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Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:05,240 Between 1939 and 1945, 2 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:10,280 125,000 young men faced the most dangerous task 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:12,280 of any British serviceman in the war. 4 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,000 They suffered the highest casualty rates. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,960 Nearly half of them, 55,000, were killed. 6 00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:26,600 It looks like hell. And you really think this is going to be it. 7 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:34,000 They were the bomber crews, who took on Hitler when airpower was the only way of striking back at Nazi Germany. 8 00:00:36,040 --> 00:00:41,160 We were involved in total war. We were involved in fighting for our lives. 9 00:00:41,160 --> 00:00:44,800 I'm Ewan McGregor, and this is my brother, Colin. 10 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:48,440 We've always had a fascination with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. 11 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:51,360 Last year we made a documentary about the Battle of Britain. 12 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,840 But we wanted to know what happened next. 13 00:00:53,840 --> 00:00:58,000 The few had saved us from invasion, and the RAF was already building a huge force 14 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,400 that would take the fight over into Germany. 15 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:05,080 And that force was Bomber Command, and during my career in the RAF, I, too, was a bomber pilot. 16 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:07,680 I flew this supersonic Tornado, unlike my predecessors, 17 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:10,000 who flew the legendary Lancaster, 18 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,600 and I'm going to get the chance to see if I can fly the last remaining Lancaster in Britain. 19 00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:21,960 The pilot was one of a team of seven who lived, fought and often died together. 20 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:26,560 I'm going to explore what it was like to be part of this band of brothers in the air. 21 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:31,040 Their story is one of endurance, teamwork and understated heroism. 22 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:35,400 No, I'd never flown before. Hadn't even driven a motor car before. 23 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:37,280 You'd got a job on. 24 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:39,920 And that's what you just did, you just sat there and did it. 25 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:44,080 But it's also a story that is dogged by controversy. 26 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:45,840 Despite the undoubted heroism, 27 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:49,720 the men of Bomber Command found themselves to be ignored after the war. 28 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,200 The massive attacks on Hamburg and Dresden killed thousands of civilians 29 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,320 and were judged by many to be unnecessary. 30 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:00,800 There was a war on, and we had to win, 31 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:04,640 because God knows how it would have turned out if we hadn't have won. 32 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:23,440 In 1940, the RAF's fighters repelled invasion in the Battle of Britain. 33 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:29,040 But the German Luftwaffe continued to bomb Britain's cities in the Blitz. 34 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:32,320 And with the British army defeated at Dunkirk, 35 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,400 Prime Minster Winston Churchill identified the only way to hit back. 36 00:02:36,640 --> 00:02:41,760 "Our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery of the air. 37 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:47,640 The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide us the means of victory." 38 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:52,280 Winston Churchill, 1940. 39 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,320 And one aircraft, more than any other, symbolises that struggle for victory. 40 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:08,120 RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire is home to the last flying Lancaster Bomber in Britain. 41 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:14,680 It's maintained by the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. 42 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,200 Squadron Leader Ian Smith is its guardian. 43 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:22,960 She is one of two airworthy Lancasters in the world. 44 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:24,600 There's only two left flying? 45 00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:26,440 Yeah. And the other one's in Canada. 46 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:30,680 - And here she is, in all her glory. - Wow! Absolutely incredible. 47 00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:33,560 - Isn't she stunning? - Yeah. So many would they have built then? 48 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:36,560 - 7,377 Lancasters were built. - Yeah. 49 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:39,440 But circa three and a half thousand were shot down over Germany. 50 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:45,560 Lancaster was the best aircraft ever during the war. 51 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:47,840 It could hold a very big bomb load, 52 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,520 it could take a lot of punishment, 53 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:53,120 and it was a real pleasure to fly. 54 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:57,280 Four beautiful Rolls Royce Merlin engines at the age of 22? 55 00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:59,560 Who wouldn't enjoy that? 56 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:02,560 Ah, a fantastic aeroplane, beautiful. 57 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:04,080 She was a real lady. 58 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:05,560 And like all ladies, 59 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:07,400 if you treat them right, they go! 60 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:15,440 The Lancaster carried the heaviest bomb load of any bomber in the war. 61 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:17,360 It meant there was little space inside. 62 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:20,000 Mind your head. 63 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:23,680 And what will be transparent straight away is just how, 64 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:26,160 despite the fact that it's an enormous aeroplane. 65 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,720 - Yeah. - Just how little room there is in here. 66 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:30,960 Just think, you're just in normal gear here. 67 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:32,520 - Imagine you had a flying kit on. - Yeah. 68 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:36,680 I can't actually do it with my jeans, cos they are slightly too tight anyway. 69 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:39,720 Imagine with a flying jacket on. 70 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:41,960 It's all very well doing it in daylight, 71 00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:45,200 but if this aeroplane was on fire, spinning out of control in the dark, 72 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:47,560 it would be a bit of a challenge, wouldn't it? 73 00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:48,960 Ah, just a bit! 74 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:52,200 God! 75 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:56,480 Oh yeah, look at this. 76 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:03,320 Oh, it's incredibly open at the side, it's amazing. 77 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:08,120 This is exactly as she would have been when she was flying in wartime. 78 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:10,720 - All these instruments are original, are they? - Yeah, absolutely. 79 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:13,000 So, the pilot, the captain of the aeroplane would have sat 80 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:14,680 in the left hand seat in front of you, Ewan, 81 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:16,920 and this is the bullet proof plate here at the back there, 82 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:18,960 which would have protected him to some degree. 83 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:21,120 You've got a really good view and all the rest of it, 84 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:23,000 but it does feel very vulnerable, doesn't it? 85 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:24,960 You do feel really vulnerable up here. 86 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,840 I mean this is, literally, only three eights of an inch Perspex, 87 00:05:27,840 --> 00:05:31,640 and the side of the walls of the aeroplane is two millimetres of aluminium, 88 00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:33,200 which won't stop anything. 89 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:39,440 To realise my dream of piloting this precious and iconic aircraft, 90 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:41,880 I need to train first on some other heavy planes from the era. 91 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:53,040 The roar of a wartime Spitfire heralds the arrival of the man 92 00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:55,640 the RAF trusts to supervise that training. 93 00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:00,520 This fellow taxiing in in his Spitfire now is your instructor. 94 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:01,640 Oh right! 95 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:03,880 And he's going to take you through the training 96 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:08,080 - for you to be able to see what the boys went through to fly the Lancaster. - OK. 97 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:14,760 Making this dramatic entrance is Air Marshall Cliff Spink, a former RAF pilot. 98 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:19,520 He's an expert on Second World War planes, and recently taught me to fly the Spitfire. 99 00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:22,560 - Hello! - Hello! 100 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,800 There's a pilot we recognise. 101 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:27,000 They told me that the McGregors were here, 102 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,920 so I thought I'd better come and make sure you didn't get up to any mischief. 103 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:33,000 - Good to see you again. - Good to see you, Colin. 104 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:35,600 Going to see if you remembered all that you learned last year. 105 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:39,640 Yeah, exactly, yeah. I'm going to have to shift my view a little higher up next, I think. 106 00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:49,520 Last summer, Cliff guided me through the basic training all wartime RAF pilots experienced 107 00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:52,400 before I was allowed to pilot a single-engine Spitfire. 108 00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,520 But this time, I'll have to master a two-engine World War Two transport plane 109 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:02,720 before I'm allowed to pilot the four-engine Lancaster. 110 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:09,200 For me, as a member of 617 Squadron, it's probably the greatest privilege that you could ever get 111 00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:13,280 just to fly a Lancaster, so, you know, certainly a career-long ambition of mine to do. 112 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:19,240 The Lancaster would become the most successful bomber of the war, 113 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,720 but it only came into service two and a half years into the conflict. 114 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:27,720 In the early days of World War Two, Bomber Command was ineffective. 115 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:36,160 Its force of just 280 light bombers, flying in daylight, sustained losses of up to 50%. 116 00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:43,480 In one disastrous attack on �lborg in Denmark, all eleven planes were shot down. 117 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:51,080 Then, on November 14th 1940, 118 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:55,400 a German night raid on Coventry showed the RAF how to bomb effectively. 119 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:03,960 Steven Bungay, an expert on the Air War, has brought us to look at newsreel of the attack. 120 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:09,240 - NEWSREEL: - All the available German night bombers were put into the air. 121 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:20,120 On the night of November 14th, a million pounds of bombs were dropped on the city. 122 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:24,600 It was the most devastating raid of the war so far. 123 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,720 Coventry was smashed as bad as Warsaw and Rotterdam. 124 00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:35,640 60,000 buildings were destroyed, and 568 civilians lost their lives. 125 00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:39,040 Coventry was a centre of aircraft manufacture, 126 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:44,960 but instead of targeting just the factories, the Luftwaffe chose to flatten the whole city. 127 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:58,880 - Incredible. - Yeah. 128 00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:03,840 The mass grave and things, I had never seen that, I didn't know that went on. 129 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:08,040 What the Germans achieved in Coventry was a concentration of bombing. 130 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:11,760 It wasn't just scattering things over quite a wide area. 131 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:17,480 And that's very important for the consequences that the RAF drew from this. 132 00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:21,320 They realised that if you had some specialists using specialised equipment, 133 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:24,800 which we didn't have at the time but quickly started to develop, 134 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:27,040 then you could achieve concentration. 135 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,200 And concentration had a big impact. 136 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:32,960 Bomber Command now knew what it had to do. 137 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:38,400 If it couldn't hit individual factories, 138 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:42,760 it would destroy everything around them in concentrated raids. 139 00:09:42,760 --> 00:09:44,920 This became known as area bombing. 140 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:50,280 The objective was industrial disruption. 141 00:09:50,280 --> 00:09:54,320 By destroying infrastructure, simply the means that people use to get to 142 00:09:54,320 --> 00:09:58,640 work in the morning, you can produce a dip in industrial production. 