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No. 418 City of Edmonton Squadron
The Intruders
FOREWORD
The following is a transcript of a talk given by W/C Russell Bannock DSO, DFC and Bar (RCAF Ret'd) at the Annual CAHS Banquet held 30 May 1981 at the Skyline Hotel near the Toronto International Airport. W/C Bannock, President of Bannock Aerospace Limited, was introduced by F/L Henry 'Hank' Lonaux, who is the 'Hank' occasionally mentioned in the text. We are indebted to CAHS Toronto Chapter member Nick Doran, for this transcript of W/C Bannock's presentation which was prepared from a tape made by Les Wilkinson.
The Editor
I am deeply appreciative of the Society for inviting me to speak to you here today, on a subject that's really dear to my heart, the exploits during World War II of 418, City of Edmonton, Intruder Squadron. As most of you know, there were over fifty Canadian Squadrons bearing the designation 400 plus: 401, 402, 418... operating in the European and Asiatic theatres during the Second War. At least eighty percent of the aircrew were Canadian, and approximately ninety-five percent of the ground-crew were also Canadian. The remainder was made up of RAF, RAAF, the occasional New Zealander, and members from the United States Army Air Force. These were so-called exchange people, being attached to Canadian Squadrons while we had Canadians attached to their Squadrons.
The term "Intruder" generally described our squadron's activities. Our role was to penetrate deep into enemy territory with single aircraft at night and occasionally, in daylight in pairs. Our job was to disrupt airfield activities, by shooting down enemy night fighters as they took off or landed while attempting to intercept our own bombers who were bombing Germany. We were also to operate against other aircraft operating at night over the European Continent, and as well, we were given targets of opportunity. We were allowed to attack rail and road transport anything that we saw moving at night in the line of transportation.
In the summer of 1944, the Squadron took on the additional role of defending England against the V-l flying bomb attacks. Then, later, in the last four months of the War, we participated in a number of daring low-level daylight attacks on a wing level, (there were usually two squadrons to wing) in support of major army offensives, such as the crossing of the Rhine and the last final push to defeat the German Army. During this period the Squadron was directly involved in really bringing Hitler to bay.
I will try to outline for you this evening a brief history of the Squadron, interspersed with some of my own experiences, to give you some idea of our type of operations.
The Squadron started life in 1941 in Debden in England, and if any of you have seen the map of England here, you'll see that Debden is in Essex, about thirty-five miles north-east of London. The Squadron started out with the Douglas DB-7 Boston III. This was a twin-engine aircraft, sort of a mid-wing, designed as a light attack aircraft by Douglas and it was known later during the war as the A-20. Most of the time at Debden was spent in crew training, learning how to navigate at low level at night, and how to find targets deep within Germany. The Bostons were initially armed with four .303 machine guns tucked underneath the nose of the aircraft, and it could also carry up to 2,000 lbs of bombs in various combinations: four 500 pounders, or eight 250 pounders, or a number of cluster bombs. Later, the four .303 machine guns, were replaced by four cannons. It seems, (I wasn't in the Squadron at the time) that there are some of the fellows here, like Mickey Cochrane, who joined the Squadron in those early days, who will tell you that the pilots seemed to have a tough time mastering the Boston at night. Unfortunately, the casualty rate was extremely high during those training days at Debden, and later on, when the Squadron moved to its next base. In addition to starting out in the Intruder role of trying to find enemy air craft at night, the Squadron was told to concentrate on attacking locomotive, and other rail transport. As well as that, the Squadron participated in leaflet dropping raids where propaganda leaflets were dropped all over Germany. I learned, from Mickey Cochrane, that the Squadron even participated in some of those first "Thousand Bomber Raids" that took place in 1942, and were designed to startle Hitler and his Nazis who had claimed that Germany was impenetrable.
The first C.O. was a chubby blond Englishman by the name of WIC Gatheral, and I understand that he was a fairly merry fellow, in spite of the fact the Squadron had a tough time in those days. Each Squadron, such as 418, was equipped with 21 aircraft and had about 25 aircrew. Each Boston had a crew of three: a pilot, a navigator, who lay down in that little front compartment in the nose, and an upper & rear-gunner. There were about 400 ground-crew who supplied everything. There were maintenance personnel, communications, radar, transport drivers, and cooks. You see, in those days, Squadrons were supposed to be fully self-supporting, although we leaned on an RAF base for airmen messing (i.e. feeding). We were sup posed to be able to fold our tents overnight and get up and move to another base, and remain completely self-sufficient.
