Sgt. Jimmy Brooks

by Colin Woodward

Jimmy Brooks joined our crew when it first formed at the aircrew selection centre. He joined together with Dennis Barsby (Barzo), another gunner. They had both been in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force and Jimmy was a state registered nurse. At gunnery school he had achieved the highest scores at gunnery and the associated theory. One of the gunners had to become the dispatcher, if they were to join my crew. Because of his greater gunnery aptitude it was decided that Jimmy should remain as rear gunner (there were no midupper guns in our Stirlings and the front turret had been removed).

Barzo was big and strong. Jimmy was less tall, though he was stocky rather than small. Barzo was outgoing, exuberant, rather 'unsophisticated'. Jimmy was quiet and introspective; he seldom divulged his thoughts. Together they made an unusual couple, but they did comprise a good, close and well knit team.

I had nothing to criticize about Jimmy's (or Barzo's) behaviour but for one incident when we were flying Wellingtons during our operational training. One night we were sent off on a difficult sortie. It was a moonless night and the weather was bad. We had to fly through a severe depression for two hours of the five hours of our flight. The cloud was very turbulent and I needed all my skill and concentration to maintain height, course and airspeed: especially as I flew only on the primary instruments, not trusting the 'new-fangled' artificial horizon.

After about an hour being tossed around in cloud, with ice building up thickly on wings and fuselage, coming off in lumps from the propellers and pounding against the aircraft's sides, with St Almo's fire forming two huge blue circles at the propeller tips; in order that I was not distracted, there was no conversation among the crew. It was almost always that way. We were over the Irish Sea. Totally without warning there were blinding flashing streaks of light, an explosive roar of sound. I nearly evacuated my lower bowel. Desperately I sought to find out what had gone wrong. I thought for a moment that we had been struck by lightening. Then Jimmy's voice came over the intercom saying that, obeying gunnery instructions, he had tested his four guns over water. Relief and anger vied with each other as I struggled to maintain flight. I could not say much other than to make it evident that should he ever do it again without my permission, he would have to find another crew. Possibly that should have been an early sign to me that Jimmy felt himself to be very much his own man.

As a crew we did not start off well in No 161 Squadron. One's first operational flight is normally done with an experienced pilot and a couple of his crew. The squadron was desperately short of seasoned operational pilots so it was decided, as I already had more than two thousand hours 'all hands on' flying experience (none of the other pilots had more than five hundred), that I should do a sortie, dropping leaflets over Clermont Ferrand in occupied France, normally an 'operational' sortie, counting it as a solo 'training cross-country'.

After nearly six hours we approached our home base (Tempsford) for landing. That length of time at very low level was tiring. When I selected, only one undercarriage came down, the starboard. What then happened was alarming in the extreme for all of us, particularly for Jimmy and me.

The engineer had stated that we were getting rather low on fuel. It subsequently turned out that he was wrong. Two more tanks than he had expected had been filled (another crew had flight checked the aircraft) and he had not checked them as the other engineer had said they were empty.

After several attempts with the electrical selection system we still could not get the port undercarriage down. I ordered the engineer to operate the emergency manual system, known as the 'red star handle'. He could not turn it, it was stuck solid. I informed ground control that we had trouble, as they were expecting us to be on the approach to land. Then I told the bomb aimer/map reader, a big, strong Australian officer named Les Gibbs, to help and I sent Barzo with him. They tried several times to wind down the undercarriage with the red star handle but it would not budge. Concerned that we could not fly much longer because of fuel shortage, I ordered them to make one last try before I committed us to a 'belly landing' on the airfield grass.

I could hear their grunts on the intercom as they put all their strength into their task. They did not want the risks of a belly landing.

Suddenly there was a helluva bang. The aircraft pitched up so violently that my hands came off the control column. All four engines cut. For a moment I had the wild notion that the fuel flow had stopped. Instinctively I shoved the nose down to prevent the aircraft stalling and I closed all throttles. My emergency landing call to ground control was accepted and I ordered 'crash positions'. Meanwhile I was feverishly assessing our glide path. We were at 1200ft at the end of the downwind leg. in position to attempt a glide approach. I called the tower again stating that I was attempting an approach with dead engines.

Suddenly Jimmy Brooks shouted that the port wing was breaking up, he could see large chunks coming off it in the darkness. I had looked out of my window, pressing my face against the iron bars that shielded the pilot from the port inner propeller only inches away and I could see the port wheel in its normal landing position. The undercarriage green lights were all there. The wing also appeared normal to me although I could not check it closely, as I had to give all my attention to judging the glide approach. I told the crew I was attempting a glide landing and they were to hold their stations.