143 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:03,600 The targets were the major German industrial cities, 144 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:05,080 like Berlin and Hamburg, 145 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:07,520 and the manufacturing heartland of the Ruhr. 146 00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:15,120 But it would take nearly two years before Bomber Command could put its plan into action. 147 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:27,120 If I'm going to fly the Lancaster by the end of the week, I'll have to start my training. 148 00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:34,840 So I've come to White Waltham, a former RAF base, to learn on this wartime Dakota. 149 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:39,800 My supervisor, Cliff, is hooking me up with Kath Burnham. 150 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:40,840 Hi, Kath. 151 00:10:40,840 --> 00:10:43,960 She's one of only two qualified Dakota instructors in the country. 152 00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:47,640 - Nice to meet you. - Colin McGregor. - He's your new student. - Very good. 153 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:51,400 I hope he doesn't let me down. He flew the Tiger Moth and the Harvard and the Spitfire last year. 154 00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,600 I hate him already(!) Yeah. Go on. 155 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:56,800 - Back on the heavy metal now. - Great stuff. 156 00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:59,240 - So, best of luck and I'll see you tomorrow. - Yeah, cheers. 157 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:00,720 - Shall we go in? - Yeah, let's do it. 158 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:04,600 This is a pretty solid old aeroplane, the DC-3. 159 00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:07,480 It's excellent for him to get a feel for that, 160 00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:14,320 before he gets on to something which is extra tonnage of the Lancaster. 161 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:15,400 That's it. 162 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:19,320 Now I've got Kath next to me, and I've got to make sure that when she asks me to do something 163 00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:21,160 I do it correctly. 164 00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:24,000 It's going to have to happen like that, so I'm quite nervous about it. 165 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,960 He's asking all the right questions, it's always a good start. 166 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:30,800 And, um, looking a little bit apprehensive, I think. 167 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:32,920 You tell me it's turning. 168 00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:35,640 This World War Two veteran is so unlike the type of plane 169 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:38,520 I fly today in my job as a commercial pilot. 170 00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:42,920 And even though it needs Kath to help me get it off the ground, 171 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,480 I'm going to have my hands full piloting this beast. 172 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:50,960 Cliff will be passing a critical eye over the proceedings. 173 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:04,760 If I shout "bird" just put your hands over your eyes. This is glass. 174 00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:05,880 OK, it'll smash, yeah. 175 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:13,200 Now, after all the pre-flight checks, it's time for the real test. 176 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:14,400 Take off. 177 00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:16,600 There's so much to concentrate on. 178 00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:24,000 It's so difficult to control this type of plane on the ground. 179 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:26,080 I'm straining to keep it on a straight track. 180 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:35,160 Oh, yes! 181 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:43,040 Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! That was nice. 182 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:48,000 That looked all right, didn't it? Nice and straight. 183 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,720 Cor, sounds amazing, doesn't it sound brilliant, that plane? 184 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:52,680 He's a very good pilot, of course, one of the best. 185 00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:01,000 It's hard to describe what it feels like. 186 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:06,840 It's like driving a vintage bus with manual gears, after being used to a modern sports car. 187 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:15,760 That was good. To me, anyway. When you're in the back of a big aeroplane like this, 188 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:20,640 you sense the yaw, and he was not paddling too much, 189 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:24,280 which suggests he was keeping it reasonably straight. 190 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,680 I've been flying for more than 20 years and this tough. 191 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:34,800 It makes you think about those 18-year-old trainees flying 192 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:37,000 a monster like this for the first time. 193 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:38,960 Attention! 194 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:46,280 At RAF flying schools, potential pilots were cherry-picked from the raw recruits. 195 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:50,120 The remaining volunteers went on to specialise in other crew disciplines. 196 00:13:56,080 --> 00:14:01,880 All pilot recruits were then sent abroad to one of the 333 Empire air training schools. 197 00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:06,360 They were scattered throughout the British Empire. 198 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:11,440 18-year-old Desmond Pelly went straight from Charterhouse School to learn to fly in Canada. 199 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:17,440 Canada, of course, happened to be an extremely good place for training. 200 00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:21,600 Because there were no blackout conditions, 201 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:25,000 and you flew in completely peacetime conditions, 202 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:26,480 which was wonderful. 203 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,240 Reg Barker was just 19. 204 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:35,240 To be up in the sky, on your own, in a beautiful aeroplane, 205 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:37,720 with the freedom of the sky. 206 00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:40,240 Oh, fantastic. What a privilege it was. 207 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,600 No, I'd never flown before. Hadn't even driven a motor car before. 208 00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:55,120 - Remind me when you take flat one again? - With the gear. 209 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:57,760 - With the gear, so that's already done. - That's it, yeah. 210 00:14:57,760 --> 00:14:59,920 So when you're at final and you're stable... 211 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:02,760 On my training flight in the skies above Berkshire, 212 00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:06,360 I'm still wrestling with this demanding twin-engine workhorse. 213 00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:14,240 But now I've got the measure of the controls I'm really enjoying it. This is real, physical flying. 214 00:15:17,400 --> 00:15:20,640 He's on final approach. They've got the gear down. 215 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:25,080 So, as you can see, he's working pretty hard. 216 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:37,120 What I'm nervous about now is getting this plane back onto the bumpy grass runway. 217 00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:40,480 The tricky part is stopping it swerving on landing. 218 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:47,240 OK, this is the big moment, let's see if he does it. 219 00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:53,000 - Bingo! - And take the flap down. Busy with your feet. OK, pop the tail down. 220 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,080 - Now the fun really starts, is keeping it straight. - Well done! 221 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,240 - That was, that was very good. - Good man. 222 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:01,520 He's just trying to show me up now. 223 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:07,440 Landing's one thing, but with a tail will aeroplane, 224 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:09,480 the next thing is keeping it straight. 225 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:13,760 Where is it? There. Ooh! 226 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:15,200 KATH LAUGHS 227 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:16,360 You did that on purpose! 228 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:18,960 I didn't kill anybody! 229 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,240 Yeah, well done. Mind the little red sign. 230 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:24,200 Yeah, got it. I think we'll quite while we're ahead, shall we? 231 00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:25,920 KATH LAUGHS 232 00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:36,480 Woo-hoo-hoo! 233 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:41,560 All right Colin? 234 00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:43,200 Good job! 235 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:46,720 I'm a bit sweaty! It was hard work. 236 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:49,880 Considering you've never flown one at all, ever, I think not too bad, eh? 237 00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:51,600 - It was very good. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. 238 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:53,560 How does it feel, what does it feel like to fly? 239 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:56,080 - It's beautiful in the air, it's really solid, you know? - Yeah. 240 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:58,800 I mean you, like you say, you've gotta come in and command it, 241 00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:01,120 you've gotta, you know, tell it where you want it to go. 242 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:08,640 Before I finally get my hands on the Lancaster, Cliff has a much tougher task up his sleeve. 243 00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:19,200 If you went to the cinema in 1941 you'd have believed that the bombing campaign was going very well. 244 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:21,760 Let go of a thousand pound, Mick. 245 00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:24,600 Bomber Command had switched to night-time raids, 246 00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:28,040 and the crews were reporting that they were hitting their targets. 247 00:17:31,120 --> 00:17:33,360 I got a goal there with the last one! 248 00:17:33,360 --> 00:17:35,800 Good man. Make a Nazi cigar. 249 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:40,880 But Prime Minister Winston Churchill was about to discover the shocking truth. 250 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,840 At the National Archives in Kew, I'm meeting archivist Jessica Lutkin, 251 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,480 who's going to show me what was really going on in 1941. 252 00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:58,440 Right, this is an important document for the history of Bomber Command and it was written in 1941, 253 00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:01,560 and it's an analysis of the success rate 254 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:05,640 of the bombing campaigns that went on over in Germany. 255 00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:10,920 It was the first scientific report that was done, so the first time they had statistics. 256 00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:16,440 Before that, it was just the crews reporting back and saying whether they'd hit target or not. 257 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,440 How did they gather that evidence? How did they get scientific evidence? 258 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:23,280 They used photographs. They used photographs on the undercarriages of the planes 259 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:27,320 that would take pictures of when the bombs were set off, 260 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,120 and from those photographs, they could then write a report. 261 00:18:31,120 --> 00:18:34,720 I want to make a sort of snooker joke but I can't think of one. 262 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:39,240 "For those of you watching in black and white, the pink is next to the blue." 263 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:44,320 Right. So, let me turn to a report for you. So there you are. 264 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:51,080 "An examination of night photographs taken during night bombing in June and July 265 00:18:51,080 --> 00:18:53,560 points to the following conclusions. 266 00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:59,640 Of the aircraft recorded as attacking their target, only one in three got within five miles. 267 00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:04,080 And over Germany as a whole, the proportion was only one in four. 268 00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:06,080 And over the Ruhr, it was only one in ten." 269 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:09,480 - Yes. - Does that mean only one in ten got over the target? 270 00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:11,680 Or the bombs dropped hit the target? 271 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,280 Only one in ten actually reached the target. 272 00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:19,080 So what would the reaction have been when this report was read by the top brass? 273 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:21,080 And what was, what was the reaction to it? 274 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,600 It was shock. It was simple shock. 275 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,280 They couldn't believe just how bad things were. 276 00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:28,040 Wow! 277 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:35,880 Surprising to see how ineffective the bombing campaign was early on. 278 00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:42,800 And clearly to Churchill, and to the powers that be at the time, that it was so ineffective. 279 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,680 And yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they put that right, 280 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:50,840 what they put in place to try and improve matters. 281 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:55,440 For Churchill, the answer was simple. 282 00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:59,400 Bomber command needed a complete overhaul, and he started at the top. 283 00:20:03,360 --> 00:20:08,160 In February 1942, Arthur Harris was appointed its new Commander-in-chief. 284 00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:15,120 We're meeting author Patrick Bishop to find out more about Harris. 285 00:20:15,120 --> 00:20:20,280 The one name that keeps cropping up during our journey through this research is Bomber Harris. 286 00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:24,000 Well, Bomber Harris was the name that the general public knew him by, 287 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,160 but among his peers he was Burt Harris, 288 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:29,560 and to his men he was Butch. 