Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry


On returning to Woodhall Spa, the full extent of the flak damage was apparent: a shell had passed clean through the main petrol tank without exploding - leaving holes big enough to fit his leg in - while one steel sliver had sliced the glycol lines to the engine radiator, hence his first trip back on three engines.


On the night of 27-28 July, Knilans returned to Hamburg, the resultant firestorms of “Operation Gomorrah’ now having taken hold. Knilans sets the scene:


‘We began to see a glow on the horizon some 100 miles from Hamburg. It grew to a tremendous sea of fire lighting ground and sky for miles around. The seething flames were rearing upwards several hundred feet to merge into a column of smoke. This fiery column rose up to 20,000 feet.’


As it transpired, the fiery column of smoke proved to be Knilans’ saviour - he sought its cover after being jumped by an enemy night fighter - ‘like a shark coming from the depths’. He continues:


‘I had my oxygen mask on but the smoke began to make my eyes water. I turned some more, still inside the smoke, before coming out into the clear sky again. The bandit was gone. The trip home and the landing were uneventful.’


He was to return to Hamburg on the night of 2-3 August, this time amidst stormy conditions. Bomber Barons takes up the story:


‘He took off in a heavy, gusting rainstorm - ‘like flying into a bottle of ink - and on reaching Hamburg found the still-burning city covered by a massive thunderhead. Having his position plotted quickly, Knilans made a timed run to target, plunging into the heart of the glowering storm clouds. No sooner into cloud than he felt the Lancaster forced into a dive by an immense down-draught, with the crazily-dancing blue streaks of St. Elmo’s Fire flowing over the windshield and wings. Rime ice began forming on wings and propellers, breaking away to hammer the fuselage like frozen flak.


At 14,000 feet Knilans gave the order to drop bombs, hit an up-draught and promptly pushed his control column fully forward with fully applied starboard rudder. The Lancaster shot upwards again, emerging from the clouds at 21,000 feet with the starboard wing nearly vertical. Flying south of Bremen before turning for the home run, Knilans and his gunners warded off a half-hearted attack by a night fighter along the way but reached base without further problems. Afterwards, a flak shell hole was found in the starboard elevator, just two feet from the rear turret.’


Unusually for Knilans, his next few sorties passed without serious incident, namely attacks on Mannheim, Milan and Munchen Gladbach in August. He was commissioned Pilot Officer and, having made two trips to Hanover and another to Mannheim in September, took-off on his ‘unlucky thirteenth’ sortie - a strike on Hagen on the night of 1-2 October. Owing to lost oil pressure he had to feather his starboard inner engine over the target and return to base on three engines. The cause of the fault was subsequently revealed by his ground crew at Woodhall Spa: a ‘friendly’ incendiary bomb had penetrated the starboard inner engine, severing the oil and petrol feed lines - but failed to ignite.


Another run-in with night fighters - loss of Rear Gunner Tragically, no so luck favoured Knilans - or more precisely his rear gunner - on his next sortie. Bomber Barons takes up the story:


‘On the night of 3 October Nick and his crew were in good humour. The rear gunner, Gerry Jackson, had been presented with a newborn son by his young wife in Dumfries, Scotland the previous day; moreover, the whole crew were due for a nine days’ leave next morning. Climbing in to JB131, ‘T-Tommy’, they left base at 1844 hrs. and set course for Holland on the first leg of a raid against Kassel. Two and a half hours later, as Knilans made his turn for the second leg to fly between Munster and Hamm, his wireless operator reported a blip on his Monica radar set but thought it might be another Lancaster some 300 yards further back and lower. Knilans rolled his aircraft to starboard to let his gunners get a better view, but as he straightened out again a stream of tracer cannon shells and bullets came up through the port wing, just two feet from Nick's head, while other cannon shells thudded into the fuselage.


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