Les Gibbs came back to the second pilot's seat. Before he got in it, he asked whether he should tighten my straps for me. I brusquely refused. Jimmy was still shouting that large pieces were falling off the aircraft. All the way down he kept this up, until the final moments to the runway, while everyone else remained mute. Luckily, despite being taut with stress, I judged the approach perfectly, ordering full flap as we were over the beginning of the runway. Because of my extensive experience on tail wheel aircraft, no one on the squadron was better at landing the Stirling. We settled down on three points with barely a squeak as the wheels touched. I could hardly believe our good luck. We sailed along the runway. The ground control called me ordering me to turn starboard at the next intersection. As I came to it, still at maximum concentration, I eased the nose gently to the right.

We had barely started to turn when the aircraft sagged over to port. It was my first night flight at Tempsford, only my second time airborne there. I knew there was a railway embankment running by that side of the airfield. For one panicky moment I thought we had gone over it. The undercarriage was eighteen feet high. It was a long way down.

I looked around. All the crew was scrambling out of the emergency exits. I sat too numb to move. Then I switched off all systems and left the aircraft.

We stood by the side of the aircraft while the ambulances and fire engines raced towards us. No one spoke. The crew was asking themselves what I had done wrong. So was I. I could not understand what had happened. The aircraft was a wreck. None of the engine cowlings were to be seen and something large was sticking up from the port wing. The whole wing had broken off.

The morning of the sortie, the squadron commander had addressed all the pilots. We were told that there were far too many landing accidents (most pilots find the Stirling difficult to land) and they had to stop. In future, anyone landing a Stirling badly would be severely dealt with. After my landing that night, everyone avoided me, even my crew were uncomfortable in my presence. None of them had any more idea of what had happened than I had. I was struck dumb. I made my report and went to my room. I was totally exhausted. I had just got into bed when a WAAF came to tell me that I was to report immediately to the squadron commander. He was mad and to the point. He would not tolerate such aircraft handling. There was a van waiting outside to take me to the station where I was to catch a train for Sheffield. I was posted on to the 'Bad Boys' course. I collected a few belongings, totally dejected, and l left without even my crew knowing I had gone. For some reason I felt I had let them down badly.

When the engineers inspected the aircraft they found some amazing facts. I had not flown the aircraft before, another crew having done the pre-op flight checks. The pilot had made a corker of a bad landing that had distorted the port undercarriage. After the squadron commander's warning he knew he would be in serious trouble if found out, so he had not reported it and the ground crew had not noticed it. Neither had I. When I selected the undercarriage up it moved into the bay successfully. But when I selected down it had spread in the bay and was solidly stuck there.

What happened next was particularly surprising. The force exerted by the two crew eventually caused the twelve feet long drive shaft to break at both ends and to spring upwards, sticking out of the port wing and fracturing the main wing spar. The change of airflow forced the aircraft to pitch violently and this resulted in a rich cut in the engines, causing them to stop. That is when I closed the throttles. I did not know that I could have used the engines and dare not try them as I was concentrating critically on judging the glide approach. The shock caused all the engine cowlings and the various hatch covers to break loose. These were the objects Jimmy saw going past his turret, making it appear that the wing was breaking up. The hatch cover over the eighteen man dinghy came off, and the dinghy came out of its hold, inflating as it did so. As it went past the turret in the dark, it must have been a frightening indistinguishable sight. This dinghy landed on a cottage roof, sealing off a bedroom window, making the occupants believe that it was still dark until later in the day when they were aroused by neighbours. The dinghy radio was attached to the wing by a cord, so it kept moving up and down near Jimmy's turret causing further and continuous alarm.

Most of the undercarriage remained in the bay. The port wheel was suspended on one single strut out of the whole complex undercarriage structure, and I was able to see it, making me believe that all the  undercarriage was safely down. Only a part of the wheel and none of the struts can be seen from the cockpit. That I was able to land without the strut collapsing was, as the chief engineer put it, "nothing short of a bloody miracle". It collapsed the moment I started to turn and put a side load on it.

These facts became evident while I was away on my penal course, having a rather unpleasant, albeit interesting and rewarding time. They were reported to the squadron commander and the station commander. These two were in a dilemma. Obviously, the pilot who had done the air test was doubly at fault: first for having made an atrocious landing, and secondly for not reporting it. They could have recalled me and apologised and sent him on the course instead. But they were not mature enough to do so. It meant that the facts would have had to be reported to group headquarters. They would have been open to criticism. So they changed the charge against me to "Taxiing with a damaged undercarriage". I was recalled after serving only two weeks of the six weeks course. But I was deeply offended.