289 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:34,680 He had a bristly little moustache that gave him this air of porcine belligerence, 290 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:37,360 and you crossed him at your peril. 291 00:20:37,360 --> 00:20:43,120 But what he did have was enormous drive and enormous energy and enormous confidence, 292 00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:47,360 and he brought all those qualities to Bomber Command. 293 00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:49,000 He arrived at a good time, 294 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:52,160 these big four-engined bombers were just arriving at the squadrons, 295 00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:57,840 and he turned these heavy bombers into weapons of mass destruction. 296 00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,760 I mean, you can date from his arrival, 297 00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:04,560 the time when things start getting very unpleasant for the Germans. 298 00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:07,480 Was he liked, do you think, by the crews? 299 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:11,160 I think he was respected enormously. 300 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:16,360 And they, I think, understood what it was that he was doing, 301 00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:19,520 and the fact that their lives were being put on the line, 302 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:22,960 I think they, they understood that that's what had to be done. 303 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:25,800 I mean, hard men are needed in wartime, and he was certainly that. 304 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:33,640 Harris had an unflinching belief that bombing alone could win the war. And he didn't mince his words. 305 00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:37,240 "The Nazis entered this war 306 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:38,920 under the rather childish delusion 307 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:41,520 that they were going to bomb everybody else 308 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,000 and nobody was going to bomb them. 309 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:49,160 At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, 310 00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:53,440 they put that rather naive theory into operation. 311 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:58,280 They have sewed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." 312 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:04,960 That whirlwind had four engines and it was called the Lancaster. 313 00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:10,120 With a top speed of nearly 300 miles an hour, it was faster than any of its predecessors. 314 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:15,040 It also carried the biggest bomb load of any aircraft in the war. 315 00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:18,040 - COMMENTARY: - It's 33 ft long. When it's released its load, 316 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,840 another two or three acres of Germany will never be the same again. 317 00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:26,200 Harris now had the weapon he needed. 318 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,280 He placed it at the centre of his plans to build a huge force 319 00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:33,560 that he believed could break the Germans by area bombing alone. 320 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:40,640 He dreamed of assembling a thousand bombers for a single raid, 321 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,920 so he doggedly pursued the Air Ministry to build more planes. 322 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:51,960 The drive to get the new heavy bombers out of the factory demanded a huge workforce. 323 00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:59,320 I'm meeting Susan Jones, who, as a teenager, 324 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:02,520 worked as a riveter on the new, state-of-the-art Lancaster. 325 00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,920 So Sue, this is the first time you've seen your plane for a little while, isn't it? 326 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:14,320 - It's so emotional. You know, I could just cry now, looking at her. - Yeah. 327 00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,600 She's absolutely brilliant. 328 00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:20,120 How long did you build these planes for? 329 00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:21,680 Five years. 330 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,000 - From what age? - 16. 331 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:29,240 - 16. - Regular nights. Seven at night to seven in the morning. 332 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,360 - For five years? - Five years. Happiest days of my life. 333 00:23:33,360 --> 00:23:34,840 Oh, they were brilliant. 334 00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,640 These four-engine bombers were affectionately known 335 00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:43,360 as 10,000 rivets flying in close formation. 336 00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:45,080 - You hold it upright, go on. - Yep. 337 00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,520 And then I'll hold onto the back, and then when I call "rivet", 338 00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:50,120 - just give it a couple of seconds on the gun. - Just a touch. 339 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:51,160 Rivet! 340 00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:52,280 That's it. 341 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,120 - There we go. That's one done. - That's it? - Yeah. - OK, let's have another go. 342 00:23:56,120 --> 00:23:58,680 Oooh, you'll have to be quicker than that. 343 00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:00,200 Rivet! 344 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,600 - There we go. - That's a good rivet, though, no? - Let me see. - Yeah, it's not bad. 345 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,560 - Can you get that underneath there? - Yeah. 346 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,520 - Oh sorry, I didn't wait for your command, I beg your pardon. - Oh! 347 00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,840 That will definitely not pass inspection! 348 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:15,280 I think you should have a go. 349 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:19,640 - It's a bit heavy for me, this one. - OK, I'll hold it with you. 350 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:23,440 Right. 351 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:24,960 Rivet! 352 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,400 - There we go. - OK. - Oh, that's a professional one, you see! 353 00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,080 That's a real pro, that one. 354 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,240 Think I'll get a job here? 355 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,520 In 1942, 700 of the revolutionary new Lancasters 356 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,520 were delivered to frontline bases. 357 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,280 The Lancaster was, you know, 358 00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:50,160 something else. It was a real war machine, 359 00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:51,960 it looked the part. 360 00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,480 It's still, to me, a powerful, powerful machine, 361 00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,880 I'm very proud, you know, I was associated with it. 362 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,520 Whatever manoeuvre you wanted it 363 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,520 to do, it did. It did. It did. 364 00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:07,000 Brilliant. 365 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,200 You felt comfortable in it. 366 00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:14,440 It could take a lot of punishment. 367 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,320 It could fly on two engines 368 00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,200 and one side quite easily. 369 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:19,800 In fact, I do know of one chap 370 00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,240 who brought a Lancaster all the way back from Germany 371 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:23,520 on one engine. 372 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:30,200 To fly the new bombers, trainees were pouring out of the flying schools. 373 00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,200 And it wasn't just the pilots. 374 00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:38,560 Each Lancaster needed six more crew members. Two gunners, the flight engineer, 375 00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:43,080 the navigator, the bomb aimer, and the wireless operator. 376 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:49,480 Bomber command was also a multi-national force. 377 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:54,040 One in four of its recruits came from overseas. All were volunteers. 378 00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,520 In a wartime hangar, wireless operator John de Hoop recalls 379 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,760 the reasons he joined up when he was just 18. 380 00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,520 One, you got more money. 381 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,280 Two, you got sheets with your blankets, 382 00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,880 - which I thought was so civilised. - Yeah. 383 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:15,360 Three, you were given a pair of shoes and a pair of boots, 384 00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:18,560 rather than two pairs of boots, I hated wearing boots. 385 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,640 And fourthly, because once you'd got your wing, 386 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,760 using a colloquial term of the time, it pulled in the birds. 387 00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:28,280 COLIN LAUGHS 388 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:35,400 The process of turning the individuals into a team was known as crewing up. 389 00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,080 This wasn't the usual hierarchical military process. 390 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,800 It was rather more democratic. 391 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,480 Looking back, it seemed a bit chaotic, 392 00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,440 because you'd be put in a hangar and they said, 393 00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,600 "Right, get on with it, get crewed up", and closed the doors. 394 00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:51,400 So you were stuck in a great big room. 395 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,280 Full of pilots and navigators, 396 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,040 bomb aimers, wireless operators 397 00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:58,440 and two gunners. 398 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,680 And told yourself, get yourself crewed up. 399 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,000 You stand around wondering what's going to happen next, who should you go with? 400 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:09,240 And this chap came up, he was obviously older than we, 401 00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:14,320 and he said, "I'm a rear gunner," he said, "Are you two chaps looking for a crew?" 402 00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:18,160 We said, "Yeah, yes we are." And he said, "Well I've found a pilot. 403 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,400 I've questioned him, and he told me he had a crash while he was training, 404 00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,520 so I think he'll be bloody all right in future, he'll do for us!" 405 00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,200 So I said, "Well, OK, that suits us." So off we went. 406 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,320 So that was the crew! 407 00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,960 This was a remarkable mixing of classes, 408 00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,760 ages and nationalities, unthinkable before the war. 409 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,760 A crew might consist of a former public schoolboy, 410 00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:45,840 a London docker, a farmer from New Zealand and a Canadian bank clerk. 411 00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,080 All of a sudden, we became blood brothers. 412 00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:55,880 We helped each other out in everything. And we were a good team. 413 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,600 If we hadn't have been I wouldn't be here today. 414 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:03,880 The one thing that I remember with some emotion is the fact 415 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,720 that in the billet, sharing with another crew, all Kiwis, 416 00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,160 and I recall both crews went on an operation, 417 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:18,440 and when we came back all their kit had gone, and bed stripped, 418 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:25,120 and I remember sitting on our beds and being quite shattered 419 00:28:25,120 --> 00:28:29,720 by this experience of losing these guys who'd been with us. 420 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,680 So we did what most blokes would do in that case, 421 00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,000 there's only one thing to do, go down the pub and get sozzled. 422 00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,240 The crews were now setting out nightly in the new four-engine bombers 423 00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:47,000 to carry out Harris's grand plan of defeating Germany by area bombing alone. 424 00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,200 A mission could last up to ten hours, 425 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,400 targeting industrial centres deep in the heart of Germany. 426 00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,480 The telephone perhaps would ring. 427 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,280 Then the Flight Commander would call "That's it, boys! It's on." 428 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,440 Then there'd be a deadly hush. 429 00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,000 That meant that night, we were going to be on ops. 430 00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,440 We would disappear up to the mess for your meal, 431 00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,600 always eggs and bacon and sausage, a bit of fried bread. 432 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,640 Then you would go up to the briefing room and there 433 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:31,160 they would draw back the curtain and you could see where your target was. 434 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:36,720 Then there'd be a big "ohh!" if it was, you know, a long one. 435 00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,120 Once the planes were loaded up with bombs and fuel, the crews were ready to go. 436 00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:49,880 Once you got on the end of a runway to take off, 437 00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,880 then the tension was really wound up. 438 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,160 There was no talking at all. None. 439 00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:06,000 You waited for a green aldis lamp, and you took off and saw them waving to you to take off. 440 00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:15,080 Used to think, "Am I going to be back here in a few hours' time?" 441 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,320 Navigator Douglas Hudson recalls an extraordinary moment 442 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,800 just as his bomber force headed out across the North Sea. 443 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,400 There was a flight of German bombers coming almost on the reciprocal, 444 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,240 on the opposite track. 