In April of 1942, the Squadron moved to Bradwell Bay on the east coast of Essex, I think it was on the Wash, and there it really started serious operations. The next year was a period of very active experience in the Intruder role and of learning how to operate in that terrible English and Continental winter weather. If you left with reasonable weather, you might be out three or four hours and come back to find that the whole east coast was closed in. Then the fun really started. And again, that year as I mentioned, there were unfortunately very high casualty rates. There were also a few victories to be celebrated by the Squadron. They shot down their first air craft about 1942 and managed to shoot up a few locomotives, and destroy a few trains, but it did get started. However, the great turning point in the history of the Squadron came in March of 1942, when it converted to the de Havilland Mosquito Mk. VI fighter-bomber aircraft. At the same time, it moved to Ford Aerodrome, near Arundel, Surrey, a very picturesque part of the South England coast. Last fall, in September, those 418'ers that are here, including my wife, Norah, myself, with a group of about a hundred and sixty, had a reunion in England, and we took the opportunity to spend a whole day down there near Arundel, going through Arundel Castle. I can highly recommend that picturesque part of England to you.
The move to this base really was the turning point in the fortunes of the Squadron. It went to a part of England where the weather was better, and of course, acquired the new and very fast Mosquito.
Let me tell you a little bit about the Mosquito. This was the Mk. VI. It was capable of carrying a good bomb load: four 500 pound bombs, and it was armed with four 20 mm Hispano cannons mounted underneath the aircraft. It had, as well, four .303 machine guns in the nose, and all of this really provided devastating fire power. It flew more like a fighter than a bomber and, furthermore, it was at the time the fastest aircraft in the world. At sea level, it could do about 375 miles per hour full out, the odd one could do about 385. At altitude, say 20,000 feet, the Mosquito was capable of flying over 400 miles per hour. Now that doesn't sound very fast today, but in those days it was the fastest aircraft around. You remember the Mosquito was originally designed as a very fast bomber, that was supposed to be able to fly to Berlin in daylight, and bomb it without being successfully opposed. It was later convened into a fighter-bomber. At the same time as the Squadron's move to Ford, a popular new CO, W/C Little, who was an RAF commander, took over as leader, and did a very good job in converting the Squadron to Mosquitos. The pilots, navigators and the ground-crew were quickly enthusiastic about flying the Mosquito, maintaining it, and operating it. Then the Squadron started going after bigger game, and this is when intruding against enemy airfields really got going in earnest. There were only two squadrons in the U.K., 418 Squadron and 29 Squadron RAF, assigned to the low level intruder role against enemy airfields. There were three or four squadrons that were on a high level role assigned to go with the bombers to try to intercept some of the night-fighters; but at this early stage they didn't have much success because they weren't allowed to carry radar over Germany. Our intruder role involved three different types of mission. One was this assignment in support of Bomber Command which we called, by the code name "Flower Operations".
They were planned as follows: Bomber Command would advise Fighter Command that to-night there would be a 500 plus aircraft raid on a city like Hanover. Fighter Command would advise 11 Group, which was our Group, that we were to provide cover over the German night-fighter airfields on the routes that the bombers were taking to the target, such as Hanover, and we as a Squadron (418 Squadron) would be assigned a half-dozen known German night-fighter airfields on their route. We were told to cover these aerodromes for, say, an hour before target time to an hour after target time. First we tried to catch them taking-off and climbing up, and then we tried to catch them after the bombing raid was over when they were coming in. Sometimes there would be three or four bomber raids over a two hour period, so we would have to send somebody else to spell off the first fellow. Usually it was a two hour trip to the target area and you would stay on patrol for two hours, and then head home. So, if we had to patrol the same area for four hours, we would send a relief crew in to take over that particular airfield. Until D-Day time, June 1944, the Luftwaffe usually burned navigation lights, when they got back to their airfields for obvious reasons to prevent collisions and to allow their own ground defense crews to know that they were friendly aircraft. We would arrive in the area and suddenly see a set of navigation flying lights flying around; we'd go after them and try to shoot them down. Gradually, of course, after they had suffered considerable casualties, they wizened up to this, and didn't burn navigation lights except perhaps to flash them on final approach to advise their anti-aircraft crews that they were on final. So it became much tougher, later on, to spot these fellows. We had to work a lot harder and the only way we had of finding these aircraft was to get into the airfield area, where we knew there was activity, and do right hand circuits in hopes of passing a set of exhausts suddenly flying overhead. Then you would wheel around and try to pick up the exhausts. If you were within 400 yards, and dead astern of an aircraft at night, you could see the exhausts, even though they had shrouds on them.