First published in 1943, this is the gripping story of one man's involvement in RAF Bomber Command's fledgling offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Dick Rivaz was tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of the Second World War, flying in Whiteleys with 102 Squadron and latterly in Halifaxes with 35 Squadron. Unique among wartime memoirs, Tail Gunner was written within months of the events described, with all the immediacy of being at the very heart of the action. Rivaz graphically describes his experiences on night bombing attacks against heavily defended enemy targets like Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Essen, and relates a dramatic shoot-out with German fighters over La Rochelle in broad daylight during July 1941. Rivaz reveals the fine spirit of comradeship which developed in RAF bomber crews during the Second World War. Having survived the war, including two rescues from the North Sea, he was killed in October 1945, aged just thirty-seven.
First published in 1943, this is the gripping story of one man's involvement in RAF Bomber Command's fledgling offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Dick Rivaz was tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of the Second World War, flying in Whiteleys with 102 Squadron and latterly in Halifaxes with 35 Squadron. Unique among wartime memoirs, Tail Gunner was written within months of the events described, with all the immediacy of being at the very heart of the action. Rivaz graphically describes his experiences on night bombing attacks against heavily defended enemy targets like Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Essen, and relates a dramatic shoot-out with German fighters over La Rochelle in broad daylight during July 1941. Rivaz reveals the fine spirit of comradeship which developed in RAF bomber crews during the Second World War. Having survived the war, including two rescues from the North Sea, he was killed in October 1945, aged just thirty-seven.
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Overview
First published in 1943, this is the gripping story of one man's involvement in RAF Bomber Command's fledgling offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Dick Rivaz was tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of the Second World War, flying in Whiteleys with 102 Squadron and latterly in Halifaxes with 35 Squadron. Unique among wartime memoirs, Tail Gunner was written within months of the events described, with all the immediacy of being at the very heart of the action. Rivaz graphically describes his experiences on night bombing attacks against heavily defended enemy targets like Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Essen, and relates a dramatic shoot-out with German fighters over La Rochelle in broad daylight during July 1941. Rivaz reveals the fine spirit of comradeship which developed in RAF bomber crews during the Second World War. Having survived the war, including two rescues from the North Sea, he was killed in October 1945, aged just thirty-seven.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752469690 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 08/26/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 608 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Tail Gunner
By R.C. Rivaz
The History Press
Copyright © 2013 The Estate of Squadron Leader R.C. RivazAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6969-0
CHAPTER 1
I Will start by introducing Leonard Cheshire. I introduce him at the beginning as he was my first operational pilot, the first pilot who flew me over Germany. I will leave the details of my training and begin when I went to my first squadron straight from the Operational Training Unit.
I arrived at 102 Squadron, Topcliffe, one evening in August 1940, feeling very new and shy, and rather wondering what sort of people I should meet and how they would treat a new boy like myself. The only operational crews I had seen was when an odd crew had landed at Abingdon on their way home after a raid. These people had always been dressed in flying boots and were wearing no collars or ties, but had silk scarves knotted round their necks, and they were usually unshaven and with unbrushed hair. I had looked on them as some sort of gods and wondered whether one day I, too, should be privileged to walk about and look as they did. These were the people I should be meeting now and with whom I should have to live. Somehow they did not seem to me to be ordinary normal people, but people either with charmed lives or else lives that would soon not be theirs ... and I thought this would surely be visible in either their appearance or behaviour.
I was quite surprised to find that the Officers' Mess was very similar to the one I had just left. I arrived after supper, and found my way to the ante-room, where the wireless was on, apparently unnoticed by anyone in the room. There were some people lolling in deep black leather armchairs, reading; one or two were asleep. There was a group standing round the empty fireplace with pint beer-tankards in their hands. Some were writing letters, and four were playing cards at a table in the middle of the room. Everyone there looked perfectly normal; in fact, the whole scene, as I surveyed it, was just the same as could be seen in the anteroom of the Mess I had just left, or, indeed, in any other Mess. One or two people I noticed were wearing the ribbon of the D.F.C. These people I stared at, probably too long, as one stares at celebrities or personalities of importance, hoping to read the signs of some of their experiences written in their faces. But they, too, looked perfectly ordinary and completely unconscious and oblivious of their distinction. Those talking to them did not seem to be treating them with any particular respect or showing them any deference, but were conversing with them as they might with any ordinary being.
