their their lives for us and what they believed in like that's pretty amazing too like it's actually your life you're giving up your life for something you believe in like that's pretty big every morning I have to go out and feed my horses because uh around this time of year it gets PR pretty cool my cousin my sister and myself come down to s for voice [Music] [Applause] [Music] lessons Sydney grew up on the Canadian prairies a place where opportunity comes dressed in covers I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere I love it yeah it's the life I I don't think I could stand living in a uh in the city cuz it's just so loud boys like Sydney have never hesitated to fight for what they believe in 60 years ago his grandfather Clint wetter was a young farmer who went to war my decision was that that I had to become involved and um do whatever they wanted me to do it was at the end of the depression and and there were a lot of farm boys Country Boys had no future and um no money and so this was an opportunity for them to get a paycheck most air crew flew only one tour of 30 operations and then were released to other duties Clint flew two among those the Norberg operation which began Joe english's War but it's another sorty that has stayed with him across the decades the night Clint bom Dresden [Music] on his second tour Clint was a Pathfinder marking targets for the bomber stream above him at the time we thought great we we had a successful ra and I think about that and I said Gee I was a major part of that now am I going to be held accountable for killing those 60 or 50,000 people because obviously I had a big hand in the raid on Dresden created a firestorm and the entire city was consumed in an inferno Clint chose the spot for the firebombs to fall I have questioned myself and I and I have spoken to other people and say well what do you think should I feel guilty or should I not I guess the only soless we can think of is that it was a job that had to be done the bombing of Dresden had limited strategic value and an estimated 50,000 people died that night but like Norberg it was a Target bomber command was determined to destroy 60 years later historians still debate whether the raid was necessary the idea was that that bombing could somehow produce a cataclysmic blow that would cause an enemy to give up the Germans were frightened to heck that if bomber man could do this two or three more times in quick succession maybe something might crack the little boxes are up there on the Shelf yeah with the names on them Clint Twitter finished his war after flying 55 operations and was awarded the distinguished flying cross older and perhaps wiser the idea of his grandson Sydney going to war is Unthinkable records and I guess I would tell him to avoid it if [Music] possible even though we we've got to realize that throughout all there was a certain amount of Glory to it until the time came when you got badly shot up and your Chum beside you got blown to bits and there was no glory there then [Music] okay guys what we're going to practice this afternoon in the hanger is we're going to practice our bomb aiming so we'll have a Bombadier we'll have a navigator and we'll have a pilot the Navigator will bomber command thought attacks on German cities would end the war he'll walk recruits were taught the principles of aerial bombing early in their training so he'll say right 10° left 20° okay straighten it up now hold the heading right in the middle of Peterboro here is a a great big Square building it's the most the instructors have created a basic bombing drill for Baker flight to practice the sort of thing wartime recruits often did the time of the fall at 10,000 is 24.2 24. 92 speed is 40 will be 27.3 seconds 27.3 seconds [ __ ] is it Petersburg that little T Peter Peter godamn westerners peterb in the exercise John Sydney and Chris are trying a bombing run 30° left he's gone B good let's see where we landed we were off a little bit but not bad here's the point right there on the map the orphanage the community center ceter the drill has been fun but it's also taught the boys an important lesson even without the threat of flak or Fighters hitting a Target was a combination of geometry courage and most of all luck well it's a lot harder than you think like by the time you say bombs away the the x mark where you're supposed to let it go is gone and uh you've overshot the Target by you know a mile on the it's actually really difficult Sydney's complaint is an echo from his granddad's time as bomber command was plagued by Miss Targets in 1941 a secret report was commissioned which asked a simple question do bombs hit their targets the conclusion shocked the high command the study showed that only a fraction of bombs landed Within 5 miles of their aiming [Music] point for John Low Daniel Crow and Matthew English it has been a bad day which is about to get worse right right left left right left right left right left they've been put on what's known as defter parade 1 1 2 F spr presents 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 in the world are you doing their troubles began early morning inspection and warned officer no is in a foul mood Sergeant Williams and flight Sergeant Finley have informed me that you should be ready for my inspection and you should be able to meet my standard if you do not meet my expectations you will be handed out remedial training in the form of guard duty at the gate so I hope you're up to Snuff why does it look like somebody slit your throat what's this crap on Your Collar this white stuff on Your Collar shaving foam sir why is that there is that part of your uniform no sir the king does not issue uniforms with dried shaving cream on them the other two uh during our inspection this morning um the warrant officer wasn't too impressed with them Mr low how are you doing this morning fine sir low got in trouble for um not having a clean enough shade you save this morning Mr low yes sir just now sir well tomorrow morning you'll step closer to the razor when you shave yes sir Crow's bed he got in trouble actually for his sheets you could you could sort of see it through it and I I think it was a pretty ridiculous reason for getting uh his bed thrown apart all over the room good Lord turn around look at your bed big dents big rolls big creases everywhere what the hell were you doing with this thing P very good you'll do better tomorrow Mr English I actually got in trouble in class in class today I got in trouble for writing my girlfriend for jilia a note you we're on guard Duty 1 hour tonight at the gate for having a very very poor bed layout you're on guard Duty for not shaving properly 1 hour you have 10 minutes to clean up this bloody mess and I want to see you out on the road in front of our classroom in 10 minutes move on the ground bcat discipline was tough in the air it saved lives Joe English was known as a disciplined pilot if somebody told him to move left left he didn't ask why he moved and I know that some guys uh would complain that they would tell the pilot something and the pilot would say what's wrong you know or why why do we do that that's no good new Crews like Joe's were called sprogs and their death rate was especially High almost half of all sprog