These times were followed by another, 18.27 hours, the time at which to ‘set course’. We were given the time at which the raid on Cologne would start, the minute when the first bomb was due to be released from the first aircraft over the target, and this was 21.00 hours, with the Halifaxes of 77 Squadron scheduled to be there just five minutes later, between 21.03 and 21.07 hours. We were to approach the target on a heading of 046° Magnetic which was 039° True. The heights at which we were told to fly were all entered on the pilot’s crib and for this raid the story went thus:


From Full Sutton, the first leg was almost due south, flying at 180 mph indicated air speed and climbing to between 5,000 and 7,000 feet until on the same latitude as Birmingham.


This was followed by a climb, still on the same heading, but at the indicated climbing speed of 160 mph, reaching 15,000 to 17,000 feet by the time we got to Reading.


A turn to port took us to Beachy Head, across the Channel on the same


course to the mouth of the River Seine on the French coast and another turn to port aiming at enemy territory, all at 170 mph and 15,000 to 17,000 feet. At the France/Germany border we had to climb at 160 mph to our final bombing height of 19,000 feet. Our course was taking us in a direct line to Mainz and Frankfurt, well inside Germany, but when we reached the same longitude as Luxembourg, and about 50 miles to the north of that city, we made a final 45° turn to port and aimed for Cologne itself, still at 19,000 feet and flying at 160 mph. As soon as the target area was reached and the bombs dropped there was a


turn of a few degrees to port, the start of the journey home, with the nose down and the airspeed up to 180 mph as we got out of the dangers of the target area as fast as we could. Then there was another left turn, taking us due west out of Germany, increasing speed first to 202 and then settling down at 190 mph by losing height to 15,000 to 17,000 feet.


That easterly course took us as far as Ghent in Belgium and here we turned right to reach the Belgian coast about 20 miles east of Ostend and, on that same heading, over the North Sea to The Naze on the coast of East Anglia. There we got the nose down again to 202 mph and descended steadily to be no more than 1,500 feet above the Wash and Lincolnshire, to put down at Full Sutton after a flight of 5 hours 10 minutes. That was our first raid on our own as a raw crew and my first as skipper. It had gone well and Alf Green, our navigator, had got us there – I hope with some accurate handling by the pilot – bang on time. It was a tribute to his excellent navigation, as well as to the navigation aids then in vogue – which had to be used with sense and skill – that in no raid we flew were we ever as much as 30 seconds out in our due time to release our bombs over the target. As the average time to get to our favourite targets in the Ruhr was around two and a half to


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