Mission: 111 Target: Karlsruhe, Industry
Aircraft: Ferocious Florrie (2nd mission) Pilot: Peter Mason
The crew of Ferocious Florrie appeared a bit overconfident as they boarded their Lancaster for the mission to Karlsruhe. The relative ease of their first mission inspired them to believe they would handle this mission easily as well. How wrong they were. The flight across the channel and the Netherlands to the German border went without incident until George Taylor the tail gunner yelled while sending out a stream of .303 ammo "It's a Jerry, 6 low". George's fire missed and Pilot Peter Mason shouted "Hang on!" and threw the bomber into evasive manoeuvres; the German Me110 night-fighter also missed. As the banking bomber brought the repositioning Me110 into sight all the guns managed to pour fire at it; the tail and mid-upper guns' tracer trails concentrated on the cockpit and starboard engine and the aircraft tumbled over and fell flaming out of sight. George Taylor and Bill Gardiner will share the first kill for "Florrie".
This did nothing to relieve the hubris of the crew as they continued onto the target city. As marker flares and a glow appeared ahead Stan Bates prepared to settle down to track the target. Suddenly shells were crashing against the port wing and tail. Only the tail hit was effective, lightly wounding the tail gunner with a scratch across the left hand. A Schrage Musik equipped Ju88 had crept up unnoticed and luckily, although piloted by an expert, did not concentrate his fire. Evasive action was called for and both the Lanc's guns and the Junkers missed on the next pass. But the fighter did not miss on its next run concentrating fire on the port wing; but only one hit was effective damaging the wing root. Then it flew off with its rear gunner throwing some parting bullets at the bomber.
Stan Bates settled down for the bomb run. Then the interior of Ferocious Florrie lit up as a searchlight found us and soon the big bomber was at the centre of a cone of several lights. Luckily the expected Wild Boars were not in evidence and the bomber only had to run the gauntlet of the flak; however, although supposedly only moderate three heavy bursts exploded near the Lancaster and eight shrapnel hits clattered against the wings, nose, waist and tail. By a miracle only two were not superficial and that was a hit on the tail oxygen system; but unfortunately the other knocked the bomb controls out in the nose causing Stan to let out a string of expletives. With the bombs needing to be dropped manually Stan's and Peter's concentration deepened and the bombs went away and could be seen for a long time falling towards the centre of the conflagration silhouetted against the fires. In spite of the damaged controls we estimate a 20% went into the target.
Ferocious Florrie turned to leave the area of the target and almost immediately a stream of tracers landed on the bomber, but they were all grouped in a superficial area; George yelled "It's that Junkers again; he must have been waiting for us to leave the flak area". Evasive action was started and the bomber's fire missed; but the Ju88 concentrated its fire on the starboard wing destroying the rafts and knocking out the #4 engine which would not feather. "Damn!" said Peter. "That's going to make it a long trip home". Again the Junkers attacked; again the bomber's guns missed; and again the fighter concentrated its shots — against the port wing this time and damaged the wing root again. It then disappeared with some ineffective parting shots from its rear gunner.
At last the Lancaster was free of the target area and returning slowly across Germany. But another Schrage Musik equipped Ju88 found the damaged bomber and knocked out the engine extinguisher instruments in the cockpit. This fighter's pilot was not as experienced as their previous opponents and missed all further shots as did the bomber's gunners.
The flight back was slow and tedious and exhausting as the pilot Peter Mason was assisted by the engineer Alan Smith in the long flight home. But luckily no further enemy were encountered and Ferocious Florrie eventually landed safely in England. Although Ferocious Florrie received 27 hits, 18 of them were superficial and repairs would be quickly made. George Taylor's wounded hand would not keep him from flying the next mission.
Fighter hits: 19; Flak hits: 8; Damage points: 127