Chapter 2 Solo to Berlin; A date with the Marquis; I dips me lid; Airborne Invasion

SOLO TO BERLIN

IN 1941 a trip to Berlin was quite an event and not the commonplace occurrence of 1943 and 1944.

Therefore all crews were very keen to get at least one trip to the big smoke during their tour, so that if ever asked the inevitable question "Have you bombed Berlin?" they could answer "Yes" and obtain an extra free beer on the house as a consequence.

Once you had bombed Berlin, you automatically assumed the hallmark of an experienced crew, considered fit to tackle any job in future operations.

Therefore the night of September 20, 1941, found many crews eager to be in the hunt, as the target was Berlin. An attack had not been made for some considerable time, and it was beginning to look as though some crews would finish their tour without the chance of a smack at the big smoke.

At briefing, everything seemed to be just what the doctor ordered: full moon, no cloud, good vis. Yes, a perfect night. Perfect for the Hun night fighter too; for, with the lack of scientific navigational aids, it was necessary to make the most of the moon periods for accurate pinpointing and take the risk with the N/F.

The operation was planned to take off at dusk, cross the Dutch coast under cover of darkness, and get as far into Germany as possible before the moon rose.

The route was almost direct, as we could not carry enough gravy in the old Wellington 1C to afford lengthening it to any degree and still make sure that we had plenty in reserve for the home trip.

All went according to plan. We were shot at as expected while crossing the Dutch coast and intermittently while crossing Holland. We passed through the deep searchlight belt which then existed on the Dutch-German frontier, and saw other aircraft held by the searchlights and being attacked. Passing south of Bremen, we noticed one or two off course on our port side, getting hell beaten out of them. On the starboard side Munster was also putting on a display.

Somewhere just north of Osnabruck the W/Op., Bill Buckley, chirped up to say he had received a very indistinct code recall message. With only a little over 150 miles to go it seemed absurd that we were being recalled. Anyhow, we decided it might be a Hun decoy, so what the hell! Visibility was excellent and the sky clear, pinpointing was just too easy, and we had a lot of gravy up our sleeves. No, best push on and bomb.

Fifty miles west of Berlin we altered course to starboard, intending to attack from the south-west. On approaching the chain of lakes which stretch on that side of the city there seemed to be an ominous lack of activity from the defences. There were no other bombers about! We realized that the signal had been a recall. Here we were, just a lone duck, and a bloody stupid one at that.

Altering height, air speed and direction in a series of corkscrewing manoeuvres and desynchronizing the engines to help mystify the ground defences, we ran in over the outer defences of the city. Suddenly everything came to life and there was no doubt who was the target. Nothing for it now-nose down, throttles wide, revs 2,475!

The altimeter began to unwind rapidly and the original 15,000 feet on the clock was rapidly halved. On the other hand, the original 135 m.p.h. on the A.S.I. was soon doubled. As we passed over the centre of the city, we seemed to run into a zone of silence. Bomb doors open, steady, steady: bombs gone, flash gone, bomb doors closed; the usual awful eternity, then nose down again, a rapid turn through go to starboard, and we were heading out to the south-east with only 5,000 feet on the clock.

As the last searchlight appeared behind us the sound of bursting shells became inaudible. The nose of the aircraft was raised and height was gained as rapidly as possible. I don't think any of the crew would have gone back just then for a million quid.

Never was the desire to get back to England, as soon as possible, stronger. However, we had used a lot of juice and had to cut down to an economical cruising speed. It seemed a quiet run back to the Dutch coast, purely in comparison, no doubt.

Crossing the North Sea we saw reason for the recall message. Small areas of sea fog began to appear, thickening rapidly until, on approaching where the English coastline should have been, there was nothing but dirty yellow fog with tops at 5,800 feet.

