It was an uneventful trip until well inside German airspace when suddenly the port wing lit up like a Christmas tree. Tracer shots danced along the length of the wing and the port inner engine burst into flames with an oil fire. Our engineer Sgt Bailey succeeded with the second attempt and the fire was extinguished. Sadly only moments later as we spotted our attacker, a Ju88, the port engine failed completely. There was a continued but ineffective exchange of machine gun fire between our gunners and the Jerry, but he parted without further damage.
With over 150 miles still to run to the target I gave the order to ditch the bomb load and we turned for home. No other enemies were encountered.
Safe landing and we’re good to go again.
P/O Ron Wood [pilot: Lucky Louise]