I wandered out of the Mess feeling that perhaps life would not be so different, after all.
I went in search of the duty batman, and was told that the Mess was very full at the moment and that I would have to share a room. I was taken to my room — or, rather, part share of the room — and found the other occupant already in bed and asleep. This other occupant, whom I was later to know as Leonard, was lying absolutely still and silent and fast asleep. I have very rarely known Leonard to go to bed at the average person's time, but either very early or excessively late. At whichever time he went he would sleep until he was awakened, and then get up perfectly fresh.
He had scattered his clothes all over the place: some were on my bed, some were on his bed, and some were on the floor. Also on my bed there was an open suit-case, two tennis racquets, a squash racquet, and his towel. I removed the articles from my bed to the floor, making as little noise as I could, although I need not have been so cautious as nothing other than a vigorous shaking will awaken Leonard once he is asleep. I looked at his tunic, thrown carelessly over the back of a chair, to see if I could gain some clue as to the identity of this unknown person. I saw he was a pilot-officer, like myself; also that he was a pilot. I also noticed that he had no gong up, and thought therefore that he, too, might be a new-comer. I could not see much of the sleeper, as only the top of his head, showing brown untidy hair, was visible above the bedclothes.
I went to bed wondering what my new companion and this new life would be like.
* * *
I was awakened next morning by the buzzing sound of an electric razor, and saw a slight figure in brightly coloured pyjamas walking up and down the room trailing a length of electric flex behind him and running the razor in a care-free manner up and down his face. After a few moments I said "Good morning" ... and was favoured with some sort of grunt in reply. Undismayed, I started asking questions about the new station and my new squadron, but to all my questions the only replies I got were grunts. Eventually I gave up my questioning as a bad job and started to get up.
I saw this uncommunicative and, as I thought, strange person several times during the day, but never once did he show that he recognized me. I noticed that he seemed to know everybody, and that most people called him Cheese.
That night I changed my room.
CHAPTER 2After breakfast on that first day I went up to see the C.O., a charming man who made me feel quite at home and very happy. He told me I was in 'B' Flight, and sent me down to see my Flight Commander, whom I later learnt was familiarly known as 'Teddy'. He was an excitable little man with an enormous backside and proportionately large moustache.
As I stood at the door of his office he was on the telephone, and I heard him say, "But I don't want any more gunners: I've got all the gunners I want." As he hung up the receiver he called me in and said, "That was you I was talking about."
'Not so good,' I thought.
He told me to shut the door. I found him much more pleasant than I first thought. He explained that I should not be put on a crew yet as there were no vacancies, and that it was up to me to learn all I could in the meantime.
He sent me to see the squadron gunnery leader, who was the oldest and toughest gunner I had as yet seen, and who was known as 'Steve'. He was about forty-five and looked as hard as nails, but had two of the kindest eyes imaginable. He was sometimes known as 'Two-gun Steve', as he used to carry a couple of revolvers and a jack-knife ... which made his tunic stick out from his waist as though it had been starched.
Everyone seemed to like and respect him. He had been an observer in the last war; later became a pilot, and was now an air-gunner. He had an amazing capacity for work, and seemed to expect other people to have the same. He had one of the deepest and loudest voices I have ever heard, and was never afraid of using it. He always said exactly what he thought of people and in no uncertain language — his vocabulary for swear words being terrific.
He took me straight out to an aeroplane to see what I knew, or, rather, what I did not know — as he did not seem in the least interested in the little I did know. He spent the rest of the morning teaching me and showing me around.
I soon got really fond of Steve. If he thought anyone was keen to learn, he would do anything he could to help that person, but, on the other hand, if he thought people were slacking, he would have no further use for them at all.