A diversionary message to an aerodrome in the south of England was received, but can celled a few minutes later, meaning that it had closed in also. Another, to the north of Yorkshire took its place, but we had insufficient gravy to make it. A possible drome in Norfolk near the east coast was given with

the warning that the vis. there was below 1,000 yards and lowering rapidly. However we made it, 9 hours 15 minutes after take-off. We didn't sleep, we just died.

WING-COMMANDER C. E. MARTIN, D.S.O., D.F.C.

I DIPS ME LID

HE title for this story has been borrowed from "The Sentimental Bloke". -.*ne sentiment it expresses is that of all Australian flying men for their ground crews. An Australian Lancaster pilot of a R.A.A.F. squadron spoke for all his fellows when he said, "I take off my hat to my ground crew, they are the best team on the station."

So great is the bond of comradeship and confidence between the men who fly and the men who keep them flying that no matter where you may go every flying man will be quite certain that his ground crew is the best. The flier knows that the ground crew will not let him take his aircraft off the ground until they are certain that it is as perfect as skill, and the knowledge of how to use that skill, can make it.

Because their work does not take them on spectacular raids, exciting combats or long nerve-testing reconnaissance flights, little is heard about the tremendous work of the Australian ground crews scattered over countless airfields from England to India. Their lot is long hours of toil making aircraft fit to fly and then, while aircrews fly their charges into battle, more long hours of waiting for the aircraft to return.

They only know the tiredness which comes from great labours, the hoping that their kites will return safely and that nasty sensation in the stomach when their charge is missing or is late. But they don't talk about it and there are few people who, when they read about the wonderful deeds of Australian aircrews, give even a passing thought to the prodigious work of the ground crews who have helped to make those deeds possible. But the men who fly know, and are ever ready to acknowledge the men who work so earnestly, so skilfully and so untiringly on the ground.

Few personalities have reached the headlines among ground crews. It cannot be expected when so many people are doing the same job so well. A faulty carburetor swiftly fixed; delicate instruments put right; flak holes quickly patched; aircraft miraculously made airworthy in time for the next operation. These are the daily jobs of ground crews, whether they work in well equipped workshops with every possible aid at hand or whether they improvise in a rough shed beside some remote airstrip in the battle area. The greatest tribute to the skill and labours of ground crews is the high record of serviceability for which Australians are famous.

One Australian, who became almost a legend at Australia's famous No. 10 Sunderland Flying Boat Squadron before he was killed by a flying bomb while on leave in London, was Flight-Sergeant Ferguson, "Ossie" to everyone of the flying and ground personnel who served with the squadron since it began operations at the beginning of the war. Not long before he was killed, Ferguson was awarded the British Empire Medal and was mentioned in dispatches for devotion to duty.

The citation for Ferguson's award stated: "This N.C.O. is in charge of the squadron maintenance and repair section and has showed remarkable ability to handle any situation that has arisen. During his four years' service in the squadron he has been responsible for saving at least one aircraft which would have otherwise been lost. His work has always been of the highest order and his ability to control men has been exceptional. He has worked night and day under very bad conditions, foregoing all privileges in order to maintain a high standard of serviceability."

Another Australian ground-crew personality is Flight-Sergeant Harry Tickle of Parkside, Adelaide. He has been with an Australian Lancaster Squadron ever since it was formed and his name will always be linked with the famous R.A.A.F. Lancaster "George" which flew on ninety operations before being set aside for the Australian War Museum. The story of "George", Flight Sergeant Tickle and the men who have flown aircraft, is a splendid example of the bond which exists between the flying men and the ground crews. Tickle has known most of the flying men who have come through the squadron since its formation and still receives letters from men who have been prisoners of war for two years.

He has regarded "George" as his special care and is very proud of the aircraft. It was shot up on more than thirty occasions but each time Tickle and the men under him had the bomber ready to fly again within a day. The motto of the ground crews is "You bring them back and we will make them fly again" and Tickle became known beyond the Air Force as an exemplar of this motto. Workers in the south of England who test small parts for aeroplanes heard of the partnership and asked for photographs of the bomber and the N.C.O.

