What Happened When Ewan McGregor Joined RAF Bomber Command | Bomber Boys | Timeline

[Music] between 1939 and 1945 125,000 young men faced the most dangerous task of any British servicemen they suffered the highest casualty nearly half of them 55,000 it looks like hell and you really think this is going to be it they were the MoMA crews who took on Hitler when air power was the only way of striking back at NASA Germany we were involved in turtle war we were involved in fighting for our lives I'm Ewan McGregor and this is my brother Colin we've always had a fascination with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War last year we made a documentary about the Battle of Britain but we wanted to know what happened next the few had saved us from invasion and the RAF was already building a huge force that would take the fight over into Germany and that forces Bomber Command during my career in the RAF I too was a bomber pilot I flew this supersonic tenido unlike my predecessors who flew the legendary Lancaster and I'm going to get the chance to see if I can fly the last remaining Lancaster in Britain the pilot was one of a team of seven who lived fought and often died together I'm going to explore what it was like to be part of this band of brothers in the air their story is one of endurance teamwork and understated heroism no I never flew him before and even driven the motorcar before you've got a job on and that's what you just did you just sat there and did it but it's also a story that is dogged by controversy despite the undoubted heroism the men of Bomber Command found themselves to be ignored after the war the massive attacks on Hamburg and Dresden killed thousands of civilians and were judged by many to be unnecessary there was a war and we had to win this God knows help to turned out if we hadn't won [Music] in 1940 the RAF fighters repelled German invasion in the Battle of Britain but the German Luftwaffe continued Bombur cities and blades and with the british army defeated at Dunkirk Prime Minister Winston Churchill identified the only way to pack our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery of the air the fighters are our salvation but the Bombers alone provide us the means of victory Winston Churchill 1940 and one aircraft more than any other symbolizes that struggle for victory RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire is home to the last flying Lancaster bomber it's maintained by the arias Battle of Britain Squadron Leader Ian Smith is its Guardian this is one of two air worthy Lancaster's in the world - left right yeah and the other ones in Canada and issues in her all her glory isn't she stunning yeah so how many would they've built them 7377 Lancaster's were built yeah but circa three and a half thousand was shot down over Germany Lancaster was the best aircraft ever during the war it could hold a very big bomb load it could take a lot of punishment and it was a real pleasure to fly four beautiful rolls-royce merlin engines at the age of 22 who will enjoy that fantastic airplane beautiful she's a real lady and like old ladies if you treat him right they go the lancaster carried the heaviest bomb lord of any bomber in the war it meant that was little space inside mind your head and what will be transparent straightaway is just how to spot fact there's an enormous aeroplane yeah just how little room there is in here I just think you're just a normal gear here imagine you had yeah with my jeans been flying jacket on it's all very well doing it in daylight but if this airplane was on fire spinning out of control in the dark it would be a bit of a challenge in it just a bit oh yeah look at this I was incredibly open that the site's amazing this is exactly as she would have been when she was flying in wartime all these instruments are original yep absolutely so the pilot the captain of the aeroplane would have sat in the left-hand seat in front of Hugh Ewan and this is a bulletproof plate here at the back there which would have protected him to some degree you've got really good view and honestly it does feel very vulnerable doesn't it you feel really under block here I mean this is literally the only three eighths of an inch perspex and the tighter the walls of the aeroplane is there's two millimeters of aluminium which won't stop anything to realize my dream of piloting this precious and iconic aircraft I need to train first on some other heavy planes from the era [Music] heralds the arrival of the Marquis RAF trusts to supervise that training this fellow texting in if I now is your instructor alright and he's going to take you through the training for you to be able to see what the boys went through to fly the Lancaster okay making this dramatic entrance is Air Marshal cliffs pink former RAF pilot he's an expert on Second World War planes and recently taught me to fly the Spitfire hello there's a pilot we recognize tell me the MacGregors we're here come and make sure you didn't get up to see whether you remembered all your last summer cliff guided me through the basic training fighter pilots experienced before I was allowed to pilot the single-engine Spitfire [Music] but this time I'll have to master a two engine world or to transport plane before my light to pilot for engine Lancaster for me is a member six or seven squadrons probably the greatest privilege that you ever get to fly on a Lancaster so you know certainly a career long ambition of mine today [Music] the lancaster who become the most successful but it only came into service two and a half years into the conflict in the early days of World War two Bomber Command was ineffective its force of just 280 light bombers flying in daylight sustained losses of up to 50% in one disastrous attack on all burg and Denmark all 11 planes were shot down [Music] then on November the 14th 1948 rail in Coventry showed the RAF how to bomb effectively Stephen Bungay an expert on the air war has brought us to look at newsreel of the attack all available German life bombers were put into the air on the night of November 14 a million pounds of bombs were dropped on the city it was the most devastating rate of the war so far 60,000 buildings were destroyed and 568 civilians lost their lives Coventry was a center of aircraft manufacturing and instead of targeting just the factories the Luftwaffe chose to flatten the whole city [Music] yeah the mass craving things something I've never seen there did another one not what they the Germans achieved in Coventry was a concentration of bombing it wasn't just scattering things over quite a wide area and that that's very important for the consequences that the RAF drew from this they realized that if you had some specialists using specialized equipment which we didn't have at the time but quickly started to develop then you could achieve concentration and concentration had a big impact Bomber Command now knew what it had to do if it couldn't hit individual factories it would destroy everything around them and concentrated raids this became known as area bombing the objective was Industrial disruption by destroying infrastructure simply the means that people used to get to work in the morning you can produce a dip in industrial production the targets were the major German industrial cities like Berlin and Hamburg