Page 16 - James Edward Raw Rees

One night probably over the Ruhr, Ernie’s Lancaster was hit by flak exploding shells under the tail.
It was not a direct hit but the force of the explosion tipped the Lancaster on its nose into a vertical
dive, height would be about 28,000 feet. Ernie told me he had the trim tabs on the elevator fully up
and with his feet on the instrument panel put all he had pulling back on the control column, he also

had his flight engineer helping him. They had less than a 1000 feet under them when the
Lancaster came out of the dive. They were loaded up with a 1000lb block buster bomb
and incendiaries.

The flight engineer had a cold and shouldn’t have been on that mission and came home with burst
ear drums. He spent three months in hospital but had to complete his thirty-two missions with
another crew. Ernie had a mascot which he kept in his drawer and on the night of the first flight
engineer’s first mission with his other crew it disappeared with him. He finished his missions safely
and the mascot came home. (When the war was over Ernie brought his flight engineer home to NZ
with him and vouched for him as an English Emigrant).

On another mission a German night fighter (They were equipped with radar to find our bombers in
the dark) attacked them. Ernie’s tail gunner got in the first burst of machine gun fire and shot down
the “Jerry” and this claim was confirmed by another Lancaster crew.

The night before the D Day landings in Normandy (6 June 1944) 617 Squadron (The highly
th
specialised Dam Buster Squadron) had the task of very accurately dropping “window” (small
parcels of tinfoil) over the English Channel at its narrowest point to the coast of France. Accurately
dropped it gave the illusion of an armada of ships heading towards France on the German Radar,
helping to keep a German counter there and away from Normandy where the invasion force was
going to land. Now 617 Squadron were one Lancaster short to do the job. It fell to Ernie and his
crew. In 617 Squadron history it was just another Lancaster from another Squadron and
no details of who it was.

On a day where weather conditions over Germany prevented bombing operations, Ernie had an
arrangement with the CO of a nearby fighter station to fly his Lancaster with his flight engineer to

mock bomb the base (the time unknown to the fighter boys) to give them practise
in getting airborne.
On one particular day they did a surprise attack, Ernie put the Lancaster into a steep turning bank,
went to straighten up to go home, the ailerons jammed and Ernie had another emergency on his

hands. He had to put on full opposite rudder and fully trim the ailerons with the trim tabs to get the
Lancaster flying level and on a course for home. He had to land the Lancaster under full power on
the deck and his flight engineer then cut the throttles landing in the normal way otherwise the
Lancaster would have flipped and crashed. A bearing supporting the aileron control cable had
seized. After their thirty-two missions over Germany, Ernie was posted back to Air Training Crews
on the old Wellington Bombers.