Then they wrote to him to say they had hung the pictures on the walls of their factory. The factory workers congratulated him and asked him to pass their good wishes on to "George". They told him that his own story and the story of the record-making aircraft had been an inspiration to them all.

Flight-Sergeant Tickle was mentioned in dispatches after "George" had completed ninety operations and had "returned" from active service after serving for more than three years in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Warrant-Officer J. A. Lenney, of Lugarno (N.S.W.), N.C.O. in charge of the armament section of an Australian fighter squadron, was also mentioned in dispatches. The citation stated that he "displayed consistently a rare sense of devotion to duty". Like many other Australians serving as ground crew with squadrons in the Middle East, Lenney has covered a great deal of territory during his service. He left Australia with the squadron in April 1941. Since then he has served with it in the Western Desert during the second Libyan push of 1941, later in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and again in the Western Desert. The squadron was stationed on Corsica when Lenney was mentioned in dispatches.

There are few individuals who have been recognized in this manner amongst ground crews. Many of the men have been away from Australia for two years and nine months. They were veterans of advances and retreats in the. Western Desert; they had made the long trek from Alamein to Tunis, had followed the enemy across to Sicily and up through Italy while their squadrons gave close support to the Eighth Army. And always, in retreat or in pursuit, they had seen to it that Australian fliers had aircraft ready to fly.

Serviceability 'is the be-all and end-all for the men on the ground. It means that an aircraft is ready for battle, and they know as well as any aircrew that an aircraft is a dead loss while it is grounded. In various commands Australians have always had a reputation for maintaining a high percentage of serviceability, whatever the conditions. During May and June 1944, an Australian fighter squadron operating from Corsica held the maintenance record, not only for the wing but for the group of which it was a member. In May the serviceability rate was 86.5 per cent; in July it had risen to 90-59 per cent. In July it was the only squadron in two wings with eight consecutive days of 100 per cent serviceability-a remarkable record. All the work was done in the open in the face of an almost constant blast of wind and dust.

In one crucial day in May 1944 the squadron had fifteen aircraft unserviceable at dawn. By midday twelve of them were serviceable and they were the only serviceable aircraft in the -wing at that time. So efficient was the maintenance staff at this squadron that the R.A.F. wing-commander commanding the wing had his own personal aircraft serviced by it. At another squadron, which was operating from Malta against enemy shipping, the Australian ground crews kept the maintenance at such a high state that in one five-day week period the aircraft flew 1,200 operational hours with only three cases of engine trouble.

Australian fitters with an advance salvage unit in the Western Desert won for themselves a fine reputation. One evening in June 1942, when the Air Force was pulling out of combat, a Kittyhawk crashed on the airfield. The Australians had it on a salvage truck and away in an hour. They brought the crashed aircraft back four hundred miles in the retreat :o the delta where it was made serviceable again.

In the days immediately before and for many days after the invasion of Normandy ground crews of all the air forces did an extraordinary job. Australians were serving with British, New Zealanders and Canadians in a Mosquito fighter-bomber wing of 2nd Tactical Air Force which had 97.5 per cent of the available aircraft ready for operations every night during that crucial time. It means long hours for the men but whenever it was humanly possible no aircraft was held back from supporting the invasion because of necessary repairs.

The wing, which included a R.A.A.F. squadron and Australian pilots with other squadrons, was able to breach records in the number of sorties flown, weight of bombs dropped and number of cannon shells fired, because the ground crews always had the aircraft ready for the next night's operations. When, four days before D-day, the bulk of the work in the repair and inspection section was completed the officer-in-charge, Flight Lieutenant A. C. Dibbs, of Castle Hill, Sydney, decided to start an intensive drive to build up a high total of potential flying hours.

Normally aircraft come in for regular inspection after completing a certain number of flying hours. It was decided to call in those that were not due for an inspection, so that when D-day dawned regular inspections would not hold up an aircraft needed for operations. In those four days before D-day the ground staff worked from dawn until 10.30 p.m.-when it became too dark to see -servicing the engines, armament, instruments and fuselage. When D-day came the same intensive effort was maintained.