and the manufacturing heartland of the Ruhr but it would take nearly two years before Bomber Command could put its plan into action [Music] if I'm going to fly the Lancaster by the end of the week I'll have to start my training so I've come to White Walton a former Orion place to learn on this box I need Dakota my supervisor cliff is who keep me up with Kath Barnum I cath she's one of only two qualified Dakotan structures in the country he's your new student good I hope he doesn't let me down he flew the tiger moth in the Harvard and the Spitfire last year hey Tim already back on the heavy metal now Sam oh yeah this is a pretty solid old airplane the dc-3 it's excellent for him to get a feel for that before he gets on to something which is extra tonnage of the of the Lancaster that's it no I've got Kath next to me and I've got to make sure that when she asked me to do something I do it correctly is to have to happen like that sir I'm quite nervous about it he's asking all the right questions it's always a good start then looking a little bit apprehensive I think this World War two veteran is so unlike the type of plane I'd fly today in my job as a commercial pilot and even though it needs Kaif to help me get it off the ground this beast cliff will be passing a critical eye of the proceedings if I shower for just but you have to prove to your eyes now after all the preflight checks it's time for the real test take off there's so much to concentrate time is so difficult to control this kind of plane on the ground I'm straining to keep it on a straight track that was nice well it's alright in there nice and straight gosh sounds amazing doesn't this I'm brilliant a plane very good pile of course all the best it's hard to describe what it feels like it's like driving a vintage bus with manual gears after being used to a modern sports car that was good to me anyway when you're in the back of a big airplane like this she said see your and he was not paddling too hard too it suggests he was keeping him reasonably straight I've been fine for more than 20 years and this is tough it makes you think about those 18 year old trainees flying a monster like this for the first time at RAF flying schools potential pilots which Harry paid from the Royal troops the remaining volunteers went on to specialize in other crew disciplines [Music] whole pilot recruits were then sent abroad to one of the 333 Empire Air Training schools they were scattered throughout the British Empire eighteen-year-old Desmond Pelle went straight from Charterhouse school to learn to fly in Canada Canada of course happened to be extremely good place for training because there were no black eye conditions and you do - you flew incomplete - peacetime conditions which was wonderful red parka was just nineteen to be up in the sky on your own in a beautiful aeroplane with the freedom of the sky a fantastic what a privilege it was now I never flown before and even driven a motor car before remind me when you take plan 1 again with again with the gears yeah that's already done that's it yeah so we are final and stable - III - it's nice I'm still wrestling with is demanding - with engine work but now I put the measure of the controls I'm really enjoying it this is real physical fine he's on final approach they've got the gear down so as you can see it's working pretty hard so nervous about theirs getting this plane back onto the the tricky part missed opiates were mixed okay this is the big moment let's see if he does it bingo busy really now the fun really starts is keeping it straight good good man landings one thing but with a tailwheel airplane the next thing is keeping his strength [Music] all right : this job I'm a bit sweaty it was hard work considering you I think not too bad eh very good yeah yeah how does it feel what does it feel like to fly it's beautiful in the air it's really solid you know yeah I mean you like you say you've got it you've got to come out of command date you got it yeah tell it where you wanted to go before I finally get my hands on the Lancaster cliff has a much tougher task up his sleeve if you went to the cinema in 1940 you're the thousand pound loss Bomber Command had switched to nighttime raids and the crews were reporting that they were hitting their targets good man mega nuts or cigar a Prime Minister Winston Churchill was about to discover the shocking truth at the National Archives in Cleveland I'm meeting archivist Jessica lucky who's going to show me what was really going on in 1941 right this is an important document for the history of Bomber Command and it was written in 1941 and and it's an analysis of the success rate of the bombing campaigns that went on and over in Germany it was the first scientific report that was done so the first time they had statistics before that it was just the the crews reporting back and saying whether they'd hit target or not how did they gather that evidence how did they get scientific evidence and they use photographs they use photographs and on the undercarriages of the planes and that would take pictures of when the bombs were set off right and and from those photographs they could then write the report I want to make a sort of snooker joke but I can't think of one for those of you watching in black and white I think is next at the blue oh good so let me turn to report for you say there you are an examination of night photographs taken during night bombing in June and July points to the following conclusions of the aircraft recorded as attacking that target only one in three got within five miles and over Germany as a whole the proportion was only one in four and over the Ruhr it was only one in ten does that mean the only one in tenth got over the target or the bombs dropped hit the target only once hadn't actually reached the target so what would the reaction have been when this report was read by the top brass and what was what was the reaction to it it was shocked there was it was simple shock they couldn't believe just how bad things were Wow surprising to see how ineffective the bombing campaign was early on and and clearly to Churchill and to the the powers that be at the time that it was so ineffective and he up interest in see how they put that right how that what they put in place and to try and improve matters for Churchill the answer was simple Bomber Command needed a complete overflow and he started at the top in February 1942 Arthur Harris was appointed its new commander-in-chief we're meeting author Patrick Bishop to find out more about Harris so one name that keeps cropping up during our journey through this research is bomber Harris well bomber Harris was the name that the general public knew him by but among his peers he was Bert Harris and to his men he was butch he had a bristly little moustache that given this era of Paul Keim belligerents and you crossed him at your peril but what he did have was enormous Drive and enormous energy and enormous confidence and he brought all those qualities to Bomber Command he ride at a good time these big four injured bombers were just arriving at the squadrons and he turned these heavy bombers into a weapons of mass destruction I mean you can take from his arrival the time when things start getting I'm very unpleasant for the Germans yeah was he like do you