MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
I have been reading Peter Tunstall's book "the Last Escaper" and he relates a particularly interesting mission.
Their Hampden had been instructed to strike an oil refinery just across the border from the Netherlands. As often happened, they could not locate the target and their orders had been revised to enable them to hit other targets that were of military significance rather than jettison the bombs in the ocean. On the way back they spotted an aircraft flying with its navigation lights turned on. It was obviously German so Tunstall decided to attack it with the single .303 machine gun the pilot could fire and instructed his gunners to open up after they had passed it. Then he noticed the aircraft flashing a light at the ground and suddenly an airfield down below lit up. He ordered that the bomb bay doors be opened and the gyro stabilized bombsight be switched on, but the airfield lights went out before they could attack. So he circled over the airfield and used the recognition light to flash the same Morse Code letters the German aircraft had used. The airfield it up again and he circled onto the flare path as if they were landing and then shoved the throttles in and made a bomb run on the hangars he could see. The gunners reported a very satisfactory fireworks show resulted, with numerous secondary explosions.
Tunstall reports that the Hampden was a vast improvement over the Hind biplanes they had been flying, and having a fighter type cockpit, was very maneuverable. However there was no way for the pilot to get out of his seat in flight, and while they carreid a "Second Pilot" he was no such thing.
Their Hampden had been instructed to strike an oil refinery just across the border from the Netherlands. As often happened, they could not locate the target and their orders had been revised to enable them to hit other targets that were of military significance rather than jettison the bombs in the ocean. On the way back they spotted an aircraft flying with its navigation lights turned on. It was obviously German so Tunstall decided to attack it with the single .303 machine gun the pilot could fire and instructed his gunners to open up after they had passed it. Then he noticed the aircraft flashing a light at the ground and suddenly an airfield down below lit up. He ordered that the bomb bay doors be opened and the gyro stabilized bombsight be switched on, but the airfield lights went out before they could attack. So he circled over the airfield and used the recognition light to flash the same Morse Code letters the German aircraft had used. The airfield it up again and he circled onto the flare path as if they were landing and then shoved the throttles in and made a bomb run on the hangars he could see. The gunners reported a very satisfactory fireworks show resulted, with numerous secondary explosions.
Tunstall reports that the Hampden was a vast improvement over the Hind biplanes they had been flying, and having a fighter type cockpit, was very maneuverable. However there was no way for the pilot to get out of his seat in flight, and while they carreid a "Second Pilot" he was no such thing.