445 00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,040 So the skipper said, don't do anything unless they do. 446 00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:46,200 And you know what they did? They just gave us a wing salute. 447 00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,720 And they went on to bomb Goole. And we went on to bomb Stuttgart. 448 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:53,480 The crews would have to remain alert for many hours, 449 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,760 and something stronger than coffee was on offer. 450 00:30:57,760 --> 00:30:58,800 Amphetamine pills. 451 00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:02,120 They gave us wakey-wakey tablets. 452 00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,960 Well, we used to call them wakey-wakey tablets! 453 00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,520 Personally, myself, I never, ever took them. 454 00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,200 I used to stick mine with a bit of chewing gum on the side, 455 00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,160 to the inside of the rear turret, you know? 456 00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:18,520 I only did it once. I didn't need them again. 457 00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:24,120 I was wound up before I went anyway, like the seven in the crew. 458 00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:30,600 Stan Bradford was a mid-upper gunner. He's also a decorated ace. 459 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,280 He shot down five German fighters. 460 00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:39,720 Never, ever, ever in my life was I ever comfortable. No. No. 461 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,840 Frightened to death. 462 00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,800 And anybody that says he wasn't, well, he's a bloody liar. 463 00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:50,080 The crews were about to run the gauntlet of the German air defences. 464 00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:03,680 Back at White Waltham, I'm ready for the next stage of my training on another Dakota. 465 00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,800 It brings me one step closer to flying the Lancaster. 466 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,440 And Cliff wants to use the flight to give me a flavour 467 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:18,320 of how difficult the most basic navigation task was during World War Two. 468 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:26,520 I've plotted the course and I need Colin to fly at a set speed to get to the destination on time. 469 00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,560 - So, what sort of speed do I need to fly? - 120. 470 00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:31,880 - 120 what? - 120 knots. 471 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:33,480 - Knots? - Knots. 472 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,000 No, this is in miles per hour. 473 00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:38,080 - It is. - Is it? - Yeah. 474 00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,240 Well, we've worked it all out in nautical miles. 475 00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,920 I'm not mucking around, man. It's in miles an hour? 476 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,000 What's the speed dials in this one? 477 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:48,120 Miles an hour. 478 00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,800 - That's what I thought. - OK. - Can you manage that conversion? 479 00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,120 I don't know how to convert it. What is the conversion? 480 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,080 Were you not taught? What, come on, basics! 481 00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,600 What are the basics? Go on, how do you convert it from knots to miles then? 482 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,000 Well, I'll just have to fly 138 miles per hour. 483 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,720 - And that will equal 120 knots. - Is that right? - Yeah. 484 00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:10,920 OK, good, good, good on you! No-one told me about the nautical miles. 485 00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,840 Thankfully World War Two navigators were better informed. 486 00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,520 It's properly exciting to be here. 487 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,600 I'm a bit nervous about the navigation, but we'll just have to see how that goes. 488 00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,520 But it is unbelievably exciting to be in this aeroplane. 489 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:29,440 Yeah, maybe we'll end up somewhere fancy in Normandy or something, and we can have a crepe! 490 00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,120 Modern planes have GPS, radar and air traffic control. 491 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:46,400 But all trainee navigators had was a map, a compass and a watch. 492 00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:05,000 First, Cliff wants me to navigate south to a point on the Isle of Wight. 493 00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,280 This is exactly the kind of training trip a new crew would have undertaken. 494 00:34:16,240 --> 00:34:19,520 INAUDIBLE RADIO CHATTER 495 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,920 What I need to do now is use landmarks along the way to make sure I'm on course and on time. 496 00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:37,720 You should be crossing a road. 497 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,640 Yeah, I've got a main road we're just crossing now. It's quite heavily wooded. 498 00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,120 Bang on. Well done, pilot! 499 00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,680 But after a good start, I think I may have lost an entire town. 500 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,720 You wouldn't happen to know where Haslemere is, sir, would you? 501 00:34:56,720 --> 00:34:59,720 - No, no, I'm not a navigator here. - Haslemere? 502 00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:06,200 How big is it? Well there's a town there, just west of the nose. Looks quite big. 503 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:14,080 - We are three minutes to target, three minutes. - OK. 504 00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:18,440 - A little bit over to the right, Colin. Two degrees. - Good man. You've got it, you've got it. 505 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,800 And we're coming a little...the target's just a little way to the right there, Colin, 506 00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,600 that building on the... 507 00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,880 The building, is it? All right. Just here. 508 00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,120 - Bugger me, Ewan, you've found it! - Yeah. 509 00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,920 Yeah. There you go, smack over the top. Well done, mate. 510 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,520 - Going out to there now. Target now. - Yep. 511 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:43,920 We've reached the first destination. Not bad for a beginner. 512 00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,480 When we were flying the Lancaster, 513 00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,840 my Canadian navigator was able 514 00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,200 to produce a fix every six minutes 515 00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:52,960 throughout the flight, 516 00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:57,680 which I think was a tremendous achievement of concentration, 517 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,320 in order that we would arrive at our target dead on the time that 518 00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,880 we'd been instructed to arrive. 519 00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,720 Look at that, dead on, zero nine zero. Very nice, pilot, carry on. 520 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:12,520 Now for the tricky part. 521 00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,520 Cliff wants to take me on a simulated bombing run over water. 522 00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:23,080 It's the closest I'll get to night flying. So, no landmarks to help me at all. 523 00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,200 Target's just on the left there, captain. 524 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,600 Right, so that's the lighthouse, is it? 525 00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,680 There it is, my destination. The lighthouse at Beachy Head. 526 00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,480 Ah, we're going to be over it, but we're going to be one... 527 00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,040 Going to be a bit early, I think. 528 00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,760 Maybe a little early, yeah. One minute now. So. 529 00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:50,640 We've got to the target a minute early. 530 00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,760 60 seconds that mark the difference between success and failure. 531 00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:59,160 In a night bombing run, we would have dropped our bombs into the darkness. 532 00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,080 We're going over the top now. 533 00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:08,600 On a raid to Berlin, we would have overshot by a disastrous 20 miles. 534 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:16,320 But navigating at night wasn't the only problem the bomber crews faced. 535 00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:21,600 As they crossed the North Sea, they were picked up by German radar. 536 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,680 The closer they got to their destination, 537 00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:31,520 the more intense the searchlights and the flak from the anti-aircraft guns. 538 00:37:32,720 --> 00:37:37,920 We were caught in searchlights and they had us for 35 minutes. 539 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,840 Now, you could guarantee, basically, that if you were caught 540 00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:48,080 in searchlights, you could say goodnight, nurse, that was your lot. 541 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,200 But fortunately for us, we came through it. 542 00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:58,280 The Germans had the ideal anti-aircraft weapon in the 88mm gun. 543 00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:03,880 Thousands were diverted from the Russian front to stop the RAF getting through. 544 00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:13,520 You can view the target on flames and surrounded by millions of shell bursts. 545 00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,200 It looks like hell. 546 00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:17,000 And you really think 547 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,040 that this is going to be it. 548 00:38:23,720 --> 00:38:27,120 To overwhelm the enemy's defences, the bombers travelled through 549 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,040 the target area in a tightly packed bomber stream. 550 00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:34,080 It meant there was always the danger of mid-air collision. 551 00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:41,960 Another Lancaster came out from our starboard side 552 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,120 and stuck his wing tip straight into us. 553 00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:47,440 Just under the mid-upper turret. 554 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:53,040 There was, putting it crudely, a bloody big bang. 555 00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,200 Even though the tail of the aircraft was close to breaking away, 556 00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,920 Dave refused to abandon his position. 557 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:07,000 The skipper said to me, "Well David, you can bail out if you wish." 558 00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,840 We could still have been attacked by enemy aircraft. 559 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:17,280 My turret was still operational. So why should I jump out? 560 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:18,520 What, leave my mates? 561 00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,920 If the plane made it to the target, 562 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,480 then the most dangerous part of all. The bombing run itself. 563 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:42,880 The pilot had to fly straight and level, no matter what. 564 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,080 You say bombs away, and you could also look into the bomb bay 565 00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,360 from the bomb aimer's position to make sure they've all gone. 566 00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,480 And if they have, close the bomb doors 567 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,080 and then the pilot gets out of the trouble. 568 00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:59,040 Then the aircraft lifted, 569 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:00,520 having got rid of the weight, 570 00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,000 we were all very relieved, 571 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:03,120 shut the bomb doors, 572 00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:04,560 and away we went for home. 573 00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,280 Bomber Harris was a man in a hurry. 574 00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,600 By May 1942, just three months into the job, 575 00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:25,040 he mustered enough resources to unleash 1,000 bombers in a single raid. 576 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:28,680 The target was Cologne. 577 00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:31,960 The first wave was so successful, 578 00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,440 that by the time the second wave took off they didn't need their navigators. 579 00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,600 "Before we crossed the English coast, 580 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,800 the skipper said to the navigator, 581 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,480 "I think I can see a red glow in the sky. 582 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,440 It's a long, long way away." 583 00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,440 The navigator replied, "That's Cologne. 584 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:53,000 You don't need me any more, just head for it." 585 00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,040 We could actually see Cologne burning from England. 586 00:40:56,040 --> 00:41:00,480 Looking out, it was just a small red glow on the horizon. 