think by the part by the crews I think he was respected in enormous ly and they I think understood what he what it was that he was doing and the fact that their lives were being put on the line I think they they understood that that's what had to be done and I mean hard men are needed in wartime and here certainly that Harris had an unflinching belief that bombing alone could win the war and he didn't mince his words the Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them Rotterdam London Warsaw and half a hundred other places they put that rather naive theory into operation they have sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind that whirlwind had four engines and it was called the Lancaster with the top speed of nearly 300 miles an hour there was faster than any of its predecessors it also carried the biggest bomb board of any aircraft in the war it's 33 feet long when it's released it slowed another 2 or 3 acres of Germany will never be the same again Harris now had the weapon he needed he placed it at the center of his plans to build a huge force that he believed could break the Germans by aerial bombing along he dreamed of assembling a thousand bombers for a single raid so he doggedly pursued the Air Ministry to build more planes the drive to get the new heavy bombers out of the factory demanded a huge workforce I'm meeting Susan Jones who as a teenager worked as a Riveter on the new state-of-the-art Lancaster so so this is the first time you've seen your plane for a little while isn't it it's so emotional you know I could just cry now just looking at her yeah she's absolutely brilliant yeah how long did you build these planes for five years four more aged 16 16 regular night 7:00 at night so 7:00 in the morning for five years five years happiest days of my life oh they were brilliant these four-engine bombers were affectionately known as 10,000 rivets flying in close formation about any man I call rivet just give me a couple seconds on the go just to top this bring it all right there we go that's one done that's it yeah okay that's all I got oh we love to be quicker than that good River though no it's not that can you get that underneath there yep well so I didn't wait for your command I think you should have a go for everything maybe okay I'll hold it with it okay prove it here we go nopal is a professional one you see that's that's a real pro that one think I'll go Joker you [Laughter] in 1942 700 of the revolutionary new Lancaster's were delivered to frontline bases the lack of stir was something else it was a real war machine and it looked apart it stills to me a powerful powerful machine I'm very proud can I I was associated with it whatever maneuver you wanted it to do it did it did it did brilliant he felt comfortable it could take a lot of punishment it could fly on to edge of the one side quite easily in fact I do know one chap who brought her that legs all the way back from Germany on one engine to fly the knee bombers trainees are pouring out to the flying schools and it wasn't just the pilots each Lancaster needed six more crew members two Gunners a flight engineer the navigator the bomber and the wireless operator Bomber Command was also a multinational force one in four of us recruits came from overseas all were volunteers in the wartime hangar wireless operator job guru because the reasons he joined up when he was just 18 one you got more money - you got cheese with your blankets which I thought was so civilized yeah three you were given a pair of shoes and a pair of boots rather than two pair of boots I hated wearing boots and fourthly because once you've got your wing using a colloquial term at the time he pulled in the birds the process of turning the individuals into a team was known as crewing up this wasn't the usual hierarchical military process it was rather more democratic looking back it seemed a bit chaotic because you'll be put in a hangar and they said right get on with it get crewed up and toes the doors we're stuck in a great big room full of pilots navigators bombers wireless operators and two Gunners and told yourself get yourself crewed up you stand around wondering what's going to happen ace who should she go is and this chap came up is obviously older than we and he said he's I'm a regular he said I've our YouTube chat for cruising yeah yes we are and he said well I found a pilot I've questioned him and he told me he had a crash while he was training so I think if we play all right in future but he'll do for us so I said well okay that suits our so off we went so that was a crew this was a remarkable mixing of classes ages and nationalities unthinkable before the war stretched OBE a crew might consist of a former public school boy a London docker a farmer from New Zealand and a Canadian bank clock all suddenly became blood brothers we helped each other out in everything and we were a good team if we hadn't been I wouldn't be here today and one thing that I remember with some emotion is fact that in the billet sharing with another crew all Kiwis and I recall that both crews went on an operation and when we came back all their kids are gone and bed stripped and I remember sitting on anyiah beds and being quite shattered by this experience of losing these guys who've been with us so we did what most blokes do in that case anyone things as they go down the pub and get sozzled the crews were now setting out nightly in the new four-engine bombers to carry out Harris's grand plan of defeating Germany by area bombing along a mission could last up to 10 hours targeting industrial centers deep in the heart of Germany the telephone password ring then the flight command of the court that's it boys it's on then there'll be a deadly hush that meant that night we're gonna be on helps we would disappear up to the mess feed meal always eggs and bacon and sausage bit of rye bread then you would go up to the briefing room and there they would draw back the curtain and you could see where your target was then would be a big oh if it was you know the long one once the planes were loaded up with bombs and fuel the crews were ready to go once you got on the end of the runway to take off then the tension was really wound up there was no talking at all none you went to the green oldest one and you took off me so why went you to take off used to think am I going to be back here in a few hours time navigator Douglas Hudson recalls an extraordinary moment just as his bow horse headed out across the North Sea there's a flight of German bombers coming almost on the reciprocal opposite trap so the skipper said don't do anything and I say you do and you know what they did they just gave us that winged salute and they went on to bomb Ghul and we went on the Bombers took birth the cruise would have to remain alert for many hours and something stronger than coffee was more for amphetamine pills they came this wakey-wakey tablets we used to corner wakey-wakey tablets personally so I never never took him how do you stick Mart with a bit of chewing gum on the side of the the inside of the rear turret you know I only did it once I didn't need him again I was I was wound up before I went anyway like the seventh in the crew stand Brad our gunner he's also a decorated ace he shot down five German fighters never ever ever when