Ed Cooke

102 Squadron

On May 17^th 1941 our crew Sgt.D F Gibson, B A Cotton, E M Cooke & A F Jaggers was posted to 102 Squadron. Reporting in on arrival, Gibson and Cotton were sent to “B”Flight and Alec and I were sent to “A”Flight.

Aircrew were not allowed to live on the Station and were all billeted in Skellfield House three miles away which had been a private girls school pre-war.

Skelfield House Pic: Ed Cooke

Alec and I reported to the Signals Officer and were given a test on the new Marconi 1154 and 1155, I did well on the test having studied it while on 106 Squadron at Finningley and for some reason I was sent on a course at Marconi College in London. I arrived at the College (which was just up the road from Holloway Prison) and remember thinking I was going to visit the sights of London in my spare time. What a letdown, I was put in private digs and for ten days we started at 8-00am, lunch at 12-00 dinner at 5-00pm and then back to school until 9-00pm with a little time before bed to study what we learned during the day.

I arrived back on the Squadron to find that I was crewed up with: Sgt.Allan Davis (Pilot), Roy Burr (Navigator), George Davidson (W/OP) and myself as tail gunner. There being no straight Air Gunners as yet, all W/Op AG’s flew as tail gunners until such time as a new crew was being formed.

Our First Trip

Our first trip was to Bremen, out in the aircraft, double checked everything and sat there thinking that this is what I had been trained for. We took off at 2235 and when over the North Sea Allan called to say that I could test the guns, then a quick burst to make sure all were working. On approaching the enemy coast I could see the heavy AA bursting with dull red bursts but we were lucky that none came close to us, all in all a quiet trip and I remember when we landed 7 hours and 55 minutes later that it was one down and 29 more to go. The trip was quite a let down for what was to come.

Trip Number Two

On July 7^th we were briefed for Essen, taking off at 2305. Approaching the target we were coned by the searchlights, it was almost like looking into the sun, couldn’t see a thing. Allan threw the aircraft all over the sky trying to avoid the searchlights and we finally were going straight down then at last breaking out of the searchlight beams and the heavy AA fire. I could hear the aircraft groaning under the strain and was visualising the wings folding around me. Allan shouted to Roy to give him a hand to pull it out of the dive which he finally did. We pulled out not more than a hundred feet above the Rhine. I was looking directly into the top floors of the warehouses.

Light AA and searchlights opened up on us and I returned fire, putting out quite a few searchlights and discouraging the light AA. I then saw fuel streaming from the starboard wing and called Alan and told him, I was getting a little worried about firing to that side in case I ignited the fuel. Allan told Roy to drop the bombs and we finally made our way from the city and all the activity. Approaching the coast of Norfolk on return and low on fuel Allan called up 'Darky' on the R/T and the searchlights came on pointing us to the nearest aerodrome. We followed the beams but when we came to the end we couldn’t see a thing. Twice Allan went back to the coast and repeated the procedure but nothing at all. Allan called me to look around for a place to put down as we were now running on fumes. Looking around I saw what appeared to be a long straight road and directed Allan to it, he told us to get into crash positions as he was going to do a belly landing. After the dust had settled following a perfect belly landing we got out of the kite only to find that instead of a road we had landed on a dyke or earthworks about thirty feet wide and ten feet above ground level!

Grabbing our thermos’ we slid down the bank and sat to enjoy a cup of coffee. George had a bright idea and operated the dinghy release, got the Navy Rum and we laced our coffee with that. Enjoying our coffee and a cigarette, we were interrupted by some army fellows shouting “Hands Up” and after telling them who there antecedents were they realised that we were on the same side, so we bundled all our stuff together and loaded it into their truck. They then took us to their depot where they supplied us with tea before driving us to Coltishall which was the aerodrome to which the seachlights had been directing us. They dropped us at the Seargants Mess and after we had thanked them, they drove off.

We cleaned ourselves up in the washrooms and went into the dining room for some breakfast. What a surprise for us because at Topcliffe, 77 Squadron was also with us and the place was crowded with two sittings for meals, here there were tables for four and very elegant, far different from our own Mess. It was a fighter station and talking to some of the boys, they were amazed that we had been up there for nearly six hours as they were lucky to get a hour airborne. Allan called our Wingco “Curly” Howes and asked for a plane to pick us up, but he was told they were short of aircraft and we were to make our own way back, so when the Orderly Room opened we were there to pick up warrants for train travel. We met the C O who apologised for not putting out a flare path for us, but being a fighter station they didn’t have a night duty crew.

Transport took us to Coltishall village and when the train for Peterborough came in the guard found us an empty compartment and locked us in, so we lay down to sleep and were awakened three hours later in Peterborough. There was quite a crowd around and we asked the guard if the York train left from this platform, he said yes so we dumped our kit on the platform and lay down to sleep again. We arrived in York only to find that we had missed the last train to Topcliffe, which was on a loop line through Harrogate to Thirsk. I didn’t fancy spending a night on the platform, plus we were starving having not had anything to eat since breakfast and of course no money as we had to empty our pockets before taking off. I went off to study the timetable, the Aberdonian was the next train north but the first stop was Northallerton, so I suggested we talk to the Station Master to see if he would stop the train in Thirsk for us.

Allan and I went to the Station Masters office and explained the situation his reply was “I can’t do that, don’t you know there is a war on?" I asked to use his telephone and said to Allan to call camp and talk to “Curly”, Allan explained the situation to “Curly” and he said to put the Station Master on, we could hear everything that was said and “Curly” really tore him up etc, so the outcome was these four dirty airmen got off the train in Thirsk.

There was transport waiting for us at Thirsk and after changing our kit we went into de-briefing. “Curly” was really tearing into Allan until I could stand it no longer, so told him what happened. Strangely enough, the aircraft we had was one of very few on the Squadron without self sealing tanks!

So, two ops down and 28 to go, I didn’t know what to think now because it seemed as if this flying could be dangerous.