587 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,200 When we got there, the whole place was a sea of fire 588 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,440 and we dropped out bombs into the middle of it. 589 00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,400 It was a piece of cake really. 590 00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:14,800 The raid destroyed 2,500 industrial buildings. 591 00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:21,240 It killed 469 civilians and bombed more than 40,000 out of their homes. 592 00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:27,400 It shook the Nazi high command so much that Cologne survivors 593 00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,000 were ordered to remain silent about the devastation on pain of death. 594 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:39,240 For Harris, it was confirmation that his masterplan would work. 595 00:41:39,240 --> 00:41:45,240 There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. 596 00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:49,400 Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, 597 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:50,520 and we shall see. 598 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:53,760 Soon, the Ruhr, Essen, Berlin 599 00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:55,680 and countless other cities were 600 00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,120 the targets of area bombing, being hit night after night. 601 00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,520 The bomber crews were now undertaking large-scale 602 00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:05,920 raids into the heart of Germany. 603 00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:11,560 They were often flying twice a week to targets up to six hours away. 604 00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,640 And with US entry into the war in January 1942, 605 00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,520 Bomber Command now had a formidable ally. 606 00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,160 In the summer, the US began to bomb by day. 607 00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:30,120 It meant the Allies could hit German war industry around the clock. 608 00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,480 But there was a price to pay. 609 00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,240 The German defences were becoming ever more deadly. 610 00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:48,640 A Lancaster lasted for, on average, just seven missions over Germany. 611 00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:53,880 Only one in six of the crews was expected to survive a tour of 30 operations. 612 00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:01,240 The biggest threat was German night fighters. 613 00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:05,920 The tail gunners were the bomber's first line of defence. 614 00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,520 Learning how to hit a fast moving fighter plane involved constant practise. 615 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,520 87-year-old Dave Fellowes wants to show Colin and I how he did it. 616 00:43:21,240 --> 00:43:25,520 So you did use clay pigeon shooting as, you know, these clays as practise, didn't you? 617 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,760 We did, a lot. Right from the very elementary gunnery school. 618 00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:33,200 Because it was the best way of teaching deflection, 619 00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,680 and also your line of sight. 620 00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:36,720 Pull. 621 00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:43,520 Gunners were given a regular allocation of clays, so that they continued to practise. 622 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:47,200 Pull. 623 00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,200 18 inches ahead. 624 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,760 Oh, dear. 625 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,200 < Try a bit more over towards me. 626 00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,320 Try a bit more up in the air. 627 00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:04,240 I feel the fraternal competition kind of starting to swell. 628 00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:05,640 Pull. 629 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:08,880 It's hard to hit these fast-moving clays. 630 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:10,080 Pull. 631 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,120 Shooting down night fighters must have been infinitely more difficult. 632 00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:14,480 OK! 633 00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:19,880 Really close. 634 00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:23,680 Ha-ha-ha! 635 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:25,440 From going through the training, 636 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:29,760 to actually flying in the rear turret there for a real mission must have been a big, big difference. 637 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:32,560 - I had eyes sticking out like organ stops. - Did you? 638 00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:37,120 Looking for an aeroplane that was an enemy one. 639 00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:39,440 Up! 640 00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,680 - Cor, he's right in there, isn't he? - He's right quick, isn't he? 641 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,040 - Oh, you got a bit off the side of that one. - Yeah. We winged it. 642 00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,320 You winged it, you definitely winged that last one there. 643 00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:59,120 Having trained with a shotgun, Dave then had to master the .303 calibre machine gun. 644 00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,840 Armourer David Main wants to show us how effective they were. 645 00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,560 - Ready? - OK. - OK. 646 00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:15,080 I'm shooting at metal plate the same thickness as the armour on a German night fighter. 647 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,600 OK, Ewan, in your own time, go on. 648 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:28,160 OK. Clear. 649 00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,640 - This was protection for the pilot and air crew. - Yeah. 650 00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:34,560 Usually round his seat. 651 00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:38,880 And it's actually failed to penetrate in the armour piercing or the ball. 652 00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,080 - Oh, yeah, yeah. The ball didn't go through. - No. 653 00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,200 - And the armour piercing sort of didn't go through either. - No. 654 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,160 It broke the back but it didn't go through. 655 00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,120 More than survivable, that kind of thing. 656 00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,600 Dave's chance of shooting the aircraft down was purely 657 00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:55,160 hitting a fuel line, a hydraulics line, or a control service. 658 00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:58,200 That is the only thing that was going to bring that aircraft down using a .303. 659 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,680 The tail gunner strikes me as the loneliest and toughest job of all. 660 00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,720 I want to get some sense of what it was like for Dave, aged just 19. 661 00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:12,720 So, I'm going to squeeze into a Lancaster turret, wearing all 662 00:46:12,720 --> 00:46:15,480 the gear he wore to withstand the sub-zero temperatures. 663 00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,160 That would shut behind me. 664 00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:37,480 That's quite weird. 665 00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:43,560 I mean that is quite, that's quite a claustrophobic feeling. 666 00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:48,640 So, that's your world, now. For nine hours or more, this is my world. 667 00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:56,960 Well, if we'd have had a thermometer in there, it would never have got above zero, that's for sure. 668 00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:58,520 It was cold. 669 00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:00,240 It was no good taking a flask, 670 00:47:00,240 --> 00:47:05,000 because at around 20-odd thousand feet or more it used to freeze up anyhow. 671 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:10,800 They gave you a bar of chocolate, but that froze so hard you couldn't even chew it. 672 00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,160 You couldn't stand, couldn't do anything. 673 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:18,320 All you could do is move like this. That's all you could do. 674 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,440 It's difficult enough getting in, 675 00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:24,680 but getting out in a hurry was another thing altogether. 676 00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,920 So, if I had to bale out of this, my parachute's out there. 677 00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:33,800 OK, I would have to turn the turret into this position, 678 00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:35,600 so the doors were there. 679 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:39,800 I'd have to open the doors like this. 680 00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:44,640 This is when it gets a bit stuck. 681 00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,480 I'd have to lean back, 682 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:53,680 grab my parachute here, off that, 683 00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,920 and get it back here, clip my parachute on, 684 00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:01,760 then I'd have to turn the turret round so that my back was 685 00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:07,960 outside here, and then fall backwards out, into the night. 686 00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:13,000 And if the plane was on fire, or if the plane was in a spin, 687 00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:17,640 which it often was, it would be, I mean, almost impossible, I think. 688 00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:21,440 Which is why so many of the poor rear gunners didn't make it, 689 00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,040 you know, they didn't get out. 690 00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,800 I knew where my parachute was. 691 00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:30,040 If the skipper gave the orders to bale out, I knew exactly what to do. 692 00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,240 We had an attitude in our aircraft, in our crew, 693 00:48:33,240 --> 00:48:36,640 if the aeroplane stays up there, we stay with the aeroplane. 694 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:37,960 Simple as that. 695 00:48:39,240 --> 00:48:41,880 "From my mother's sleep I fell into the state, 696 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,040 "and I hunched 697 00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:44,120 "in its belly 698 00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:46,080 "till my wet fur froze. 699 00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:47,840 "Six miles from Earth, 700 00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:49,160 "loosed from its dream 701 00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:50,360 "of life, 702 00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,680 "I woke to black flack and the nightmare fighters." 703 00:48:54,720 --> 00:48:58,600 "And when I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose." 704 00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:09,720 With limited firepower, the crews employed another tactic to avoid German night fighters. 705 00:49:09,720 --> 00:49:10,960 The corkscrew. 706 00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:17,920 This was a series of fast dives and climbs more suited to a fighter. 707 00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,040 But the brilliant Lancaster was more than up to it. 708 00:49:22,240 --> 00:49:23,800 If your gunner suddenly said 709 00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:24,840 "Corkscrew port", 710 00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:26,080 you went right the way, 711 00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:27,160 turned it, right down 712 00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:28,720 like that, you screwed around 713 00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:30,800 at the bottom, you went up the gauge, 714 00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:32,520 screwed over the top and down. 715 00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:34,840 And you can imagine the strain on that aircraft. 716 00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:38,360 And with a full bomb load on, you were doing this sort of thing. 717 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:42,000 We were attacked four times on one night by fighters. 718 00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:44,920 And we escaped from them every single time by corkscrewing. 719 00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,480 But the corkscrew was only useful if you could see the enemy coming. 720 00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:59,160 In 1943, crews reported seeing other planes blow up in mid-air for no apparent reason. 721 00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:05,600 The Luftwaffe had developed a new deadly secret weapon, 722 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,240 known, rather bizarrely, as jazz music. 723 00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:09,360 Schraege Musik. 724 00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,680 German night fighter pilots realised 725 00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,880 that the bombers had a blind spot, 726 00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:16,280 namely underneath. 727 00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:18,600 They were able to come up underneath, 728 00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:24,080 and they had a couple of guns pointing up at an angle through the cockpit. 729 00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:27,000 The bomber they were attacking wouldn't see them, 730 00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:28,240 it wouldn't hear them. 731 00:50:28,240 --> 00:50:30,640 The first thing they would know is there'd be cannon shells 732 00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,480 ripping through the aircraft from beneath. 733 00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:38,360 If the thing was below you firing this jazz music cannon, there was no way out. 734 00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,360 One of the pilots who used this deadly weapon was Rolf Ebhart. 735 00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:48,760 He flew the Messerschmitt 110, hunting down British bombers. 736 00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:52,640 He shot down eight. 737 00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,240 Tell us about the first time you engaged a Lancaster. 738 00:50:56,240 --> 00:50:59,880 I saw it about 120 yards higher. 739 00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:04,640 So I was shaking and my heart was throbbing, of course. 