my life was ever comfortable no no friend to death then anybody says he wasn't well he had bloody ha the crews were allowed to run the gauntlet of the German air defenses [Music] back at white watham I'm ready for the next stage of my training on another Dakota it brings me one step closer to fly in the Lancaster and cliff wants to use the flight to give me a flavor of her difficult most basic navigation task was during World War two yeah I've plotted the course and I need Colin to fly a set suite to get to the destination on time so what sort of speed dealing to fly at 120 120 120 knots knots knots oh this is miles per hour it is is it yeah well we've got to a lot of nautical offs it's in Melser what what's the speed dials in this one that's what I thought okay actually where he's acting very I don't know how to convert it what is the conversion on basics what was the basic own eyes you converted from nose to miles then well I'll just have to fly 138 miles per hour now equal hundred twenty dots is that right yeah okay good look good good good no one told me about the nautical miles thankfully world war two navigators were better informed it's properly exciting to be here I'm a bit nervous about the navigation but we'll we'll just have to see how that goes but it is unbelievably exciting to be in this airplane yeah well maybe we'll end up somewhere fancy in Normandy or something we do we can have a crab [Music] of GPS radar navigators bad [Music] wants me to navigate the south I love white [Music] is to use landmarks along the way to of course and on time [Applause] the road but after a good start I think I may have lost an entire town [Music] there are just wet [Music] I mean you Yeah right over the top target yeah we've reached the first destination not bad for a beginner when we were flying to Lancaster my Canadian navigator was able to produce a fix every six minutes throughout the flight which I think was a tremendous achievement of concentration in order that we would arrive at our target den all the time that we've been instructed to arrive [Music] now for the tricky part the cliff wants to take me on a simulated bombing run over water it's the closest I'll get tonight fun so on Mars to help me at all [Music] there it is [Music] we've got the target 60 seconds that marked the difference between success and failure in a night bombing one we would have dropped our bombs and two dogs overshot by disastrous 20 miles [Music] but navigating at night wasn't the only problem of our crews faced as they crossed the North Sea they were picked up by German radar the closer they got to their destination the more intense the searchlights and the flak from the anti-aircraft guns Mikoyan searchlight and they had us for 35 minutes now you can guarantee basically that if you were caught insert slaves you could say good night nurse what was your lot but fortunately for us we came to the Germans have been idle anti-aircraft what lap in the 88-millimeter thousands were diverted from the Russian front to stop the RAF [Music] we can view the target on flames and surrounded by millions of shell bursts it looks like hell and you really think that this is going to be here to overwhelm the enemy's defenses through the target area and a tightly packed former street another lancaster came out for my starboard side and stuck his wingtip straight into us just under the mid-upper turret because of couldn t curly a bloody big bang even though the tail of the aircraft was close to breaking away dave refused to abandon his position the skipper said to me well David you can bail out if you wish we could still been attacked by enemy aircraft my turret was still operational so why should I jump out what leave my mates if the plane made it to the target then the most dangerous part of all the bombing run itself the pilot had to fly straight and level no matter what you say bombs away and you could also look into the bomb bay from the Bombers position to make sure they've all gone and if they have closed the bomb doors and then they get out of the party gets out of these troubles then the aircraft lifts keep having got rid of the weight and we're all very relieved shut the bomb doors in a way we went for home [Music] bomber Harris was a man in a hurry by May 1942 just three months into the job he mustered enough resources to unleash 1,000 bombers in a single raid the target was Cologne the first wave was so successful that by the time the second wave took off they didn't need their navigators before we cross the English coast the skipper said to the navigator I think I can see a red glow in the sky it's a long long way away the Navigator replied that cologne you don't need me anymore just head for it we could actually see cologne burning from England looking out it was just a small red glow on the horizon when we got there the whole place was a sea of fire and we dropped our bombs into the middle of it he was a piece of cake really [Music] the raid destroyed two and a half thousand industrial buildings they killed 469 civilians and bombed more than 40,000 out of there they should the Nazi High Command so much that cologne survivors were ordered to remain silent about the devastation one payment for Harris it was confirmation that his master plan would work a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war well and my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet and we hope he soon the rua Essen Berlin and countless other cities were the targets of area bombing being hit night after night the bomber crews were now undertaking large-scale raids into the heart of Germany they were often flying twice a week to targets up to six hours and with the u.s. entry into the war and John forty-two former command now had it from the Dubois in the summer the US began to bomb by day and then the Allies could hit German war industry but there was a price to pay the German defenses were becoming evermore deadly a Lancaster lasted for an average just seven missions over Germany only one in six of the crews was expected to survive a tour of 30 operations the biggest threat was German night fighters the tail Gunners were the Bombers first line of defense learning how to hit a fast-moving fighter plane involved constant practice 87 year-old Dave fellows wants to show Colin and I have he did it so he did use clay pigeon shooting these clays as practiced in you we did a lot right from the very element to a gunnery school because it was the best way of teaching deflection and also your line of sight Gunners were given a regular allocation of clays so that they continued to practice eighteen inches ahead oh dear feel the Fraternal competition kind of starting to swell well it's hard to hit these fast moving clays Oh shooting down night fighters must have been infinitely more difficult okay really close from going through the training to actually flying in the rear turret there for a real mission must have been a big big head is sticking out like organ stop looking for an airplane yeah there was an enemy one so he's right in there like quick give me oh you got a bill for the side of that one yeah we winged it you winged it you definitely wing there laughs when they're having trained with a shotgun Dave then had to master the 303 caliber machine gun armor of David main wants to