Raid on Plzeň 1943 ~ The Skoda Works ~ A Poem
April 16th – 17th 1943
Sergeant Pilot Kenneth Ernest Webb RAF VR 1315766
Pilot and Skipper of Handley Page Halifax DK165 MP-E
Webb Crew [i]
76 Squadron, Royal Air Force
RAF Linton-on-Ouse North Yorkshire
I
The instruments are dimmed
the chocks are swept aside
ground crew give that one last
cheer, goodbye and
a thumbs-up too!
We sweep the rudders
and turn on a sixpenny bit
C for Charlie straightens up
and taxis out before us
It’s our turn next
with G for George astern us
The flare arcs high in the sky
she’s up and away
Immingham receding below
and on a bearing for York Minster
the rendezvous
then turning starboard
to head over Grimsby
my heart pounds slightly
but I'm at peace with the world;
It’s a horrid tragic thing I do
but I have to do it nonetheless
My conscience is clear
but I am deeply saddened
for there is no joy in this
only fear
II
I wonder what Dad’s doing?
How the petrol is affecting his
chauffeuring?
Oh for Arthur’s guidance and cheeky laugh
Oh for Mum’s hum from the kitchen
and Mum’s laugh
Oh for Des – every older brother’s nightmare
I adore him to bits
Let’s do the checks
Okay guys – check in please
Tail gunner?
Mid Upper?
Nose gunner
Bomb aimer?
The twin towers of Lincoln
Cathedral
Will they pass me below?
If they do, we’ve succeeded
We’re coming back home
My heart misses a beat
Will I see them again?
It is dark
but up here we can see the hint of light
and we know that the shimmer from the blackness
is transformation from land to sea
Okay. Test your guns. We’re over the sea.
Watch for night fighters.
III
This is a long one
It’s calm as we cross France
But Pilsen?
Skoda?
One thousand
That’s four thousand engines
What a warning it must be to those below
A harbinger of death
But will we get back
For they’ll surely be up
And waiting for us
I've not done this before
None of us has
To bomb Berlin is bad enough
But Pilsen?
That takes the biscuit
That silly piece of paper in 1938
That silly piece of paper in 1938
“Peace in our time”
Would not have seen me flying here
If people kept their word
“Peace in our time”
that’s a joke!
Five years ago – that’s all
And here I am
flying deepest yet
into Occupied Europe
Yes. Chamberlain meant well.
But thank G-D for Churchill.
IV
What must it be like down there?
Just what are those peoples going through?
Do they really all believe in a maniac?
Are they really so deluded?
Or are there Germans like Mum and Dad
who despise the web they're caught up in?
She’s constant and trimmed
a slight yaw from the crosswind
buffeting too
V
We’re over Berdendorf Skipper
Five minutes from the border
A sense of calm despite the flak
But we’re holding well
No night fighters yet
We’ve caught them out
But they’ll up and waiting;
at least without our payload
I can get some extra speed
but will it be enough?
I don't know
We’re crossing now Skipper
We’re eight minutes to target
I can see it ahead
It’s already lit up
C for Charlie is going in
we’re following in her slipstream
The command comes through
from Number One
the lead plane;
we all release on his Bomb Aimer’s say so
The flak is very heavy now
colossal in fact
a row of staccato taps right down amidships
but we’re still holding
Bombs Gone!
Thank G-D for that!
She’s flying well but controls are stiff
Inch her round
coaxing like I’d coax a lady
with great respect and gentleness
In peace I'm going to fly an airline
Bette [1] likes the idea of that
I pull her leg I know,
but Arthur doesn’t mind
We all get on well, Pat too
Got to stay positive
Thank G-D Des got me that engagement ring
VI
Over Germany now
This is nasty
It’s vile
You can feel the evil reaching up
and clutching you
venomous, satanic
Keep calm
Hold her steady
The flak is terrifying
Crew check in please… …
An explosion
Hold it
Mitch go back and check… …
The twin towers of Lincoln just
too far away now
VII
Saint Matthew’s Church
on a Sunday morning
Cheltenham last Autumn
The Choir and harmless fun in the pew
Mum, Dad and Des over there
…and of the Holy Spirit…
Mum bows her head towards East
Amen
The Great Organ
Mendelssohn played,
defiant to a crooked cross
and played again in 1986
Vanessa my niece
at Prestbury Church
VIII
The next explosion blew
the ship apart
But I'm safe now
No more pain
It was swift, sudden
merciless, decisive
The Consecration on Saturday, 4. August 2018 at the point where the remains of the cockpit were found upon the very painstaking excavation of the crash site by Herr Erik Wieman and Herr Peter Berkel and the IG Heimat Forschung Team
and I glimpsed them too
The Host of Heaven
That’s when I knew we’d win
but others would carry the baton
not me
to the finishing line
IX
That’s my nephew
Gosh he’s fifty
chatting away in the Albert Dock
But look at that
the young people with him
German, Polish, Italian
South African, American
Russian – all of ‘em
laughing, joking, working together
Well I’ll be damned!