He used to smoke the foulest-smelling cigarettes, which he rolled himself and used to say in defence of numerous protests that when he smoked he wanted something he could taste. He also had one of the largest appetites I have ever seen in anybody. He taught me a tremendous amount about gunnery during my early days with the squadron, and used to maintain that everybody should know as much as possible about the aeroplane in which they would have to fly, quite apart from their own particular job.
I was not to know Steve for long, as he was killed on an operational trip a few months after I joined the squadron.
* * *
About a week after my arrival I was sitting in the ante-room after lunch writing a letter thanking a friend for 'Ming'. Ming had arrived that morning by post, and was my mascot; he was a tiny stuffed baby panda, and I had him in my pocket while I was writing. The air-raid siren sounded, and I looked out of the window and saw people running to the shelters.
'Good lord!' I thought, 'what on earth is all the rush about? ...'
The ante-room, which had been crowded a few seconds before, was almost empty, and the few remaining were rushing to the door.
'Extraordinary!' I thought.
While the siren was still going there came an unearthly screaming noise. All other sounds were then promptly drowned by the loudest explosion I had ever heard, and the windows of the ante-room were blown in with a din like several rifle-shots. I left my letter and ran to the door.
'This is something like,' I thought. 'This is action — real fun and excitement....'
I had never heard a bomb burst at close quarters before, and I thought how splendid it was to be seeing some real action. I saw someone crouching behind a sofa in the hall as more bombs burst outside and the whole building shook.
The next thing I remember was lying on my face in a passage, covered with dust and choking and surrounded by broken glass and rubble. I got to my feet and saw through a cloud of smoke that the Mess a few feet behind me was a complete ruin: bricks and plaster, dust and glass, were piled up together. 'This is frightful,' I thought, and once more found myself on my face with the roof trembling and shaking as another stick of bombs fell across the Mess — one bursting a few feet in front of me and completely blocking the passage.
I lay on the floor gasping for breath; choking and panting while bombs burst all around. I could hear the whine of diving aeroplanes and the scream of falling bombs while all the time the ground shook with the explosions. I was really frightened, more frightened than I had ever been before. I noticed that there was someone else lying on the floor beside me, and we clung to each other.
"This is bloody, isn't it?" I said.
Outside there was a new noise added to the din: it was a sort of loud crackling sound and was a building burning just outside. The air was filled with fumes and smoke and dust which were almost suffocating; my lungs felt as if they were dry and empty, and I gasped and choked.
The inferno seemed to have moved a bit farther off, so my companion and I got to our feet and climbed over bricks and stones and rubble, and made our way outside. Dust and smoke were everywhere, and it was impossible to see more than a few feet. We ran to the nearest shelter and went inside.
The first person I saw was the C.O., who said to me, "This is a funny sort of welcome for you!" My tunic was grey with dust and badly torn, and blood was trickling down my face. "You'd better go and see the M.O. when it quietens down," the C.O. said.
I remembered Ming in my pocket, and decided that that should be his home from then on. He has accompanied me on all my operational trips, and still resides there as I write.
When all was quiet I joined the group surveying what remained of our Mess. I noticed that not only had bombs burst within a few yards and on two sides of me, but that one had also burst slap overhead. The roof and wall of the room above where I had been lying had disappeared, and I saw a bed standing by itself and clothes strewn all over the debris. Steve joined us, covered from head to foot in dust. He had been lying in a ditch not far from the Mess, watching the fray through a pair of binoculars. He said he had a grand view until he was buried by earth and plaster, which completely obstructed his vision. This infuriated him, particularly as by the time he had extricated himself the show was over!
I went up to the hangars to see what damage had been done there. They had been badly knocked about, and one-was on fire: the fire party were at work with their hoses amid a great din of crackling and sizzling.
In another hangar a Wing Commander was at work with a gang of men, all in tin hats, clearing debris from the floor. I went to join them and was promptly bellowed at by the Wing Commander.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? ... Why haven't you got a tin hat? ... Can't you see the roof is falling in? ... Do you want to get brained? ... If you want something to do, go and help move that Whitley; there's an unexploded bomb beside it! ... When you've done that, go and wash all that blood off your face, and get it seen to!"