show us how effective they were ready okay okay I'm shooting a metal plate the same thickness as the armor on a German night fighter okay your own time okay clip this was protection for the pilot and aircrew yeah usually around his seat and it's actually failed to penetrate in the armor piercing all the ball oh yeah yeah the ball didn't go through nope and the armored piercing sort of didn't go through either and they broke the back but it did more than survivable that kind of thing Dave's chance of shooting the aircraft down was purely hitting a fuel line our hydraulics liar or a control service that is the only thing that was going to bring that aircraft down using 303 the tail gunner strikes me as the loneliest and toughest job of all I want to get some sense of what it was like for Dave aged just 19 so I'm gonna squeeze into the Lancaster turret wearing all the gear that he wore to withstand the sub-zero temperatures [Music] that would shut behind me that's quite weird I mean that is quite that's quite a claustrophobic filly so that's your world now for nine hours or more this is my world but if a dentist a moment in there would never go never got above zero that's for sure it was cold there's no good takin of flasks cousin around about twenty thousand feet or more it used to freeze up anyhow they gave you a bar of chocolate but that froze so hard you couldn't even chew it you couldn't stand could endure all you could do was move like this that's what you could do it's difficult enough getting in but getting out in a hurry was another thing altogether so if I had to bail out of this my par shoots out there okay I would have to turn the the turret into this position so the doors were there I'd have to open the doors like this this one gets a bit stuck I'd have to lean back grab my parachute here off that you get it back in the air clip my parachute on then I'd have to turn the turret round so that my back was outside here and then fall backwards out into the night and if the plane was on fire or if the plane was in a in a spin which it often was it would be I mean almost impossible I think which is why so many of the poor rear Gunners didn't make it you know they didn't get out on you women parachute was if the skipper gave the orders to bail out on you exactly what to do we inaptitude in our aircraft our crew if the airplane stays up there we stay with the airplane simple as that from my mother's sleep I fell into the state and I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze six miles from Earth loosed from its dream of life I walked to black flak and the nightmare fighters and when I died they washed me out of the turret with the hose with limited firepower the crews employed another tactic to avoid German night fighters the corkscrew this was a series of fast dives and claims more suited to a fighter but the brilliant Lancaster was more than up to it if you're gonna suddenly said corkscrew port you went right through it turned it right down back then you screwed around at the bottom you went up the - gage screwed over the top and down and you can imagine the strain on that aircraft and with a full bomb load on you were doing this sort of thing we were attacked four times on one night by fighters and we escaped from every single time by corkscrew but the corkscrew was only useful if you could see the enemy coming in 1943 crews reported seeing other planes blow up in midair for no apparent reason the Luftwaffe had developed a new deadly secret weapon known rather bizarrely as jazz music shraeger music German night fighter pilots realized that the bombers had a blind spot namely underneath they were able to come up underneath and they had a couple of guns and pointing up at an angle through the cockpit the bomber they were attacking wouldn't see them it wouldn't hear them the first thing they'd know there'd be cannon shells ripping through the aircraft from beneath if the thing was below you firing this jazz music cannon there was no way out one of the pilots who used this deadly weapons Rolfe Airport he flew the Messerschmitt 110 hunting down British bombers he shot down eight tell us about the first time you engage the Lancaster yeah about 120 yards higher so I was shaking and my heart was loving of course and I said to me don't miss don't miss so I positioned myself under the Lancaster and not thinking that the Lancaster was on the flight to the target so it had all the bombs in I aimed in the middle of the feud which and the thing exploded after a second and the result was a concealed anymore I was so blinded for about five minutes and then slowly the sight came back Rolf was so close to his victims that he was able to record their serial numbers in his logbook abscess Lancaster abscess Lancaster I've got the number from some of them it was a church le fixed and here three and one night within 15 minutes the new upward firing cannon meant that in 1943 the night fighters were accounting for 70% of former commando forces one man lived to tell his story of the school reg Barker's lancaster was torn apart by shrinking Busey and reg began to black out I couldn't move a little finger even I was pinned up against the canopy of the roof the roof canopy of the cockpit and I could see the fires burning below the thighs that we'd started in teal and it was quite evident that it would only be seconds perhaps before we hit the earth then suddenly all was peace went quiet and I arrived in the place in the heavenly abode to which no doubt the Almighty had intended I don't know [Music] suddenly there was a swishing sound which I realize afterwards was the wind tearing through my clothes I was out in the sky I wasn't in the cockpit anymore how that happened really it's only a matter of conjecture and I could see my aircraft coming down beside me very much a blaze of course the parachute opened and I could see below me the trees of a would flag lit by the flaming aircraft and that moment had dropped into the treetops so that was a miraculous escape Chris Geffen Gorin reg spent the rest of the conflict as a prisoner of war whoo so these are my identity tags dog tags as we call them one was my RAF officers tag and the other one is the one is issued to me by the Germans when I became a guest of the of the Nazis Stalag Luft one it says five one eight two that's me the nightly dice with death was a horrendous strain for the young man of Bomber Command gunner Stan Bradford recalls a crew member who cracked up on a mission Jordan won't trip we had a problem with our engineer to this day Stan won't reveal his name there was no ginger but not letting his name up ginger but he was a ginger head and ginger who wasn't available he was hiding behind the pilot's seat you just took away we never saw him again your documents will be stamped lmf lack of moral fiber and that put you in a terrible situation afters if anybody just asked to see document service documents cases of lmf were rare for the rest their stress was released in other ways there are some extreme cases people are shooting off revolvers of out of the windows at night and you know really to do low-level beat ups of the air time and all sorts of things and they would just get told off they realized that you had to let off steam to get away from the war for few shortages we always did everything