Ned Thompson DFC Rear Gunner Thanks to Fran & Ron Johnson |
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Our first mission over Germany was to Essen on May 27th 1943. Essen, which lies in the Ruhr Valley (known as Happy Valley' to aircrew) contained many large munitions factories and was considered to be one of the worst targets in Germany. It had been a tough trip and then just two days later we were headed for the Ruhr Valley again, this time our target was supposed to have been Wuppertal but our navigator was a little off course and we were picked up by German radar and then coned |
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Ned Thompson 1943 |
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Once you were coned you were
considered a goner, and with the German anti-aircraft
fire (flak) set at 20,000 feet we were sitting ducks with
a full bomb-load in the bomb-bay! We were buffetted about by exploding flak and knew we had been hit although at the time we were unaware of the extent of the structural damage. We asked our navigator for our location, and to enable us to reduce weight we dropped our bombs and immediately dived 5,000 to 6,000 feet. I was terrified and the effects of gravity were very severe with your body pulling 'G' force |
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Coned by searchlights |
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| During our descent I spoke to our pilot, John Grime on the intercom and asked him to 'trim her out'. He responded "okay Tommy" and the stress could be clearly heard in his voice. |  |
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Ned Thompson 2005 |
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As we pulled out of the dive, Johnny came back on the intercom "Watch out for night-fighters now, Tommy" Night-fighters always positioned themselves just outside the searchlight belt and close to the edge of the bomber stream. We eventually climbed back to normal altitude and made a right turn back through the Ruhr Valley and Wuppertal then followed the bomber stream out of there. |
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Ned with crew |
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We were grateful to return safely to our base at Langar in Nottinghamshire and were finally able to assess the damage inflicted on our aircraft. The trip lasted 5 hours 20 minutes (although it seemed much longer at the time) |
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Ned's DFC Letter Click for larger image |
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My biggest moment was when we found we had finished our tour of operations. My pilots father had sent some money for us to celebrate and celebrate we did! We were relieved and grateful to have survived our 24 operations whilst so many others had paid the ultimate price. | ||||||||||||||||||
John Grime (left) with Ned |
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I was back home with my wife in Toronto, Canada on V.E day where the whole city was ecstatic! |
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