As soon as airstrips were prepared in Normandy Australian ground crews were flown to France to service R.A.A.F. Spitfire fighter bombers operating from "battlefront" airfields. Among them were Flight-Sergeant F. H. Wood ("Timber" his mates call him) and Sergeant Seth ("Ned") Parker who, after a long experience of ground maintenance with R.A.A.F. Lancaster squadrons, were posted to the Spitfires ready for D-day. With the Spitfires they served through those tremendously exciting days that turned the tide of war in Western Europe against the Nazis.

When the squadron moved to Normandy, Wood and Parker went with it and in the dust or mud, according to the vagaries of the weather, they maintained the high standard of proficiency in ground staff work for which they already held a high reputation. On those historic two days (August 19 and 20) when the 2nd Tactical Air Force massacred the German 7th Army as it fled through the Falaise Gap, the ground staff, with Wood and Parker leading them, worked "full bore" to maintain the Australian squadron's splendid battle reputation and, with their comrades of the R.A.F., these men slaved throughout the rest of the terrific campaign.

just as they have few chances to show the world the worth of their labours, which keep our aircraft in the air, the men on the ground get few opportunities to demonstrate their bravery in action. But there have been times during the war in the Middle East when ground crews found themselves mixed up with the infantry and sometimes they have been left behind the enemy lines. On one occasion a party of ground staff was taken prisoner by the enemy. They were later released, when Bardia was recaptured by the British. The ground staff have endured their share of enemy air raids on all fronts and have suffered casualties.

When flying accidents occur the ground staff are quickly on the scene. They have braved flames and the danger of exploding ammunition to save members of aircraft from their burning machines. Sometimes these acts of heroism are not recorded. When lives must be saved quickly few have any chance to observe and record the heroism of others and the men don't talk of their own heroic deeds. But here is the story of two men, one an Irishman, who fought an aircraft fire on an English aerodrome and saved a nearby bomb dump. The Australian was Pilot-Officer W. H. Fishburn, of Hurlstone Park, Sydney, an armament officer, and the Irishman A.C.2 J. Durkin of Belfast.

They were watching Lancasters taking off for a raid on Berlin when one of the aircraft crashed not far from them and began to burn. The crash tender became bogged and Fishburn could not get it close enough to the fire. He sent a sergeant for some extinguishers and Durkin stayed behind to help Fishburn control the fire while the extinguishers were being obtained. Under the wrecked engine lay a 4000pound bomb, tom from the bomb-bay in the crash and surrounded by incendiaries. A few yards away, well within range of the flames, was a bomb dump. Petrol was running from a burning petrol tank and incendiaries were exploding all the time.

Durkin went into the fire armed with a shovel and began throwing earth on the burning wing and engine, while Fishburn fought his way through blazing incendiaries to the 4000 pound bomb and defused it. Then he went back to where Durkin was fighting the fire and helped him prevent the flames from reaching the bomb dump. The blazing petrol tank was likely to explode at any moment and Fishburn told Durkin to leave if he wanted to. The A.C.2 preferred to stay.

The Australian officer said later: "Although he knew he might be blown to bits at any moment Durkin went on working as calmly as if he were taking part in a practice."

Two fitters in an all-Australian Kittyhawk squadron in the Middle East showed great courage and resourcefulness when a fire broke out in a landing-ground dispersal area in Italy. The fitters were L.A.C. K. M. Harris of Victoria Street, Dulwich Hill (N.S.W.) and L.A.C. S. R. Moore, of High Street, Swan Hill (V.).

Their courageous action saved several aircraft from possible destruction and averted a bomb explosion. The flames caught a bombed-up Kittyhawk in the dispersal area. With the cockpit and the rear part of the fuselage well alight the bomb was likely to explode. The two ground-crew men, who were servicing other aircraft nearby, ran to the burning aircraft, and, releasing the rack beneath the belly of the aircraft, dropped the bomb and removed it.