It was not a good start for Jimmy and began the sapping of his morale. After I returned, the whole of the next month we could not fly operationally because the weather was too bad, though we did fly locally. And I had to take another rear gunner on my first three operational flights, so Jimmy was left to brood and worry.

On the 26th November 1944 we went to Denmark. Jimmy was rear gunner. We picked an entry point at Hirtshals, near the most northern tip of Denmark. Then the intelligence officers told us that heavy flak had been reported by other crews at this point, but the local underground had been questioned and had reported that there were definitely no guns there. We were strongly encouraged to use this entry position because the DZ was just behind it and the underground would not have chosen it had there been guns close by. Since those days I have believed it possible that the intelligence branch needed to verify the underground report. It was not unusual to put crews at risk for such purposes. Most probably the local underground had been taken over by the Germans.

We flew at fifty feet on my radio altimeter up the Skagerrak until we were due west of Hirtshals. A ninety-degree starboard turn and we headed for the coast. I was just about to pull up to four hundred feet (AGL) so that Les Gibbs could obtain his entry pinpoint when a tiny whitish light appeared directly ahead. I watched it. Suddenly it turned into a long luminous streak seemingly heading straight into the cockpit. Tracer flak!  I banked hard over to port, pulling back hard into a steep turn. We were so low that Les kept shouting that the port wing was hitting the sea. It wasn't but I knew that it was close. I just could not ease up as the flak was streaking above within inches and searchlights were trying to cone us. Neither guns nor searchlights could deflect down to our level but it was terribly tight. Had they held their fire a few seconds longer we would have been over them and blown to pieces.

About twenty miles off the coast I had a quick conflab with Les Taylor, the navigator. We had to go in at Hirtshals, if we wished to drop, as we had not cleared any other route, intelligence being so certain. Les Taylor, the navigator, confirmed our present position by Babs. We concluded that we must have made an error in our navigation and that we had entered at the wrong point. We decided to try again.

Exactly the same thing happened. A few feet higher and the flak would have got us. If anything I was lower than before, giving Les Gibbs kittens as I scraped the water. Again we went out, into the Skag. Again I asked that the position be verified. I was uncertain what to do. It was vital that I did not unnecessarily jeopardise the Joe's we were carrying, nor the equipment. Obviously we could go again tomorrow. We were a new crew, somewhat under a cloud in the squadron and we were anxious to prove our worth. But the crew were all equals. I told them that I would try again so long as they were all prepared to risk it. and I would ask them in turn to say yes or no. I fervently hoped to hear a negative. One after another they agreed to go in, they were ashamed to refuse after the first man, Les the Ozzy, replied with a rather hesitant "Yes". So we went in again about a mile to starboard. We ran into the heavy flak and the searchlights, but with a difference: Jimmy called a fighter attack. Still practically on the water, I 'corkscrewed'. We lost him.

We had had enough. The DZ was too close to the flak; we would not be able to drop unseen, particularly with fighters above. We went home, feeling ragged and frustrated, but amazed that we were still unscathed. I felt that the intelligence officers did not believe our report, particularly about the fighters. They said a fighter attack was unusual with heavy flak about at that level.  I hadn't seen any fighters, only Jimmy was in a position to do so.

We had several rough trips after that, most successful. We always seemed to be running into fighters. Once Jimmy called an attack by six FWs over Norway, and we had a cat and mouse chase with them in heavy turbulent cloud. Intelligence did not believe Jimmy's report, saying that there were no FWs in Norway. I had not believed Jimmy, asking Barzo to go back to the astro dome to verify, which he did, saying he "thought they were FWs". I was surprised that there were fighters of any kind. And on another sortie to Norway we were determined to have a quiet time so we routed ourselves into neutral Sweden for a hundred miles or so before turning into Norway to our DZ. Just as we were entering the Swedish coast, Jimmy reported a fighter attacking from the port side. I could not believe it. I opened my side window and, pressing my head against the bars, I looked back. There, to my intense dismay, was the black shape of a twin-engined fighter. In a flash I was back at the controls and corkscrewing.

After that we did not fly for several days because of bad weather. Jimmy had time to brood. One day Barzo told me that Jimmy had gone sick with a 'bad back', a common prelude for 'going LMF' (Lack of Moral Fibre). He did not fly again. Shortly after he had left, a report came from the Norwegian underground that a squadron of FW fighters had arrived in Norway the day before he had reported them.

He had no alternative. Intelligence did not believe him. His crew doubted him. I felt ashamed.

13 12 1994