Arnhem

Undaunted by this early brush with danger, they flew on, to see ahead ‘a tunnel of murderous fire. Around us every accompanying aeroplane was taking hits. Stirlings and Dakotas went down, but we kept tight-lipped and did not shout out or even comment. Seconds later our turn came, as a shell removed most of the port aileron. The tailplane was hit, the rudder took a blow, and pieces of our Stirling whizzed away behind us. But we flew on weaving and ducking like a prize-fighter. The scene at the DZ was an inferno, with aircraft turning and diving in all directions to drop their loads and avoid the flak.’

They came in at tree-top level, the panniers went out of the back and pilot ‘Nev’ piled on the power to gain height and depart. ‘At that point, Mike in the rear turret, who had been counting the parachutes as they dropped, shouted out that only two thirds of our containers had gone.’ The electrics on the release mechanism had been damaged in the earlier mêlée. A big decision had to be made, ‘but there was no way we were going to take containers back. There was nothing else for it but to go round again. We did a low sweep, rejoined the stream and approached the DZ again.’ They took more hits as they flew into position, used a manual override to dump the rest of the load and scooted away, having pushed their luck to the limit and, unlike Lord’s plane, got away with it. Back at base at RAF Harwell, ground crew crawled over the Stirling and marvelled at its survival. The rear turret was pockmarked with bullet holes. Every one of its fourteen self-sealing fuel tanks was holed. The plane was a write-off and towed away to the scrapyard.

Not all damage was inflicted by the enemy. Navigator Chris Frenchum was in a plane in the stream going in on one of the later supply drops on 21 September, carrying panniers of desperately needed anti-tank mines. He’d been to Arnhem twice already, and nobody was kidding themselves any more that these were ‘milk runs’. He cadged a couple of American bulletproof jackets, one for the pilot and one for himself. This, he recalled, was his most dangerous mission. They were up against not just intense flak but attacks by German fighter planes too. As they battled their way in, 200 yards ahead was another Dakota, which suddenly was struck by a free-falling pannier dropped prematurely and disastrously from a plane hundreds of feet above. ‘The heavy load landed on the starboard wing of this aircraft we were following, its wing completely broke off and it plunged to its death. The poor devils had no chance whatsoever.’ What they had just witnessed was so shocking that Frenchum’s pilot had a panic attack. ‘The skipper let go of the controls and crouched on the floor.’

Frenchum was a navigator, not a trained pilot, but he had no choice. ‘I grabbed the controls and righted our aircraft. By this time we were almost at the DZ and I gave the green light for our own panniers to be dropped. Once we’d got rid of them, I asked for a course to fly back to base.’ For much of the return flight, the pilot just sat on the floor in a state of shock, and the crew began to worry that he would not be in a fit state to land the Dakota. Frenchum might well have to perform this manoeuvre himself, a tricky order for a novice. ‘I was not a qualified pilot, but I knew all the correct procedures and would have landed the aircraft if it had been necessary.’ It wasn’t. After crossing the North Sea, the pilot was recovered enough to take control again and landed perfectly. Frenchum, who had already completed a tour with Bomber Command and knew the mental strain, felt great compassion for his skipper. ‘He never flew again, but he was an excellent pilot apart from this one incident which, happening right in front of our eyes, shattered his nerves.’

In the roll call of courage, the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) dispatchers in those supply planes are often overlooked. It was a thankless task, involving just as much risk to life and limb as the boys in RAF blue underwent, but without the kudos. The dispatchers were often not even told where they were going or why. Harry King, the sole survivor of David Lord’s plane, was fulsome in his praise for the four who went down with his ship. They were 29-year-old Corporal Philip Nixon from Oldham, a former PT instructor, and three drivers, Len Harper, also 29, from Middlesex, James Ricketts, 27, a haulier from Tyneside, and 27-year-old Arthur Rowbotham, a former baker’s deliveryman from Lancashire. ‘These men,’ he said, ‘were not volunteers like aircrew, they received no flying pay, yet were superb in fulfilment of their duty, even though their plane was on fire. They were magnificent throughout the operation.’