Two Kittyhawks nearby were in danger from the possible explosion of the petrol tanks in the burning aircraft. Without hesitation and acting entirely on their own initiative Harris and Moore taxied them to safety.

R.A.A.F. ground crews overseas have perhaps worked harder and longer than any other group of Australian servicemen in this war. Many of them have been away from home for three years and more and have worked in the worst possible conditions for months at a time without leave. Some of them
have been serving in the Middle East and Italy ever since they left Australia. The veterans of the desert will argue with the veterans of the air war in England that theirs has been the harder lot. There is no standard of judgment to compare the conditions, so the argument is likely to go on, but one thing is sure-wherever they have served Australian ground crews overseas have done a superb job.

BEAUFIGHTER TOLL

AMONG the Coastal Command squadrons based in Britain the public spotlight was often directed, just before and after D-day, on dramatic engagements in which the Australian Beaufighters figured.

In these the Australians worked hand in glove with Beaufighters of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in a combination of Dominion weapons that took heavy toll of German shipping trying to run the North Sea and Channel gauntlet.

The Australian Beaufighters are known as "Flakbeaus"; the New Zealanders' aircraft as "Torbeaus".

It was the task of the four cannon, six-machine-gun Flakbeaus to draw and smother the defensive fire of German shipping convoys while R.N.Z.A.F. Torbeaus sent their torpedoes to the mark. "Prepare, prepare, prepare." Over the radio telephone from the leader of the Beaufighters this word has heralded many an attack on German shipping since the invasion was launched.

The Beaus have circled around to get their position waiting for the next order, "Attack, attack," to send them screaming down on the ships in a shallow 300 m.p.h. dive to clear the flakship's decks or distract the enemy gunners' attention.

The Germans have been forced to provide more and more heavily armed escort vessels with each convoy. Recently the Australians and New Zealanders came across eight merchant ships with nineteen escort vessels and a few days later two ships with fourteen escorts. Where the Germans are forced to use sixteen ships to convoy two cargoes, a major victory at sea is being scored, even if the convoy is not attacked. Here is a report of a typical post invasion attack by the Dominion combination: "Four ships sighted and all four opened fire. First man bombed and then only two ships were firing. Two more bombed and only one ship was firing. When the last man had bombed there was no fire coming from the ships."

The R.A.A.F. Beaufighters belonged to one of Australia's oldest Britain-based squadrons. It was formed on June 6, 1941, exactly three years before D-day, Australia's first bomber squadron to be formed in Britain. The squadron flew Hampdens during a short but very successful period, during which it took part in the famous moonlight attack on the Renault works in Paris and several other historic attacks. It converted to torpedo-carrying Hampdens in April 1942, and was transferred to Coastal Command. A few months later a detachment flew to Russia to help protect the Murmansk convoys and keep watch on the German battleship Admiral von Tirpitz. The conversion to Beaufighters took place in November 1943, and they went into action on March 6, 1944, against ships off Norway's coast.

Wing-Commander J. M. Davenport, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, of Blakehurst (N.S.W.), one of the squadron's "originals", took over command from Wing-Commander R. Holmes, of Carnarvon (W.A.), on December 5, 1943. The new leader won the D.S.O. three days after D-day for his leadership, skill and determination which, the citation said, had contributed materially to the squadron's success. Here is how Wing-Commander Davenport told of a typical Beaufighter strike: "The weather on the way out was appalling. But, even though visibility was sometimes less than a thousand yards in heavy rain, we managed to keep formation and make our landfall exactly on time.

A few minutes before we sighted the convoy the weather lifted, making the attack possible. The convoy, consisting of nine ships, was only about a mile offshore and under cover of land batteries. The merchant vessels were escorted by heavily armed trawlers. I gave the order to attack and the flak-busters climbed up to about z 5oo feet and drew ahead of the torpedo aircraft, which remained close to the water. Just before we dived to attack the trawlers opened fire. The flak was quite heavy to begin with, but this was soon silenced. We dived down to deck level firing as we went, and even before we pulled away the largest merchant vessel had already been fired by our cannon.