740 00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:10,560 And I said to me, "Don't miss, don't miss, so I positioned myself under the Lancaster, 741 00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:14,200 and not thinking that the Lancaster 742 00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:18,560 was on the flight to the target, 743 00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,760 so it had all the bombs in, 744 00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,120 I aimed in the middle of the fuselage 745 00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,720 and the thing exploded after a second. 746 00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:36,120 And the result was I couldn't see anything any more, 747 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:41,120 I was so blinded, for about five minutes, then slowly the sight came back. 748 00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:47,800 Rolf was so close to his victims that he was able to record their serial numbers in his logbook. 749 00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:56,520 Abschluss, Lancaster. Abschluss, Lancaster. 750 00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:02,240 I've got the code number from some of them. 751 00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:06,400 It was a third, Halifax. 752 00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:09,800 And here, three in one night, within 15 minutes. 753 00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,440 The new upward firing cannon meant that in 1943, 754 00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,680 the night fighters were accounting for 70% of Bomber Command losses. 755 00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:26,320 One man lived to tell his story of this invisible enemy. 756 00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:31,800 Reg Barker's Lancaster was torn apart by Schraege Musik. 757 00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:38,320 His plane went into an uncontrollable dive and Reg began to black out. 758 00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:41,560 I couldn't move a little finger, even, 759 00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:45,920 I was pinned up against the canopy of the roof, the roof canopy of the cockpit. 760 00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,960 And I could see the fires burning below, 761 00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:50,880 the fires that we'd started in Kiel. 762 00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:58,520 And it was quite evident that it would only be seconds, 763 00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:00,440 perhaps, before we hit the earth. 764 00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:04,840 Then suddenly it, all was peace. All went quiet. 765 00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:09,280 Had I arrived in the place, in the heavenly abode 766 00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,920 to which, no doubt, the Almighty had intended? I don't know. 767 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,120 Suddenly there was a swishing sound, 768 00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:21,560 which I realised afterwards 769 00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:24,480 was the wind tearing through my clothes. 770 00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,520 I was out in the sky, I wasn't in the cockpit any more. 771 00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:31,480 How that happened really is only a matter of conjecture. 772 00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:35,960 And I could see my aircraft coming down beside me, 773 00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:38,640 very much ablaze, of course. 774 00:53:39,720 --> 00:53:45,160 The parachute opened and I could see below me the trees of a wood, 775 00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,360 floodlit by the flaming aircraft. 776 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,440 At that moment, I dropped into the treetops. 777 00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:55,080 So that was a miraculous escape. 778 00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:58,400 Reg spent the rest of the conflict as a prisoner of war. 779 00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:02,840 So these are my identity tags, dog tags as we called them. 780 00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,080 One was my RAF officer's tag, 781 00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:11,320 and the other one is the one issued to me by the Germans 782 00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:15,320 when I became a guest of the Nazis. 783 00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:19,200 Stalag Luft 1, it says. 5182, that's me. 784 00:54:21,240 --> 00:54:26,800 The nightly dice with death was a horrendous strain for the young men of Bomber Command. 785 00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:32,560 Gunner Stan Bradford remembers a crew-member who cracked up on a mission. 786 00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:39,440 During one trip, we had a problem with our engineer. 787 00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:44,040 To this day, Stan won't reveal his name. 788 00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:49,240 There was no Ginger. I'm not letting his name out. 789 00:54:49,240 --> 00:54:51,600 Ginger, he was ginger haired. 790 00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:56,680 And Ginger, he wasn't available. 791 00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,160 He was hiding behind the pilot's seat. 792 00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:04,960 He was just took away. We never saw him again. 793 00:55:06,240 --> 00:55:11,000 Your documents would be stamped LMF, lack of moral fibre. 794 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:15,520 And that put you in a terrible situation afterwards, 795 00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:19,160 if anybody would have asked to see his documents, service documents. 796 00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:26,880 Cases of LMF were rare. 797 00:55:28,240 --> 00:55:31,880 For the rest, their stress was released in other ways. 798 00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:35,480 There were some extreme cases, 799 00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:37,600 people were shooting off revolvers 800 00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:39,440 out of the windows at night, 801 00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:45,240 and, you know, really low level beat-ups of the aerodrome, 802 00:55:45,240 --> 00:55:49,880 and all sorts of things, and they would just get told off. 803 00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,280 They realised that you had to let off steam. 804 00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:06,240 Across the East of England, hundreds of bomber bases were bursting with thousands of young men, 805 00:56:06,240 --> 00:56:10,080 desperate to get away from the war for a few short hours. 806 00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:12,080 We always did everything together. 807 00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:17,040 So, when we went out together, we had to get on by two-seater MG. 808 00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:22,040 So, we sat three on the hood at the back, three on the front seat, 809 00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:24,120 and two on the front mud guards. 810 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:26,320 And we used to strap them round their waist 811 00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:29,000 and over the bonnet so they didn't fall off. 812 00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:31,760 And only on one occasion was I stopped by the police, 813 00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:34,480 not because we were breaking the law, but he wanted to make 814 00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:37,240 quite sure the two on the front mudguards weren't going to fall off. 815 00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:47,680 Ewan and I have come to the Bluebell in Lincolnshire, 816 00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:49,800 a favourite haunt of the Bomber boys. 817 00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:52,160 Here, the crews would drink the pub dry. 818 00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:57,200 We're meeting Dave, pilot Tony Iveson 819 00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,360 and navigator Douglas Hudson. 820 00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,440 A lot of silly things happened. 821 00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,520 But I guess you were young guys, weren't you? You were 20, 20 years old? 822 00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:07,400 - There wasn't any malice aforethought at all. - No. 823 00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:10,040 Like the burning of the pianos that took place 824 00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,040 and all the other things, motorbikes in the mess. 825 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,360 - Oh, that! - Oh, yes! 826 00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:16,560 Doing a doughnut in the mess. 827 00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:19,120 Doing doughnuts round the mess. Now that appeals to me! 828 00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:21,520 Well, the boys with me brought a cow in the mess one day. 829 00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:23,960 They got this cow in the mess and it didn't half make a mess! 830 00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:31,800 Many of the young men were inexperienced, baffled by the opposite sex. 831 00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:35,920 Most of us were to bloody young to understand female company at that age. 832 00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:38,800 We were all fingers and bloody thumbs! 833 00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,880 And we were also told and shown films, 834 00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:46,760 vivid, vivid American films about VD. 835 00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,160 You know, the horrors of what could happen to you. 836 00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,640 Well, that used to put you off for life! Nearly. 837 00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:55,920 "If she's easy, she's got it." 838 00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:01,400 "If she's got it, you'll get it." 839 00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,440 "And remember, a blob on the knob slows demob." 840 00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:07,840 LAUGHTER 841 00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:10,720 Yeah, I haven't heard that one before. Very good! 842 00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:19,760 By 1943, Bomber Command was fighting the war with an even greater ferocity. 843 00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,240 It was dropping more and more bombs. 844 00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,240 But German industry didn't appear to be collapsing. 845 00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:29,360 After a while, people began to suspect that 846 00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,440 factories could be repaired 847 00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:34,240 and got working again fairly quickly, 848 00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,400 so the next point of vulnerability 849 00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:38,640 was actually seen to be the workers, 850 00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:41,760 and this was the beginning of the sinister thought that, 851 00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:46,320 actually, the real target is civilian workers. 852 00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:50,200 The term used to describe this policy was "de-housing". 853 00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:56,840 The aim was not just to blow up, it was to burn as well. 854 00:58:56,840 --> 00:59:01,120 Bomber Command was now dropping more incendiaries than high explosives. 855 00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:07,000 In July 1943, Harris used this lethal cocktail to devastating effect. 856 00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:17,280 - COMMENTARY: - Hamburg, second largest city of the Reich, 857 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,040 is being liquidated in a series of record attacks by the RAF. 858 00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:25,120 The main attack started on Saturday, 24th July, and for nights afterwards, 859 00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:28,760 hundreds of our four engine bombers kept it up hot and strong. 860 00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:36,280 We're travelling to Hamburg to find out more about the impact of the raid. 861 00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:40,560 A number of factors made this attack so shattering. 862 00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:50,800 RAF deception diverted the German night fighters away from the bomber force 863 00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:53,720 and the elite pathfinders marked the target perfectly. 864 00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:00,200 The combination of a hot dry summer and the high proportion 865 01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:05,320 of incendiaries created a phenomenon never seen before. A firestorm. 866 01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:14,360 Temperatures reached 800 degrees. Winds, 150 miles an hour. 867 01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:20,160 Nadia Convery is a Hamburg resident and researcher. 868 01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:22,760 She's brought us to St Nicholas' Church. 869 01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:29,760 It was so prominent in the landscape that the RAF used it as an aiming point. 870 01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:32,600 Today, it's a memorial to those lost in the bombing. 871 01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:41,560 - God! That's unbelievable, isn't it, the destruction. - Yeah. 872 01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:46,080 The blockbuster bombs, they would drop first to sort of lift the roofs of the houses, 873 01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:50,120 and then they would drop the incendiary bombs into houses 874 01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:52,680 where there was a lot of wood inside. 875 01:00:52,680 --> 01:00:56,400 They would just go up in flames, and the streets were quite narrow, 876 01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:58,840 so it was easy for the fire to spread. 877 01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:07,000 And that was the aim, to set fire to them? 878 01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:13,480 That was the aim, and apparently the British researched into how flammable German cities were. 879 01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:18,680 In one area, 96% of the houses were completely gone. Destroyed. 880 01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:19,960 Bloody hell. 881 01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:25,480 The Nazis feared six more raids like it would finish the war. 882 01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:29,680 42,000 men, women and children were killed. 883 01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:33,720 Quite an eye opener, really, when you see those pictures and you see the endless, 884 01:01:33,720 --> 01:01:37,520 endless empty shells of buildings, 885 01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:39,240 and the tons and tons of rubble. 886 01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:42,880 I just keep thinking about families, and children, 887 01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:45,760 and trying to get, you know, as a parent, trying to get your 888 01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:50,360 kids out of that hellhole must have been beyond awful, you know. 889 01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:07,520 Nadia has invited us to a city centre hotel 890 01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:11,080 to meet some of the victims of the Hamburg firestorm. 