Our lives weren’t wasted after all
And in the end he got his wings too
even if he did turn out of wind
on a solo!!
In recognition of Sergeant Pilot Kenneth Ernest Webb RAF VR 1315766, I do of course write as his descendant Kenneth Thomas Webb, he being my Uncle.
Plzn is variously written as Plzen or Pilzen and Pilsen.
Author Note
This was a two-pronged air operation, the longest at that time, as it flew across Germany and into Czechoslovakia, its aim to take out the Skoda Works in Plzn. Two-pronged, because one stream diverted to the city of Mannheim in order to conceal from the German night defences the identity of the main target. By March 1943, German Night Defences, ground and air, were highly efficient, highly skilled and, just as we had been in 1940, as determined to protect their homeland as we, ours.
That night fifty-five aircraft were lost which at seven men per aircraft makes me wonder at the fortitude of the British People. Frankly, that fortitude is still with us regardless of what the media likes to report. But it also reminds me to think of the USAF Squadrons - the Mighty Eighth - operating from UK bases on the daylight missions that counterbalanced the RAF’s [i] night operations. The B17 Flying Fortresses and the Consolidated B 24 Liberators were formidable aircraft and each carrying ten aircrew. It was quite usual for them to lose twenty ‘heavies’ in a single operation i.e. 200 aircrew killed or wounded, most of whom would have been KIA.[ii]
I mention this because it is imperative that any work on this website relating to the RAF is done so in full conigzance of the men and women of USAAF (as it then was) [iii].
*
My own uncle went down on that one and his RCAF Logbook is now a treasured heirloom.
In the poem, ‘Mitch’ was Mitchell the mid-upper gunner (later a Warrant Officer) who was asked by my uncle to go back and check up on the rear gunner as they had taken a direct hit at that point. Just as Mitch reached the rear there was another explosion immediately below his own mid upper turret which broke the Handley Page Halifax (DK165 MP-E) in half and, miraculously, because of the tail fins, the rear came down like an autumn leaf. Mitch later reported that the rear turret had in fact gone.
When he came round he was propped up against a tree, being given a cigarette by a local German who pointed to the wreckage ‘a field or so away’ of the other half of the aircraft. [iv]
Not everyone on the ground was evil. And I think that this may have prompted my grandmother to so willingly accept the woven basket from an Italian POW sold to her on the doorstep during the War. However, this was nothing compared to what my family was to discover in 2015 when we met Frau Hedi Kraus at Lachen Speyerdorf and whose remarkable story appears on the links below.
The wonderful thing is that given both my maternal and paternal grandparents lost their sons on air operations, never once did I ever hear them criticize the Germans. We were encouraged to be open and to embrace.
*
Bette of course was the sister in law and good friend of my Uncle – the same age group – and the portrait says it all really – we weren’t going to give into tyranny. And the same is true today. I think Ken used to pull his sister-in-law’s leg a lot!! Typical RAF VR!! (And I’m ex RAF VR so I can say that haha!!) I have also decided to release a letter written by my Aunt to my Uncle when he was unable to attend her wedding to his elder brother, and again, the leg pulling comes through. I do so, because i have many friends living in the Ruhr, and it is my way of acknowledging the hell on earth visited upon them by the Strategic Air Offensive.
*
The above is the updated text to that which appears in the first anthology published by Spiderwize in 2009 on Pages 133-139 of Idle Thoughts An Anthology of Poetry and Prose.
22 October 2022
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
Footnotes
[i] For ease of reference the term RAF must be read as including all of the Commonwealth Air Forces, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, Royal South African Air Force as well as the air and ground crews from the countries occupied by the Nazis. Airmen who had managed to escape from Poland, Norway, Denmark, Czechoslovakia and France were absolutely crucial, as, too, Americans who volunteered to serve with the RAF before their country had entered the war and who were not always too pleased to be posted back to USAAF Squadrons. But this was vital, as they had combat experience and expertise which needed to be passed on to the thousands of aircrew and groundcrew taking up station in Britain.
[ii] killed in action
[iii] United States Army Air Force which became the United States Air Force on 18 September 1947
[iv] This is the ‘eye-witness’ account given by Mitch to my Grandparents upon repatriation in 1945. My father (18) was also present and many times spoke of this conversation.
There are also separate poems written regarding this, elsewhere.
Life is good … 1941 Craig Field, Alabama, North Carolina USA Kenneth Ernest Webb RAF VR
Mrs Florence Emily ‘Bette’ Webb 1941 … Aunt Bette
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.