"In a matter of seconds the torpedo-carrying aircraft struck. What a sight it was! The whole convoy which, a moment before, had been sailing peacefully down the coast was now covered by a pall of smoke. Ships were on fire and smoking everywhere and dozens of aircraft were diving and firing. As I broke away I saw that the largest vessel in the convoy was a mass of flames from stem to stern. just in front of it there came a terrific explosion and steam and water spouted up to three or four hundred feet. When it subsided the ship that had been there was there no longer.

She blew up without leaving a single trace. A tanker near the head of the column was just a mass of billowing black smoke, and every trawler was on fire. In fact there was not a single ship in the whole convoy that was not sunk or on fire or seriously damaged. It was one of the largest and most successful operations ever undertaken by Coastal Command and we didn't lose a single aircraft."

That was just one of many successes scored by Beaufighters of the R.A.A.F. wing which the Anzac combination serves. Another notable ship-buster in this famous squadron, Squadron-Leader A. L. Wiggins, D.S.O., D.F.C., one of the Flakbeaus' flight-commanders, carried out the first dusk attack by torpedo-carrying Wellingtons on an enemy supply ship in the Mediterranean. Wiggins led his section in through fierce flak from enemy destroyers to score four torpedo hits. With that and other dramatic strikes entered in his log book he came to Britain in 1943. Flying with Flakbeaus he has been out with the squadron on many hazardous sorties against enemy shipping off the Frisian Islands and the Norwegian coast. The D.F.C. was awarded for his magnificent work against a convoy of ten enemy ships which was destroyed as the formal phrasing of the citation puts it "by his gallant and skilful leadership".

Even when the Luftwaffe had been thrashed so that it could no longer put up any formidable resistance, the Beaufighters still encountered tremendous hazards from the most ferocious of all enemy defences, concentrated fire from naval anti-aircraft batteries. But one more personal record must suffice. One day in June 1944, Squadron Leader Colin Milson, D.F.C., another flight-commander, led a section of Beaufighters in through a screen of intense flak to attack a flotilla of enemy minesweepers off the Hook of Holland.

That operation won him a bar to his D.F.C., an award that was bestowed with the official declaration that his contempt for danger has been a noteworthy feature throughout his tour". Milson, who is another Mediterranean graduate in ship busting, was awarded the D.F.M. for his part in an attack on four ships protected by the guns of eleven destroyers off the North African coast. Much more recently, when the Germans were making desperate bids to maintain their links with the last of the by this time heavily battered Channel ports, the guns of an enemy convoy in Heligoland Bight scored hits on both engines of Squadron-Leader Milson's aircraft. With one engine dead and the other damaged he brought the Beaufighter back 300 miles to his barge and landed safely.

These examples of the Beaufighters' quite regular tasks give a glimpse of the brilliance and skill with which the Beaufighter crews fought the fierce and often costly air-sea conflict that has done so much to cripple the enemy.

THEY FIGHT WITH CAMERAS

SEVEN miles above a cindered German city a lone Spitfire flies a straight and level course at six miles a minute. If the haze has cleared from the sky above their burned and shattered homes, the populace may see a long streak of brilliant white as the Spitfire makes vapour trail in the frosty air. They may also see other, more irregular vapour trails, marking the spiralling course of German fighters as they rise to attack the intruder. That lone Spitfire has come hundreds of miles to photograph the damage caused by the force of heavy bombers which blasted their city on the previous night. The bombers' eyes have come back to see what the bombers have done.

Stripped to give great speed, specially camouflaged to hide it in the deep blue of the high sky, armed only with amazing cameras, the Spitfire is from a R.A.F. photographic unit. It has been estimated that 85 per cent of what we know about the enemy is due to photographic reconnaissance and photographic interpretation. More than one thousand million photographs have been taken in the five years of war by R.A.F. Photographic Reconnaissance Unit-the famous P.R.U. in which men of the R.A.A.F. have served with distinction.