891 01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:20,440 Hans Werner Prell was 13 at the time. Helga Hunter was 16. 892 01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:21,800 Very nice to meet you, hello. 893 01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:26,120 The story of this suitcase is a special one, actually, 894 01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:31,120 so in this suitcase were important documents, a bit of, you know, 895 01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,160 jewellery, that's all that remained. 896 01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:37,600 It's the only thing he saved. He was clutching it through the firestorm. 897 01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:42,000 HANS SPEAKS GERMAN 898 01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:48,640 They could hardly move because of the force of the winds. 899 01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:52,000 And so he's described it quite powerfully. 900 01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:56,560 He said there was this red wall coming towards him, 901 01:02:56,560 --> 01:02:59,520 and then they'd get pushed over and have to get up again, 902 01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:02,160 and try and sort of battle against that force. 903 01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:05,720 So that's quite a powerful image. 904 01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:09,360 He says that just as you're sitting next to me, 905 01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:13,840 people would, would go up in flames next to him. 906 01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:18,240 It's unimaginable, it's just, what he saw, it's just, yeah. 907 01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:25,480 Yeah, I was 16 at that time, on that night. Can I speak German? 908 01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:27,080 Of course. 909 01:03:27,080 --> 01:03:30,960 HELGA SPEAKS GERMAN 910 01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:37,920 The streets had been hit. And everything had gone up in flames. 911 01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:43,840 And so, walking home, she had to pick her way across, you know, 912 01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:47,000 people lying in the streets dead, dead bodies. 913 01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:52,240 Because of the intense heat, the tarmac melted, 914 01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:56,160 and she saw people trying to walk across, and getting stuck, 915 01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:58,520 and then, yeah, not being able to, to free themselves, 916 01:03:58,520 --> 01:04:01,360 and no-one else could help, because they would get stuck then too. 917 01:04:14,880 --> 01:04:18,120 I think when you read about the area bombing campaign, 918 01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:23,120 and how that was described by senior officers and what have you, 919 01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:25,640 there's ways that you can phrase it 920 01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:31,280 to sound like it's not the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, you know, 921 01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:37,440 you can justify it in words by saying that it's a legitimate tactic 922 01:04:37,440 --> 01:04:43,520 to damage the industrial might of the country you're fighting against. 923 01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:46,000 I don't know if you can ever justify one way or the other. 924 01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:49,040 You know, you can't say, you know, 925 01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:55,760 there's a statistic, there was 42,000 civilians killed here in a week in Hamburg, in one raid. 926 01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:58,400 You can't ever justify that. 927 01:04:58,400 --> 01:05:01,080 You can't ever justify the killing of innocent people, 928 01:05:01,080 --> 01:05:04,240 you can't justify the killing of six million Jews and homosexuals 929 01:05:04,240 --> 01:05:06,680 in concentration camps, either, extermination camps, 930 01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:12,000 but it's not really about that, I suppose, it's just trying to understand it. 931 01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:18,760 Yeah. What it took to ultimately defeat that evil. 932 01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:21,080 Yeah, Nazism. Yeah, yeah. 933 01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:29,040 And 70 years ago, things were very different. The war was far from won. 934 01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:34,960 Bomber Harris felt that more raids like Hamburg would bring victory by the spring. 935 01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:39,320 We propose to entirely emasculate 936 01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:44,080 every enemy centre of war production if necessary. 937 01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:47,480 We are well on the way now to that end. 938 01:05:50,000 --> 01:05:54,120 The shadow of raids like Hamburg has influenced the way we've fought wars ever since. 939 01:05:56,640 --> 01:06:01,120 The RAF now uses air power in a much more targeted way. 940 01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:05,400 Bosnia, Iraq, where I served, Libya and Afghanistan, 941 01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:08,600 are so different from the area bombing of World War Two. 942 01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:15,800 We are all use to seeing images of precision strikes. 943 01:06:15,800 --> 01:06:18,760 Collateral damage is no longer acceptable. 944 01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:27,160 My old squadron, the Dambusters, was at the forefront of developing 945 01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:29,040 this new tactical approach to airpower. 946 01:06:31,320 --> 01:06:34,520 It's currently on active service in Afghanistan. 947 01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:37,480 I want to see for myself how the modern RAF copes with 948 01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:42,800 the conflicting demands of using air power and avoiding civilian casualties. 949 01:06:48,400 --> 01:06:53,360 To get to the squadron base in Kandahar, I have fly there by night. 950 01:06:53,360 --> 01:06:55,560 This is to avoid a Taliban attack on our plane. 951 01:06:56,880 --> 01:06:58,920 I've got a full set of body armour on. 952 01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:02,080 Obviously we're in a combat zone at the moment, so, yeah, we've got 953 01:07:02,080 --> 01:07:06,040 to protect ourselves from anything that could get fired up at us. 954 01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,080 It's four years since I've been with my old squadron, 955 01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:12,080 so I'm looking forward to getting there 956 01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:15,160 with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. 957 01:07:19,960 --> 01:07:23,240 We're making the journey in a blacked out Hercules. 958 01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:27,520 Just before we arrived, a rocket was launched into the Kandahar base. 959 01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:34,200 This reminds me of what those young bomber crews experienced 960 01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:36,600 setting off on a night mission, 70 years ago. 961 01:07:50,520 --> 01:07:54,600 In World War Two, a thousand bombers would set out on a mission. 962 01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:58,320 Today, the RAF is using a detachment of just eight 963 01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:00,720 supersonic Tornados to achieve its aims. 964 01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:06,640 I mean, my experiences from Iraq are pretty similar to this operation really, 965 01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:08,040 it's a similar sort of size. 966 01:08:08,040 --> 01:08:13,360 But it's still nothing on the scale of World War Two. 967 01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:16,760 I mean, you're talking over 100,000 people flying in World War Two. 968 01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:23,000 The coalition is in the process of handing over power to the Afghan government. 969 01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:26,760 The highly political situation could hardly be more sensitive, 970 01:08:26,760 --> 01:08:29,760 and the last thing they can afford is to inflict any civilian casualties. 971 01:08:32,480 --> 01:08:37,760 But, fortunately, modern planes are much more flexible than the Lancaster of 70 years ago. 972 01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:42,480 They can perform a variety of roles that range from attacking the enemy 973 01:08:42,480 --> 01:08:45,680 to identifying improvised explosive devices hidden in the ground. 974 01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:55,280 Wing Commander Keith Taylor is the current 617 Squadron Commander. 975 01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:58,880 He's at pains to show how he is using the latest technology to avoid collateral damage. 976 01:09:03,120 --> 01:09:06,880 Before he even considers using a weapon to support forces on the ground, 977 01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:10,200 he'll intimidate the enemy first with a low-level fly past. 978 01:09:12,200 --> 01:09:16,080 I did a show of force, and, you know, we pulled up afterwards, 979 01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:20,520 back into the wheel, and asked the ground commander if we'd met his intent. 980 01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:24,640 And his words were, yes, you know, there was a bit of a situation developing down here, 981 01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:29,640 and I just wanted to show, you know, the bad guys that my dog was bigger than his dog. 982 01:09:30,840 --> 01:09:34,600 If that fails, only then will he reach for his range of precision weapons, 983 01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:39,160 from heavy cannon to guided missiles and bombs. 984 01:09:39,160 --> 01:09:41,080 And to help the crews make the right decision, 985 01:09:41,080 --> 01:09:43,560 they are also using some of the world's most powerful cameras, 986 01:09:43,560 --> 01:09:46,120 in what's known as the lightning pod. 987 01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:49,920 So you can, I mean you basically can, even up at sort of 15, 988 01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,120 20,000 feet, you can pick out an individual person. 989 01:09:52,120 --> 01:09:54,040 Absolutely, yeah, you can pick out people. 990 01:09:54,040 --> 01:09:56,400 You know, we can really get up close and, in some situations, 991 01:09:56,400 --> 01:10:01,720 identify whether or not the guys are carrying weapons or not. 992 01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:08,800 On the current tour, the Squadron has flown hundreds of missions deterring insurgents, 993 01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:10,520 without dropping a single bomb. 994 01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:20,920 All this makes you realise what a blunt but effective instrument Bomber Command was 995 01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:22,240 for the first years of the war. 996 01:10:26,480 --> 01:10:31,920 But in 1944, Churchill wanted to use the bombers differently. 997 01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:35,000 He felt they were now capable of a much more precise role. 998 01:10:37,720 --> 01:10:41,800 In the build up to D-Day, he wanted Harris to move from bombing German cities 999 01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:45,680 to hitting specific communication and transport targets. 1000 01:10:47,800 --> 01:10:52,600 Bomber Command had made huge advances in the last two years of total war. 1001 01:10:52,600 --> 01:10:56,080 It had become the most destructive force in history. 1002 01:10:56,080 --> 01:11:01,600 But it was now more than capable of carrying out this new task of precision bombing. 1003 01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:05,800 The switch to new methods, 1004 01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:08,400 it was now safer to fly in daylight, 1005 01:11:08,400 --> 01:11:09,480 so some of the raids 1006 01:11:09,480 --> 01:11:10,840 took place in daylight, 1007 01:11:10,840 --> 01:11:12,000 was not welcome to Harris. 1008 01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:15,840 He still stuck to his doctrine that the way to win the war 1009 01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:19,280 was to flatten as many German cities as possible. 1010 01:11:19,280 --> 01:11:23,440 So he put up quite a strong rear guard action, as only he could, 1011 01:11:23,440 --> 01:11:28,280 against a move that everyone else seemed to think was the right one. 1012 01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:32,000 Bomber Command had been a very blunt instrument indeed. 1013 01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:36,440 At this stage in the war, it's now becoming a surgical instrument, 1014 01:11:36,440 --> 01:11:42,320 something that is capable of carrying out applied violence in a very precise way. 1015 01:11:47,120 --> 01:11:50,840 My old squadron, the Dambusters, was pivotal in developing these new tactics. 1016 01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:57,400 They were formed in 1943 to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley, 1017 01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,320 using inventor Barnes Wallis's revolutionary bouncing bomb. 1018 01:12:05,560 --> 01:12:10,320 In 1944, they undertook perhaps the most audacious precision raid of the war. 1019 01:12:13,120 --> 01:12:17,520 We've come to the squadron's former officer's mess, now the Petwood Hotel, 1020 01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:22,040 to meet Squadron Leader Tony Iveson to talk about his part in the raid. 1021 01:12:24,440 --> 01:12:27,200 The Tirpitz was the largest remaining German battleship. 1022 01:12:30,200 --> 01:12:33,760 She represented the most powerful single threat to Allied shipping, 1023 01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:36,640 and it became a British obsession to sink her. 1024 01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:43,480 She was sheltering in the safe haven of the Norwegian Fjords, almost out of range. 1025 01:12:45,200 --> 01:12:49,280 They adapted the Lancaster with more powerful engines, 1026 01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:52,800 and took out the mid-upper turret and the front guns, 1027 01:12:52,800 --> 01:12:59,360 and lots of other heavy stuff, including the armour plating behind my seat. 1028 01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:04,240 The Lancaster could then reach Tromso from northern Scotland, 1029 01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:06,600 which was about, well, it turned out to be 1030 01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:08,840 a twelve and a half hour flight. 1031 01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:13,200 The bomb chosen to sink the Tirpitz 1032 01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:18,960 was the latest Barnes Wallis wonder weapon. The 12,000 lbs "Tallboy". 1033 01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:21,520 We lined up for the run in. 1034 01:13:22,520 --> 01:13:27,760 And the first nine bombs of 617 Squadron went down in 90 seconds. 1035 01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:30,360 So, had you been standing on Tirpitz, 1036 01:13:30,360 --> 01:13:33,040 you had nine five ton bombs arriving, 1037 01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:35,920 through the speed of sound on the way down. 1038 01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:39,800 And there were two direct hits and three near misses. 1039 01:13:39,800 --> 01:13:45,120 And then the 56,000 ton battleship was doomed from that moment. 1040 01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:50,520 - COMMENTARY: - The ship still firing as the bomb bursts flash and gleam. 1041 01:13:50,520 --> 01:13:53,320 In the smoke of giant explosions, the Tirpitz capsizes and sinks. 