Not a great trip for Night Knight.
A single Me110 took us by surprise whilst still out over the North Sea. He turned out to be a persistent blighter who hit us on all three of the passes he made.
The first two passes spayed shells along both wings with no real impact on our airworthiness. At the start of the third pass Sgt Vaughan our bomb aimer managed to take a chunk out of him but to no good effect. On he came and smashed the starboard outer engine and the tail controls. Shells also ripped through the nose section and Sgt Vaughan was hit.
We managed to feather the engine but on getting into the nose section found that Sgt Vaughan had been killed outright.
With no bomb aimer and only three engines, pressing on to the target seemed pure folly so we turned for home.
P/O Jack Steele [pilot: Night Knight]