Crews were lost before their 10th operation Joe almost died on his eighth we thought we were in the middle of OB bom stream as usual and on round track and at the right height and and this aircraft came from nowhere went right in front of us now mind you we was loaded with 2,000 gallons of gas and 6 and2 tons of bombs and Joel pulled it up and then he saw us and he went to pull up I had to uh sort of stall the aircraft to get over the top of this one and I swear to this day I could read the call signs of that and then it stalls you see it starts to slide backwards yeah and then of course he pushed it ahead to write it and it stalls again because it it can't take the load Joe had lots of nerve and he was a wasn't tall but he was husky you know Advance left turn two defter parades were common sites at training camps as recruits were taught to expect the unexpected and prepare for the worst 1 three turn 1 a turn 1 2 3 1 slope Arms 2 3 1 2 3 1 don't move your head around the rifle move the rifle around your head Arms 1 2 3 1 2 3 bend your arms all the way out keep it steady Stone Face I had a pinch nerve in my hand at one point so uh yeah that hurt a lot but uh I know why I had it coming so make sure I don't write letters in class it helped me just to work on the rifle drill and I got it pretty much spot on so I'm happy I'm I'm tired but I'm happy right one one two two three four five what are you two looking at six seven 8 9 10 1 11 2 3 1 4 2 5 10 11 13 1 the king 15 16 low stop one for the king the king recover don't call me sure again Sergeant you're all puffy not too bad John low is a high school student from British Columbia his granddad was a war hero this is my church over here um it's Sunday morning and uh again I'm late like always um we're just going to you know I'm just going to show you my church and some of my friends that I hang out with and stuff and well Sunday so it's a beautiful day and uh yeah I'll see you later like many teenagers John dreams of being in a band with his buddies kisses [Music] myp when his grandfather John Fraser was about the same age he took part in the famous Dam Busters raid and watched as his friends died well he was originally an observer but they made him a bomb m actually I think it was maybe about a month or um even shorter than that before he he went on this this raid that you know completely changed his life John Fraser flew on the elite 617 Squadron which attacked German hydroelectric dams with experimental bouncing [Music] bombs Fraser's Lancaster was shot down and he was sent to Germany's notorious St like GL 3 where he helped plan The Great Escape John Fraser survived the war only to die in a float plane accident his grandson John low is not sure if he'll go to war but he's proud his granddad did we we become almost kind of cynical of War um especially with Vietnam and the Gulf War I mean they were very uh very political Wars and the thing about World War II was it was very black and white it was us against them that good versus evil 0700 hours an early morning Baker flight has actually been looking forward to the recruits have marched to a local gun range where they'll get a chance to shoot their weapons each member of the flight has been given a second world war Lee Enfield 30 3 famous for its kick most of these boys have never fired a rifle before the Lee Enfield will be the first time they've heard the sounds of War grouping on the left Target five rounds only on your own [Music] time fire right look at your target coaches will come around and tell you what you're doing wrong or doing well two here we got a sniper over here well if you don't make it in the Air Force we sure have room for you and the Infantry that's for sure thanks shooting hel good job I thought I did pretty bad actually but it turned out really good for some reason I don't know why what do you think's wrong here why is it left or right um trigger control trigger control you want to take up the slack right and then you just keep putting pressure on it till it goes off on its own I was just really surprised by The Recoil of it the recoil is amazing it really kicks you back I was told that was it's going to hurt but I mean it doesn't really hurt it's got a good sort of scarf from shooting a gun really but that was really good fun really good fun right here I've got a huge lamp and there looks like some uh some redness there I was a little bit uh put off by the sounds of it first I didn't realize i''d be so loud you are a feather pluck from the wings of the angel of death godfried look at that Target outstanding uh here here here's one of our better Shooters Stevenson obviously he's a farmer so uh he's been out firing rifles probably since he was how old five six about seven or eight actually there you go yeah you got you definitely got to find that right spot in the shoulder um I had a hard find fight in the spot right away and I was getting it right up on my collar bone don't have as much meat as the rest of the boys so uh it's going to leave a fair bruise for sure I think you guys will enjoy this a little bit hopefully you can get that in the light there yeah it's a nice big bruise you can see that wartime recruits were streamed into combat roles as the fortunes of War required but no matter what rank or responsibility everyone was taught how to shoot and All crew carried sidearms [Music] the Joe English crew faced death many times but never fired their guns in Anger not so reg Patterson's crew we got hit one night over AER short of cologne we're heading for cologne and we were about 15 minutes back when up came everybody burst the PLA and they all hit us rege was a Lancaster pilot on 612 Squadron who fought his way through many a Battle until one night he lost the fight was very heavy flag that day you saw it but you didn't really see it sort of ahead of you or any th face it was just all over the place you see you just sort of crunched it and hoped that you're going to go through it [Music] blew the wing right off so of course we were no longer in Airplane so flat in One engine very well but not in One Wing rege was at 20,000 ft when his aircraft was hit he kicked his way out of his shattered cockpit and tumbled into space I went by that tail just by inches that's the last I saw the airplane across cuz suddenly quiet as the most R and two other members of his crew survived the rest fell to Earth in their flaming spinning [Music] Lancaster I never think of these fellas as being old dead guys just to me in my mind just exactly they were the day we left you know young and full of fun great [Music] guys these seven young recruits will never face the shooting War their grandfathers did but the men who flew with Joe English to Norberg or died in the skies with Rich Patterson's crew were once like the bomber boys Baker flight young and brave dreaming of a future where anything was possible next time on bomber boys Baker flight takes to the [Music] skies warrant officer Roger no is not happy with the attitude of His Rebel recruits and lays down the law everything was going exceedingly well up until now you've kind of let the flight down a bit and a surprise inspection brings laughter and [Music] tears that's next time on bomber boys [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]