1042 01:14:00,200 --> 01:14:04,160 It was an astonishing demonstration of how far Bomber Command had come. 1043 01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:09,760 And it had been achieved with the mighty Lancaster. 1044 01:14:09,760 --> 01:14:13,160 Today is my chance to fly it. 1045 01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:19,160 I think for me, as a member of 617 Squadron, 1046 01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:22,840 it's probably the greatest privilege that you could ever get, 1047 01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:28,000 to fly in a Lancaster, and obviously it's the only one that's left in the UK. 1048 01:14:29,440 --> 01:14:34,120 But the fact that I'm going to be able to do it with Ewan on board as well is really incredible, 1049 01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:37,040 that both of us are going to be able to experience this at the same time, 1050 01:14:37,040 --> 01:14:40,120 and that's what it was all about, it was about being a crew, 1051 01:14:40,120 --> 01:14:44,520 it was about that, that band of brothers kind of feeling, 1052 01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:50,080 so to do it with the person that you feel the closest to is really quite something. 1053 01:14:53,920 --> 01:14:57,880 It's as iconic, the Lancaster, as the Spitfire was. 1054 01:14:57,880 --> 01:15:03,440 The Spitfires were fighting one against one in the air against the enemy. 1055 01:15:03,440 --> 01:15:08,200 And the Lancaster, you know, it's much more complicated than that. 1056 01:15:08,200 --> 01:15:13,920 They were bombing towns and cities, and over the week that we've been doing this, 1057 01:15:13,920 --> 01:15:16,560 the time that we've been doing this has been, you know, 1058 01:15:16,560 --> 01:15:19,440 I've been getting more and more of a sense of how complicated that is. 1059 01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:26,000 The last flying Lancaster is so precious 1060 01:15:26,000 --> 01:15:31,560 that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will only take her up in ideal conditions. 1061 01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:33,480 So it's great that the weather is perfect. 1062 01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:39,920 Can't believe you arranged a piper, that's pretty good! 1063 01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:43,440 You've got to remember that this is a war machine, really, 1064 01:15:43,440 --> 01:15:48,720 and people went to war in it, and some, a lot of them didn't come back, so... 1065 01:15:48,720 --> 01:15:52,600 Cor, the pipes make you feel quite emotional as well, don't they, yeah? 1066 01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:54,840 Very nice. Nice touch, that. 1067 01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:58,000 A large crowd, including some of the veterans, 1068 01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:03,240 is here to see the Lancaster on one of the few occasions in the year she takes to the air. 1069 01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:07,360 - This is your end of the aircraft, wasn't it? - That's right. 1070 01:16:07,360 --> 01:16:10,360 Then when we got the word to go, up the ladder. 1071 01:16:11,480 --> 01:16:15,560 - And then I used to turn to the left. - Yeah. 1072 01:16:15,560 --> 01:16:17,840 Back in, slide myself into there. 1073 01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:21,480 - Check the rotation of the turret, once the engines had started. - Yeah. 1074 01:16:21,480 --> 01:16:22,800 Just check everything through. 1075 01:16:22,800 --> 01:16:27,840 Anyone who says he's not afraid is not a human being. 1076 01:16:27,840 --> 01:16:32,680 And the worst period I felt was before a flight, when we knew where we were going, 1077 01:16:32,680 --> 01:16:36,880 and you had the hours getting ready, and you couldn't stop this churning around over your mind, 1078 01:16:36,880 --> 01:16:42,680 but once you were in the aeroplane you had a job to do, and it was a different situation, 1079 01:16:42,680 --> 01:16:45,040 and she was a beautiful aeroplane, 1080 01:16:45,040 --> 01:16:51,440 and you, as a pilot, will understand how thrilling it is to handle such a big machine on take off, 1081 01:16:51,440 --> 01:16:53,760 and feel her ready just to... 1082 01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:58,040 Yes, flying was still, even in those days, exciting. 1083 01:16:58,040 --> 01:17:01,440 Did you shake hands, before you got on, with each other or not? 1084 01:17:01,440 --> 01:17:03,520 Was there none of that sort of thing? 1085 01:17:03,520 --> 01:17:07,120 No, the crew would, the crew would piss on that wheel, but... 1086 01:17:07,120 --> 01:17:10,120 We would do that, but there's just too many people standing around watching, 1087 01:17:10,120 --> 01:17:12,520 otherwise we would do that, we would do that very thing. 1088 01:17:12,520 --> 01:17:14,960 - Thank you very much though. - Yeah, good luck to you. - Brilliant. 1089 01:17:14,960 --> 01:17:16,240 - Yeah, cheers. - Enjoy that trip. 1090 01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:18,840 - Yeah. Thank you very much indeed. - Thank you very much, thank you. 1091 01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:20,800 - You enjoy that trip. I'm sure you will. - Thank you. 1092 01:17:39,560 --> 01:17:44,160 INAUDIBLE RADIO CHATTER 1093 01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:04,880 Ah, it's an amazing feeling. Exhilarating, as the tail lifts. 1094 01:18:07,520 --> 01:18:10,240 70 knots. 80 knots. 1095 01:18:14,880 --> 01:18:19,320 Air brakes, air brakes off, feel that breeze. 1096 01:18:20,440 --> 01:18:22,080 Easy level travelling. 1097 01:18:23,160 --> 01:18:25,800 - Travelling left. - And right. 1098 01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:42,040 Colin up front, now. 1099 01:18:57,880 --> 01:19:01,120 And then it's the moment I've been waiting for. 1100 01:19:01,120 --> 01:19:03,440 I'm handed the controls. 1101 01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:09,680 I'm piloting the RAF's only flying Lancaster. 1102 01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:12,920 And we're just coming up on the left hand side. Is that what you want? 1103 01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:33,840 OK, Ewan's in position. Ewan, you all right in the nose? Thank you, yeah. 1104 01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:38,760 And I'm in the nose of the Lancaster with my brother at the controls. 1105 01:19:38,760 --> 01:19:40,680 What a moment. 1106 01:19:44,120 --> 01:19:47,840 Unbelievable view, isn't it? Fantastic visibility up here. 1107 01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:53,920 We're flying in the Lincolnshire skies that, 70 years ago, 1108 01:19:53,920 --> 01:19:56,840 would have been full of hundreds of bombers about to head off to Germany, 1109 01:19:56,840 --> 01:20:01,560 containing thousands of nervous young men, some who would never come back. 1110 01:20:09,600 --> 01:20:13,040 Then, all too soon, I have to hand back the controls. 1111 01:20:13,040 --> 01:20:14,280 You have control? 1112 01:20:37,440 --> 01:20:40,840 We buzz the crowd below, and then it's time to land. 1113 01:21:08,400 --> 01:21:13,520 The last flying Lancaster in Britain, one of the 7,000 or so 1114 01:21:13,520 --> 01:21:18,480 that flew 156,000 sorties, is safely back on the ground. 1115 01:21:26,000 --> 01:21:28,160 Don't fall out! 1116 01:21:29,720 --> 01:21:31,560 That was unbelievable. 1117 01:21:31,560 --> 01:21:34,040 That was really, properly amazing. Properly amazing. 1118 01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:36,560 It was all kind of angles that I've never seen before in my life, 1119 01:21:36,560 --> 01:21:40,920 taking off from there was just extraordinary, because you see the whole of the wings, 1120 01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:43,760 watch all the four engines starting up in front of you. 1121 01:21:43,760 --> 01:21:46,840 I went through to the front, there's a view I've never seen before, 1122 01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:50,960 like lying on my belly looking down, out at the ground, and the sky, 1123 01:21:50,960 --> 01:21:54,160 and an experience that you can't imagine. Well done. 1124 01:21:54,160 --> 01:21:57,400 Well done. That was really good flying, Colin. Really good flying. 1125 01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:05,480 The Lancaster was a brilliant plane, but it was still a devastating weapon of war. 1126 01:22:06,640 --> 01:22:11,040 And nearly 800 of them took part in the raid in 1945 1127 01:22:11,040 --> 01:22:14,360 that defined how some have judged Bomber Command ever since. 1128 01:22:18,680 --> 01:22:22,640 The D-Day invasion had led to a combined push by land and air forces from the west. 1129 01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:26,600 The Russians, too, were pressing from the east. 1130 01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:34,760 Stalin called on the western allies to help clear the way for the Red Army. 1131 01:22:34,760 --> 01:22:40,720 So, Winston Churchill agreed to the last great bomber offensive of the war. 1132 01:22:40,720 --> 01:22:42,160 The one that everyone remembers. 1133 01:22:43,440 --> 01:22:44,560 The irony is that 1134 01:22:44,560 --> 01:22:47,160 when Bomber Command was finally able to 1135 01:22:47,160 --> 01:22:50,160 do what it had always been trying to do, 1136 01:22:50,160 --> 01:22:53,400 trying to do it had lost a lot of its sense. 1137 01:22:54,560 --> 01:22:57,240 But, Harris being Harris, he carried on. 1138 01:22:58,520 --> 01:23:03,720 And one can say that with Dresden, it turned out to be a city too far. 1139 01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:11,120 In February 1945, the Allies unleashed Operation Thunderclap on the city of Dresden. 1140 01:23:12,400 --> 01:23:14,880 - COMMENTARY: - Dresden, the capital of Saxony, 1141 01:23:14,880 --> 01:23:18,520 becomes a fantasy of the destructive pyrotechnics of the air war. 1142 01:23:20,960 --> 01:23:25,760 The city was a railway hub through which German troops travelled to the Eastern Front. 1143 01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:30,960 But it was also packed with a million refugees, escaping the Russian onslaught. 1144 01:23:35,600 --> 01:23:40,280 The bombing was so devastating that it whipped up another firestorm. 1145 01:23:44,840 --> 01:23:46,240 It killed 25,000 people. 1146 01:23:52,080 --> 01:23:56,160 Churchill had approved the plan, but within weeks he had changed his tune, 1147 01:23:56,160 --> 01:23:58,720 perhaps with an eye to the imminent peace. 1148 01:24:00,880 --> 01:24:03,880 "The destruction of Dresden remains a serious 1149 01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:08,080 "query against the conduct of the Allied bombing." 1150 01:24:08,080 --> 01:24:09,800 Winston Churchill, 1945. 1151 01:24:12,240 --> 01:24:15,360 Harris was appalled by Churchill's comments. 1152 01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:18,480 To his dying day, he defended the policy of area bombing. 1153 01:24:21,320 --> 01:24:22,400 Harris had been 1154 01:24:22,400 --> 01:24:23,800 an outstanding leader. 1155 01:24:23,800 --> 01:24:25,040 He motivated his men, 1156 01:24:25,040 --> 01:24:26,280 he did what he was told 1157 01:24:26,280 --> 01:24:27,680 very effectively. 1158 01:24:27,680 --> 01:24:30,560 But by the end of the war, it has to be said, 1159 01:24:30,560 --> 01:24:32,960 he was wrong to persist in this notion 1160 01:24:32,960 --> 01:24:35,760 that they should carry on battering German cities when the 1161 01:24:35,760 --> 01:24:37,600 war was obviously won, it was doing no good, 1162 01:24:37,600 --> 01:24:38,720 in fact it was doing harm. 1163 01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:45,320 At the end of the war in Europe, on May 13th, 1945, 1164 01:24:45,320 --> 01:24:49,960 Winston Churchill went on the radio to thank our armed forces. 1165 01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:53,200 He chose not to mention Bomber Command at all. 1166 01:24:57,840 --> 01:24:59,240 I thought we got a rough deal. 1167 01:24:59,240 --> 01:25:03,640 Not so much us, although they didn't give us a medal, 1168 01:25:03,640 --> 01:25:06,920 but that's only a little trinket, really. 1169 01:25:08,000 --> 01:25:10,960 But I thought the treatment that Bomber Harris got 1170 01:25:10,960 --> 01:25:14,400 was absolutely, utterly disgraceful, 1171 01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:18,520 because he was only carrying out the orders of Churchill. 1172 01:25:20,760 --> 01:25:26,280 Harris's vision of a war won by heavy bombers alone never came to pass. 1173 01:25:26,280 --> 01:25:30,000 German war industry was damaged, yet never collapsed. 1174 01:25:31,400 --> 01:25:37,840 But a million troops, and thousands of anti-aircraft guns, were pinned down defending the Reich. 1175 01:25:37,840 --> 01:25:42,480 For those who fought in the campaign, there are few doubts about its value. 1176 01:25:42,480 --> 01:25:48,240 Total war is total war, and we were involved in total war. 1177 01:25:48,240 --> 01:25:51,080 We were involved in fighting for our lives. 1178 01:25:51,080 --> 01:25:56,520 And Bomber Command was the only force that could take the war to Germany for four long years. 1179 01:25:56,520 --> 01:26:00,240 They started it. They were, what did they do? 1180 01:26:00,240 --> 01:26:03,520 Auschwitz and all these places, I mean, Christ Almighty, 1181 01:26:03,520 --> 01:26:07,760 they're the ones that started the bloody war, we didn't. 1182 01:26:07,760 --> 01:26:12,320 And, well we finished it off, Germans went off with their tails between their legs. 1183 01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:15,960 I felt badly about it, in many respects, and yet, you know, 1184 01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:20,480 I mean, the war doesn't have Marquis of Queensbury rules. 1185 01:26:20,480 --> 01:26:22,840 And, of course, immediately after the war, 1186 01:26:22,840 --> 01:26:25,080 we got all the screen of what had happened 1187 01:26:25,080 --> 01:26:28,320 in the concentration camps, and the extermination camps, 1188 01:26:28,320 --> 01:26:32,600 and I suppose, you know, it rather hardens one's heart. 1189 01:26:34,640 --> 01:26:38,760 Today, the controversy around the bombing campaign of World War Two still remains. 1190 01:26:42,840 --> 01:26:47,920 Only in the summer of 2012, nearly 70 years after the war, 1191 01:26:47,920 --> 01:26:50,080 will there be a memorial in London 1192 01:26:50,080 --> 01:26:53,000 to honour the 125,000 men of Bomber Command. 1193 01:26:58,760 --> 01:27:04,360 It's very sad that the 55,500 young men in Bomber Command 1194 01:27:04,360 --> 01:27:08,680 who were killed have never been recognised until now, 1195 01:27:08,680 --> 01:27:15,040 which is too late in my view, it's a pity, but it is a little late. 1196 01:27:15,040 --> 01:27:19,800 But, thank goodness, a memorial is now going to be put up for them. 1197 01:27:28,880 --> 01:27:30,560 I knew when we started this project 1198 01:27:30,560 --> 01:27:34,680 that it was going to be a really difficult journey in places, and it has been difficult. 1199 01:27:34,680 --> 01:27:40,560 You know, our visit to Hamburg has raised some questions in my mind. 1200 01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:47,800 But what this journey has taught me is that these very young men who joined Bomber Command 1201 01:27:47,800 --> 01:27:51,760 joined the only force that was taking the fight to Germany. 1202 01:27:55,760 --> 01:28:00,120 What has struck me is how young they were, and what a terrible price they paid. 1203 01:28:01,200 --> 01:28:04,160 Almost beyond any of the controversy, 1204 01:28:04,160 --> 01:28:07,960 I'm also unmoved in my feelings about the men who flew in those planes. 1205 01:28:07,960 --> 01:28:11,920 Because they were demonstrating such unbelievable bravery to 1206 01:28:11,920 --> 01:28:16,160 get in those bomber planes, night after night after night after night, 1207 01:28:16,160 --> 01:28:20,000 twelve hour missions, freezing cold, cramped, frightened, 1208 01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:24,280 and the fact that they would lose friends and they would still get back in the planes. 1209 01:28:24,280 --> 01:28:26,040 So I haven't changed my mind about them, 1210 01:28:26,040 --> 01:28:29,080 other than they're the heroes that I always thought that they were. 1211 01:28:50,760 --> 01:28:53,880 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 1212 01:28:53,880 --> 01:28:56,920 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk 111772

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