together so when we went out together we had to get on pace two-seater mg so we set free on the hood at the back three on the front seat and two on the front mud guards and we used to strap them round their waist that over the bonnets they didn't fall off and only on one occasion was I stopped by the police not because we were breaking the law but he wanted to make quite sure the two on the front mud guards weren't gonna fall off [Music] you and and I have come to the Bluebell in Lincolnshire favorite aunt of the bomber boys here the crews would drink the pub dry their meeting Dave pilot Tony Iverson over a navigator Douglas Hudson yeah I guess you're really on guy see your young men here it was TS on mentoring their own malice aforethought talk now and like the burning of the pianos that took place and all the other things motorbikes in the best be brought a cow in the mess one night we got this going the best it didn't happen many of the young men were inexperienced baffled by the opposite sex most of us for two bloody young to understand female come here a touch over four fingers and bloody thumbs and we were also told and shown films vivid vivid American films about VD you know the horrors of what could happen to you but that get that used to put you off for life nearly if she's easy she's got it if she's got it you'll get it remember a blob on the knob slows chemo [Laughter] by 1943 Bomber Command was fighting the war with an even greater ferocity it was dropping more and more bombs but German industry didn't appear to be collapsing after a while people began to suspect that factories could be repaired and got working again fairly quickly so the next point of vulnerability was actually seen to be the workers and this is the beginning of the Sinister thought that actually the real target is civilian workers the term used to describe this policy was d housing the aim was not just to blow up it was to burn as well Bomber Command was now dropping more in centuries than high explosives in July 1943 Harris used this lethal cocktail to devastating effect [Music] Hamburg second-largest city of the right is being liquidated in a series of record attacks by the RAF the main attack started on Saturday the 24th of July and four nights afterwards hundreds of our four-engine bombers kept it up hot and strong we're traveling to Hamburg to find out more about the impact a number of factors made this attack so shattering [Music] RAF deception diverted the German night fighters away from the bomber force and the elite pathfinders target perfectly the combination of a hot dry summer and a high proportion of the centuries created a phenomenon never seen before a firestorm temperatures reached 800 degrees winds 150 miles an hour Nadia Convery is a Hamburg resident and researcher she's brought us to submit less Church [Music] it was so prominent in the landscape that the RAF used it as an aiming point today is a memorial to those lost in the bombing that's unbelievable in the destruction the blockbuster bombs they would drop first and lift the roofs of the houses and then they were dropping incendiary bombs into into houses where there was a lot of wood inside they would just go up in flames the streets are quite narrow so it was easy for the fire to spread and that was that was them that was the aim and upon the British researched into how flammable domed cities were in one area 96% of the houses were destroyed the Nazis feared six more raids like it would finish the war 42,000 men women and children were killed quite an eye-opener really when you see those pictures and you see the endless endless empty shells of buildings and the tons and tons of rubble I just keep thinking about families and children and trying to get you know as a parent trying to get your kids out of that hellhole must have been beyond awful you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] Nadia has invited us to a city center hotel to meet some of the victims of the Hamburg forest [Music] transfer no problems with our team at the time held a hunt over 60 very nice to meet you hello the story of this is a special one actually so this in this suitcase were important documents submitted you know jewellery that's that's all that remained it's the only thing he's saved and was clutching it easy the firestorm on don't hunger and firstly heard authorities but I are can they could hardly move because of the the force of the winds and say he's described it quite powerfully 900 to hunt he said there was this red wall coming towards him and then they'd get pushed over and I'd have to get up again and try and sort of battle against that force so so that's quite a powerful image mm-hmm he says that just just as you're sitting next to me people would would go up in flames next to him it's unimaginable it's what he saw is just mhm yeah I was 16 at that time and that night can I speak German of course yes yeah shopton connect us I responded alles kaputt bond the button under certain over the streets have been hit and it was everything in gone up in flames and so walking home she had to pick her way across say you know people lying in the streets dad's dead bodies because of the intense heat the tarmac melted and she saw people trying to walk across and getting stuck and then not being able to to free themselves no one else could help because they would get stuck there too [Music] I think when you read about the area bombing campaign and how that was described by senior officers my view there's ways that you can freeze it to sound like it's not the indiscriminate bombing of civilians you mean you can justify in words by you've seen it Acela legitimate tactic to damage the industrial may of the country you're fighting against I don't know if you can ever justify one way or the other you know you can't say you know there's a statistic 42,000 civilians killed here in a week in Hamburg and one raid you can't ever kind of justify that I can't ever justify the killing of innocent people you know justify the killing of 6 million Jews and homosexuals and concentration camps either extermination camps but it's not really about that I supporters trying to understand trying to understand that it is what it took to ultimately defeat that evil yeah and that's it man yeah and 70 years ago things were very different the war was far from one bomber Harris felt that more raids like Hamburg would bring victory by the spring we propose to tally emasculate every enemy centre of war production if necessary we are well on the way now to repeal the shadow of Rage like hamburgers influenced the way we fought Wars ever since the RAF night uses air prayer in a much more targeted way Bosnia Iraq who I served Libya and Afghanistan are so different from the area bombing of World War two we are all used to seeing images of precision strikes collateral damage is no longer acceptable my old squadron the dam Busters was at the forefront of developing this new tactical approach to air power is currently on active service in Afghanistan I wanted to see for myself at the modern area copes with the conflicting demands of using air power and avoiding civilian casualties to get to the squadron base in Kandahar I had to fly there by night this is to avoid a Taliban attack on our plane got full set of body armor on obviously we're in