Their work covers every strategical and tactical phase of warfare. It is they -who keep constant check on enemy movements and dispositions. When the Germans were preparing to invade Britain, Photographic Reconnaissance kept an almost hour by-hour record of their preparations. Since D-day, June 6, 1944, special reconnaissance units have been co-operating with the Army bringing intelligence direct to Army officers in the field.

This story is concerned chiefly with the ,men who have been photographing targets for the heavy bombers ever since the war began-the lone fliers who have covered nearly every country in Europe, who have flown steadily through the heaviest flak and, unarmed, have fought "bluff" battles with enemy fighters to get pictures of the target before it is attacked and after the big bombers have done their work.

An Australian, Flight-Lieutenant R. A. Hosking, D.F.C., of Dromana (V.), covered photographic assignments in twenty-three countries in one regular operational tour. He flew a R.A.F. Photographic Reconnaissance Mosquito and always had the same navigator, Flying-Officer H. A. Sowerbutts, D.F.C., of the R.A.F. On a single regular sortie, the pair flew a round journey from England to Czechoslovakia across Austria and Yugoslavia to Malta and then back to England in the same day. Setting out from the home base early in the morning, Hosking flew first over Bruno in Czechoslovakia, then over Vienna, then across to Split in Dalmatia, and on to Malta where he refuelled. The flight home was made by way of Toulon and Dijon *in France. He landed back at base at 7 P-m-, nine and a half hours after leaving and he brought back all the pictures he had set out to secure.

Another noted Australian photographic pilot, Pilot-Officer K. G. Campbell, D.F.C., of Sydney, was the first flying photographer to get a complete photographic cover of Berlin after the heavy raids in August of 1943- Campbell flew a specially adapted long-range Spitfire. It was his sixth flight to the German capital. Conditions were perfect. Other less fortunate pilots had taken their Spitfires to Berlin after the Berlin raid, but each visit was spoiled by bad weather and haze over the city. Pilots of the single-engined long-range aircraft have a most arduous task. Not only must they fly their way for hundreds of miles in loneliness, but they must be their own navigators as well. Campbell did not encounter flak over Berlin but was attacked by enemy fighters which he managed to evade. It was not his job to fight-P.R.U. pilots must get their pictures and bring them back safely.

The Ruhr has been notorious for its heavy defences and it was while taking pictures for the United States Army Air Corps over a Ruhr town that Campbell had his worst experience of flak. Despite the great height at which he was flying, the anti-aircraft fire was extremely accurate. On returning from that sortie, Campbell said: "I was over the Ruhr for half an hour and fire was so close that I was ducking." But again he brought back pictures.

One of the P.R.U. pilots entrusted with the task of photographing the German battleship Tirpitz in Alten fiord, Norway, before the British midget-submarine attack on September 22, 1943, was also an Australian, Flight-Lieutenant J. H. Dixon, of Queensland. For his part in that dangerous mission he was awarded the Soviet Medal for Distinguished Battle Service. The three Spitfires took off early on the morning of September 5 and headed for Russia, arriving within an hour of each other after a flight lasting five hours. R.A.F. ground crews, who had been sent ahead, were waiting to service the Spitfires. Waiting also were members of the Permanent Allied Forces Mission, who were vitally concerned with the task entrusted to the Spitfires.

Each pilot made eight to ten flights over the fiord and sometimes did two sorties a day, when weather permitted. Flak was encountered on each sortie and enemy aircraft made unsuccessful attempts at interception. The Spitfires stayed on to photograph the damage after the midget submarines had done their work. Before their task ended they were taking off and landing on a snow-covered airfield with ice just beneath the snow. The task done, the three pilots left their wonderful aircraft for the Russians and returned to England by sea to get new aircraft and resume their battle against the enemy with their cameras.