I thought that working beside an unexploded bomb that might go off at any moment was far more dangerous than working in the hangar, but I did not say so, and went and helped push the Whitley away.
On my way to Sick Quarters I saw a party of men digging furiously around a shelter that had received a direct hit: the ambulance was there, and the orderlies were lifting a man — with his tunic, face, and hair covered with earth — on to a stretcher. Someone put a cigarette between his lips and lit it for him. Sweat was pouring off his face and caking the earth ... and I noticed that his legs were in an unnatural twisted position. Someone was digging around another pair of legs: the body was still buried and the legs obviously broken. I saw two more men crushed — with faces nearly the same colour as their tunics — between sheets of corrugated iron: they were both dead.
I decided that my own minor cuts could wait, and went to my room, and found the windows blown in and a chunk of bomb splinter through my bed!
That night the siren went again just as I was dropping off to sleep. I was in the shelter about a hundred yards away before the siren had finished wailing! I was not the first one there, either!
* * *
I had returned from leave some time later, and the first person I saw when I got inside the Mess was Leonard. "I've got you in my crew," he said.
"Grand," I replied. "Thanks awfully."
"Don't thank me. You've not flown with me yet," he said ... and smiled. Leonard's smile is really beautiful: his mouth, instead of getting bigger, seems to get smaller, and his eyes shine. When he smiles he makes you feel glad: it is a smile meant for you, and you alone.
"We'll have a talk tomorrow," he continued, "and I'll tell you all the things I want you to do. We might be on ops tomorrow night."
I think this was about the first time Leonard had spoken to me; certainly he had never said as much before. I was really happy. I was in a crew at last, and I wanted to tell everyone I saw: I wanted to sing and jump about, to talk to everybody. I felt friendly towards them all.
I was not pleased about being in Leonard's crew particularly, anybody's crew would have done; in fact, if I had had the chance, I would probably have chosen anyone but Leonard. But I did not know Leonard then. I don't suppose for a moment that he had chosen me, either: it was just one of those things that happen.
I was going to fly operationally! That was what I kept telling myself, and what my heart had been set on ever since I had started to fly. I wanted to fly on operations ... to see bombs burst and see fires! ... to see flak and shoot down fighters! ... and now I was going to start, maybe tomorrow night! My leave was forgotten ... and the rather depressed feeling I had had when I entered the Mess: everything was forgotten except that I was going to fly over Germany!
When Leonard said "I've got you in my crew" I became so excited that I stayed awake a long time that night thinking about my new fortune, and wondering where I should be at the same time the following night.
CHAPTER 3I sat next to Leonard the following morning at breakfast, and found him already midway through a huge bowl of porridge. He always seems to have a big appetite, and has an amazing way with waiters, and usually, in consequence, gets far more to eat than other people. I have often heard him say in his quiet, serious voice to one of the Mess waiters, "I don't think I can manage three eggs this morning, two will be enough!" ... and he will be brought two while the rest of us are given one! He has his stock phrases of humour which he never tires of using; I have heard them dozens of times, and I hope I will hear them dozens more times! Most people never know if he is being serious or not: he speaks in such a serious voice and with such a serious expression on his face. One of his pet remarks is — when he is about to sit down next to someone already seated — "Don't get up!" — at the same time raising his hand as though that person is about to rise. Another time, when you are reading a letter, he will lean across and say to you — "After you with that when you've finished." It rather non-plusses him if you pass the letter across to him! Or again, if he hears someone say "Good God!" — he will say: "Yes ... what is it?" The person will probably say — or so Leonard' hopes — "I only said 'Good God'." Leonard will then reply: "Oh! I thought you were addressing me." All these expressions have been tried on me many times, and I have now got the right answers!
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tail Gunner by R.C. Rivaz. Copyright © 2013 The Estate of Squadron Leader R.C. Rivaz. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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