a combat zone at the moment so yeah we've got a we've got to protect ourselves from anything that could get fired up on us it's for years as I've been with my old squadron so I'm looking forward to getting there with a mixture of excitement and trepidation we're making the journey in the black-tie dark alleys just before we arrived a rocket our base this reminds me of what those young former cruise experienced setting off tonight machine 70 years ago [Music] in World War two thousand bombers which set out on a mission today the RAF is using a detachment of just eight supersonic tornados to achieve its aims my experiences from Iraq are the pretty similar to this operation really it's a similar size but it's still nothing on the scale of them well world war two you mean you're talking over a hundred thousand people flying you know in World War two the Coalition is in the process of handing over a pair to the Afghan government the highly political situation could hardly be more sensitive and the last thing they can afford is to inflict any civilian casualties but fortunately modern planes are much more flexible than the lancaster of 70 years ago they can perform a variety of rules that range from attacking the enemy to identifying improvised explosive devices hidden in the ground [Music] when commander Keith Taylor is the current six on seven squadron commander he's at pains to show how he's using the latest technology to avoid collateral damage [Music] before he even considers using a weapon to support forces on the ground he'll intimidate the enemy first without lower-level fly past I did a show of force and you know we pulled up afterwards back into the wheel and asked the ground commander if we'd met his intent and his words were yes you know there's a bit of a situation developing down here and I just wanted to show you know the bad guys that my dog was bigger than his dog so if that feels only then will he reach for his range of precision weapons from heavy cannon to guided missiles and bombs and to help the crews make the right decision they are also using some of the world's most powerful cameras in what's known as the lightning pod so you can bet I mean you basically can even up I start fifteen twenty thousand feet you can pick out an individual person absolutely you can pick out people you know we could really get up close you know you know in some situations identify whether or not the guys are carrying weapons or not on the current tour the squadron has flown hundreds of missions deterring insurgents without dropping a single bomb all this makes you realize what a blunt but effective instrument Bomber Command was for the first years of the war but in 1944 Churchill wanted to use the bombers differently he felt they were now capable of a much more precise role in the build-up to d-day he wanted Harris to move from bombing German cities to hitting specific communication and transport targets [Music] Bomber Command had made huge advances in the last two years of total war it had become the most destructive force in history but it was now more than capable of carrying out this new task of precision body the switch to new methods it was now safer to fly in daylight so some of the raids took place in daylight was not welcomed to Harris he still stuck to his doctrine that the way to win the war was to flatten as many German cities as possible so he put up quite a strong rearguard action as only he could against a move that everyone else seemed to think was the right one Bomber Command had been a very blunt instrument indeed at this stage in the war it's now becoming a surgical instrument something that is capable of carrying out applied violence in a very precise way mild squadron the Dambusters was pivotal in developing these new tactics in 1943 to attack the dams of the river valley using inventor Barnes Wallace's revolutionary principle in 1944 the hunter - perhaps the most audacious precision range of the war we've come to the score troops former officers mess now the penguin hotel to meet Squadron Leader Tony Iverson to talk about his part in the raid the Tirpitz was the largest remaining German battleship she represented the most powerful single threat to our logic and it became a British obsession to sink her she was sheltering in the safe haven of the Norwegian fjords almost out of range they adapted the laxity with more powerful engines and took out the mid-upper turret in the roof and the front guns and lots of other heavy stuff including the the armor plating behind my seat that Lancaster could then reach tromsø from northern Scotland which is about well it was it turned out to be a twelve and a half hour flight the bomb chosen to sink the Tirpitz was the latest Barnes Wallis wonder weapon the 12,000 pound told boy we lined up for thee for the running and the first nine bombs of six one seven record and went down in ninety seconds so had you been standing on tifus you had nine five two tonne bombs arriving through the speed of sound on the way down and there were two direct hits and three near misses and that fifty fifty six thousand ton battleship were doomed from that limit yeah ships still firing as the bomb burst splash and lean in the smoke of giant explosions and the Tirpitz kept sizes and sinks it was an astonishing demonstration of how far Bomber Command had come and it had been achieved with the mighty Lancaster today is my chance to fly it first thing for me is a member six one seven scorn was probably the greatest privilege that you could get ever get is to fly in a Lancaster sir and obviously it's the only one that's left in the UK but the fact that could be able to do it with you and not on board as well is really incredible that both of us gonna be to experience this at the same time in there and that's what it was all about it was about being a crew it was about that that Band of Brothers kind of feeling so you know to do it with the person that you feel the closest to is really quite quite something it's as iconic the Lancaster as the Spitfire wars the Spitfires were fighting one against one in the air with against the enemy and in the Lancaster you know though it was just much more complicated than that there were they were bombing towns and cities and that's over over the week that we've been doing this the time that we've been doing this has been you know I began more and more of a sense of how complicated eyes the last flying Lancaster is so precious that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will only take her up in ideal conditions so it's great that the weather is perfect can't believe you're in supply for us you got to remember this is the war machine really and then people went tomorrow in it and some a lot and didn't come back probably pipes make you feel glamorous yeah very nice yeah a large crowd including some of the veterans is here to see the Lancaster on one of the few occasions in the year she takes to the air this is this is your end of the aircraft was mess alright then Murray got the word to go up the ladder and then I used to turn to the left yeah that can slide myself into there check the rotation for turret once the engine just started yeah just check everything smoke anyone who so he is not afraid yeah a human being yes the worst period I felt was before a flight yeah when