On the night of 30th
January 1944 P/O Norman Joseph Lyford RAAF, twenty-two year old pilot
of 44 Squadron Lancaster ND514, was last seen by his crew-mates
holding the aircraft steady to enable them to bale-out after being
attacked by a night-fighter about 15 minutes short of Berlin.
In the early hours of the
previous morning (29th January) accredited photographers
had visited RAF Dunholme Lodge to record F/Lt A Moore and 'the crew
of “C – Charlie” on their return from their ninth time to “The
Big City”.....Berlin, to complete their tour of operations in
Lancaster ND514. The photograph appeared on the front page of the
London Sunday Graphic newspaper on 30th January.
Also appearing in that
issue of the Sunday Graphic was a photograph of two young men
standing beside the aircraft in which they had thankfully returned
from a sortie to the German capital the previous night/ earlier that
morning, having landed at 8.26hrs. P/O Norman Lyford RAAF, his B/A
F/Sgt Owen and their crew-mates were fortunate to have survived a
very near miss from a flak shell which caused significant damage to
LM434 – serial-F.
Squadron records noted -
'Damage to aircraft caused by heavy flak. Port wing tip shot off.
Port fin damaged. Holes in starboard mainplane, port mainplane,
port inner engine cowling and starboard elevator trimming tab.'
P/O Lyford looks as
though he'd prefer to be anywhere other than in the limelight.
Having arrived back at Dunholme Lodge around breakfast time crews
were thankful for a stand-down that (Saturday) evening.
Norman Lyford's account -
'We were rather badly shot up by flak over the target, but this
did not affect the mission.'
LM434 was u/s for the
next operation on Sunday evening, 30th January and the
Lyford crew took ND514, no longer required by F/Lt Bert Wright and
crew.
About fifty miles from
the 'Big City' on the way in, ND514 sustained an attack from a
night-fighter causing such damage that P/O Lyford ordered his crew to
bale-out. None of the crew members
were injured during the attack.
The
standard tactic for Luftwaffe night-fighters with conventional,
forward-firing cannon and machine-guns was to attack a bomber from
below and behind -‘von
unten hinten’,
firing at the fuselage to disable the gunners and other crew members.
That some night-fighters were
equipped with ‘schrage-muzik’
upward-firing cannon was still unknown at this time. Their method of
attack was from underneath, aiming to hit a Lancaster’s
wing tanks between the two starboard engines ‘and
pull away immediately without firing at the crew at all’.
So
it is possible that ND514 suffered a 'schrage-muzik'
attack from below into the wing area housing the fuel tanks, causing
a wing and engine fire.
Lyford held the aircraft
under control long enough for his six crew-mates to safely exit the
Lancaster.
Wreckage of ND514 came
down at Geisenhorst, a tiny rural hamlet,
SW of the settlement of Dreetz just south of the Rhinkanal-in-Dreetz,
some 44 miles from Berlin, about 12 minutes Lancaster flying
time. Norman Lyford's remains were recovered and buried in the
parish cemetery at Dreetz on 4th February.
Local witnesses
considered the wreckage to have been that of a twin-engine aircraft,
the RAF Investigation Unit's later interpretation - possibly a
Mosquito. Were only two engines and scattered wreckage found in the
vicinity of Geisenhorst? A likely explanation – a catastrophic
explosion of fuel in the wing-tanks, and the bomb-load. Official
findings suggested that the nature of the loss of ND514 was such that
P/O Lyford's death would have been instantaneous.
Whatever happened,
gallant Norman Lyford had again looked after his crew, ordering them
out and staying at his post until they had made their escape from the
stricken aircraft. All six of his crew-mates survived to become
Prisoners of War.
F/E Sgt. A. Semple
Nav Sgt.
J.R. Tijou
B/A F/Sgt.
G. Owen
W/op
A/g Sgt. R.G. Keen
M/u Sgt.
H. Marrs
R/g Sgt.