we knew where we were going and you have the arms getting ready and you couldn't stop this chatting around Oh am i but answer and they are a plane you have a job to do well then it was a different situation and yeah she was a beautiful airplane and as you as a pilot will understand how how thrilling it is to handle such a big machine on takeoff feel her ready Justin yes flying was still in even though they had exciting yeah did you shake hands before you go on each other or was there another I sort of said you know the crew would piss on that wheel we would do that there's just too many people otherwise okay enjoy that trip yeah thank you very much thank you you enjoyed that trip thank you pedigree now [Music] [Music] I just American attorney there everything right it's all CCM [Music] and good pressure and I take it [Music] it's an amazing feeling exhilarating as the tail lifts [Music] so did it anything on brakes brakes up there means a little show me drama class [Music] [Music] going up front [Music] and then it's the moment I've been waiting for the controls [Music] absolutely I'm piloting the Aria only flying my custard [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm in the nose of the Lancaster with my brother of the controls for a moment [Music] unbelievable for you doing this because ability don't here lincolnshire skies but 70 years ago would have been fooled after jar containing thousands of nervous young men some who will never [Music] then all too soon I have to hand back the controls [Music] [Music] we buzz the crowd below and then it's time to light [Music] [Music] [Music] the last flying Lancaster in Britain one of the 7,000 or so the flu 156,000 sorties is safely back [Music] till fallen it has really properly amazing that's proper amazing it's all kind of angles I've never seen before my life take it off from there it's just explore existed the whole the wings watch all the four engines starting up in front of you they went through to the front there's a view I've never seen before like lying on my belly looking down at the ground and the sky and an experience that you can't imagine well done the Lancaster was a brilliant plane but it was still a devastating weapon of war and nearly 800 of them took part in the raid in 1945 that defined her somewhat judged Bomber Command ever since the d-day invasion had led to a combined push by land and air forces from the West the Russians too were pressing from the east Stalin cold in the Western allies to help clear the way for the Red Army so Winston Churchill agreed to the last great bomber offensive of the war the one that everyone remembers the irony is that when Bomber Command was finally able to do what it had always been trying to do trying to do it had lost a lot of its sense that Harris big Harris he carried on and one can say that with Dresden it turned out to be a city too far in February 1945 the Allies unleashed operation thunderclap on the city of Dresden Dresden the capital of Saxony becomes a fantasy of the destructive pyrotechnics of the air war the city was a railway hub through German troops traveled to these two fund but it was also packed escaping of Russian consulate [Music] bowling was so devastating that it would the faster [Music] it killed 25,000 Churchill had approved the plan but within weeks he had changed his June perhaps with an eye to the imminent peace the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of the Allied bombing Winston Churchill 1945 Harris was appalled by Churchill's comments to his dying day he defended the policy of area bombing Harris had been an outstanding leader he motivated his men he did what he was told very effectively but by the end of the war it has to be said he was wrong to persist in this notion that they should carry on battering German cities when the war was obviously won it was doing no good in fact it was doing harm at the end of the war in Europe on May 13th 1945 Winston Churchill went on the radio to thank our armed forces he chose not to mention Bomber Command at all I thought we got a rough deal not so much us although they didn't give us a medal but there that's in here now they don't need to drink it really but I thought the treatment the bomber Harry Scott was absolutely utterly disgraceful because he was only carrying out the orders of Churchill Harris's vision of a war won by heavy bombers alone never came to pass German war industry was damaged yet last but a million troops and thousands of anti-aircraft guns were pinned down defending the right for those who fought in the campaign there are few doubts about its value total war was its total war and we were involved in total war we were involved in fighting for our lives and Bomber Command was the only force that could take the war to Germany for four long years they started it never what did they do hope switching all these prices I mean Christ Almighty I mean they're the ones that started a bloody war we didn't know we finish it off children why not what motels between their legs I felt I felt badly about it in many respects and yet you know I mean the board doesn't have Marquess of Queensbury rules and of course immediately after the war we've got all the screed or what had happened in the concentration camps and the extermination camps and I suppose you know it rather hardens one thought [Music] today the controversy around the bombing campaign of world war ii still remains only in the summer of 2012 nearly 70 years after the war will there be a memorial in London to honor the 125,000 men of Bomber Command it's very sad that the fifty five and a half thousand young Melman Bomber Command who were killed have never been recognized until now which is too late in my view it's a pity but it's it is a little late but thank goodness a memorial is now going to be put up for them I knew when we started this project that it was going to be a really difficult journey in places and there has been difficult you know her visit to Hamburg has raised some some questions in my mind but what this journey has taught me is that these very young men who joined Bomber Command joined the only force that was taking the fight to Germany what has struck me is how young they were and what a terrible price they paid almost beyond any of the controversy I'm also unmoved in my feelings about the men who flew in those planes because they were demonstrating such unbelievable bravery to get in those bomber planes night after night after night after night 12 our missions freezing cold cramped frightened the fact that they would lose friends and they would still get back in the planes so I haven't changed my mind about that mother they're there they're the heroes I always thought that they were [Music] [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 1,433,399

Rating: 4.7933517 out of 5

Keywords: TV Shows - Topic, WWII, History, Second World War, 2017 documentary, Channel 4 documentary, WW2, documentary history, Colin McGregor, stories, Ewan McGregor, Bomber Command, Royal Air Force, The Battle of Britain, Full length Documentaries, Full Documentary, Documentary, BBC documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, Documentaries, real, history documentary

Id: eV4c_ILdcwQ

Length: 88min 52sec (5332 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 21 2018