J.A. Wainwright
Norman Joseph Lyford,
from Pymble, Sydney, New South Wales
Brave just brave
ReplyDelete100% agreement
ReplyDeleteThere's a honour page on his main site for lyford it's on going but I am told updates are on way
ReplyDeleteMy relative also flew with 44 Squadron. During the same period covering Oct 43 - May 44. Sqn Ldr Hunter's crew. A Flight. KM-K, ND741. Flew the same sortie on the 30th. They got through. They went on to survive the Berlin raid that cost 70 aircraft, the Nuremburg raid that cost 96 aircraft and then the Mailly-Camp raid that cost 56 aircraft. They were lost the very next raid. Salbris. I attend the 44 Sqn reunion each year and there very few vets from that period compared to surrounding months. Must have been very hard for them indeed. My heart goes out to all that lived and died.
ReplyDelete
DeleteDuggie, many thanks for your comment. Your relative S/Ldr Hunter must have been nearing the end of his tour and having survived the Berlin, Nuremburg and Mailly raids must have hoped that good fortune would continue to favour him and his crew. Tragic that a relatively short-haul target as part of a small force would prove their undoing.
The worst period to fly? A very tough question and difficult to define as the bomber war was continually changing - the introduction of new technologies, ever developing radio counter-measures, the phasing out of certain aircraft, changing tactics, spoof raids, indirect routes, all with reciprocal changes made by the German defences.
I never quite trust percentage analysis for anything, however the trend seems to show slightly lower percentage losses during the period of the Berlin campaign than the 'Battle of the Ruhr'. However the intensity of raids during the 'Battle of Berlin' seems to have been statistically greater than the Ruhr campaign, but statistics do not tell the whole story.
During the winter of 1943/44 the German defences were regaining ground over Bomber Command with the use of 'Schrage-muzik' upward-firing cannon and the re-jigged wild-boar and tame-sow night-fighter tactics. Given longer distances to targets, longer flying hours and adverse winter weather conditions (the effects on navigation of higher than forecast wind strengths, dense cloud cover on target identification) my perception is that 'the Big City' was the more formidable target.
Other factors conspired to make certain operations generally 'go wrong' and give rise to greater numbers of aircraft losses.
Ultimately it depended upon whether an aircraft was in a safe part of the sky – for instance on 30th January1944 raid, 460 Squadron RAAF Operational Record Book provided the following views:-
Pilot P/O R N T Wade bombed at 20.18 and subsequently reported “Attack probably in N W part of city, should be good, that moon was definitely not friendly”.
W/O Leary bombed the target at 20.25 and commented on his return “......little opposition and no troubles”.
Last 460 Sqn aircraft to bomb was that of F/Sgt L Petney at 20.34 – 'Quiet trip, some combats seen just short of target'.
Jim Ives' aircraft was shot down on its run-in to the target at about 20.35 and as previously discussed Norman Lyford's was slightly further out and maybe a bit earlier.
To refine things even further – it seems that ND514 exploded, resulting in Norman Lyford's death while his 44 Squadron colleague P/O A Johnston, pilot of JA843, was its sole survivor, being blown clear when his Lancaster exploded following a direct flak strike. Luck or fate?
The remarkable thing was that the young men flying bomber operations kept going in the hope or expectation that they would be the lucky ones and with the commitment that they had a job to do. I think it is fair to say that Bomber Command men kept flying until they didn't come back – or they out-paced luck and reached the end of their tour of ops. Any sortie could find an aircraft in the wrong place at the wrong time - but losses on single raids of 56, 70 and 96 heavy bombers surely indicate how very 'dicey' their job was.
My web-man 'the boy genius' is currently re-modelling the site – the new version will include a visitors page where prepared tributes, information and photos of Bomber Command personnel can be posted by their relatives. If you would like to start the ball rolling Duggie, with more about S/Ldr Hunter please put something together and, when the new pages are up and running, please send it in.