City to Shire Chapter 41 ~ Harry Marshall Junior ~ RAF Pathfinder (Revised Edition)

Windsor Street Days

Chapter Thirty-One

Harry Marshall Junior ~ RAF Pathfinder

 Introduction

1337884 Flight Sergeant Harry Alfred Marshall Flight Engineer RAF VR Pathfinder

(1922-1945)

This is one of the most natural photographs of Uncle Harry. Taken in November 1944, it is the last photograph, as the crew were killed in action over Germany eight weeks later on January 16-17, 1945. This would have been the time that Harry brought some of the crew of PB402 LQM (Avro Lancaster), to the family home 36 Elmfield Road, Cheltenham, when Mum (Nancy Marshall) was working at Martins near the London-Midland-South (LMS) Railway Station on the Gloucester Road.

(Coincidentally, Dad (Desmond Webb) was a 17-year-old fireman in reserved occupation on the high-speed steam footplate, and they would eventually meet in 1947-1948 working at Smith’s Industries on the edge of Bishops Cleeve and marry on April 2, 1949. Carol Ann, their first-born, arrived on March 30, 1950).

Mum often told me of the morning after one raid when she went to work in the clocking on-and-off office at Martins, to find it bombed – a target because the factory was tasked to make glider wings. This would have been for the D-Day invasion. Once the temporary roof had been erected, production was very quickly underway again. As I watch events in the War in Ukraine, it reminds me, uncomfortably, that not everyone in Cheltenham or Gloucestershire were committed to defeating Nazi Germany. How else, so far inland, would a factory committed to war work, be pin-pointed? It reminds me today that even though our Ambassador to the Ukraine has returned to Kyiv, the ambassador has reminded us in an article in today’s Observer (May 1, 2022), that Russia has made it clear. Diplomats returning to Kyiv are legitimate targets for their ‘embedded cells’.

I find this portrait to be a truly remarkable and inspiring image of Uncle Harry.

We see his warmth and sense of fun, his self-assurance and confidence. Reading his letters, especially to his dad, I can see that he was going places. He saw beyond the war’s end, as did thousands upon thousands of men and women who, nevertheless, did not survive.

Uncle Frank (Frank Frederick Marshall 1938 –2018) talked to me in 2016-2018 of how Harry would sit him on his knee (he being no more than six years old) and Harry “would pretend to be a Lancaster, starting off with a long low whistle and then, somehow, groaning in his throat to simulate the four engines whilst at the same time continuing to whistle! It was his party piece Ken, and the family and crew loved it!”.

Here, too, is the image of Harry as the brother with whom Mum would walk to and from the LMS Station.

On one occasion, Mum met Harry on the Station platform. He kept coughing and looking at his arm. Mum laughed, and told him to clear his throat, or shut up! Then Harry rolled his eyes. “Then I spotted it Ken. The crown above the stripes. He was a flight sergeant. Oh Ken, he was so proud that night. And I was thrilled!”

It is good, regardless of what people might think, or say, or believe, that in Mum’s last week in May 2016, she often said to me,

“Oh, hello Ken, Harry’s been here again.”

“Oh yes Mum? That's good. Where?”

And on one of the last occasions before Mum finally lost consciousness, she smiled and said, “It's alright Ken. Harry’s here.”

I replied, “Oh hi Uncle. Mum, where should I sit?”

“Oh, in the chair dear. Harry’s on the bed, smiling. And I waved… a very natural and normal thing to do.

That was the last conversation with Mum. A few hours later Mum had already lapsed, and our last act was Carol and me changing Mum, and I'll never forget that moment. It was so comforting to have Carol help me, for by now I was feeling absolutely useless. I was all at sea, a dismasted ship. I was rushing headlong into a corner. I was losing my Mum, and I didn't know what to do. But Carol stepped in; and both of us are sure that Mum, somehow, knew we were not the carers, and we were making her comfortable. Bless her. Then she was gone… … May 25, 2016.

Our younger sister, Vanessa, on reading this, reminded me of a similar feeling with Grandma Marshall back in 1978, a nurse, who remembered being aware that Grandma knew that Vanessa and Mum were with her … reminding me that one’s hearing is the last perceptory function to close down. Thanks Vanessa. I remember so clearly how Carol and I felt that night.

FLT SGT H A MARSHALL ~ FLIGHT ENGINEER ~ PATHFINDER ~ RAF VR

The advent of the four-engine bomber, of which the first in the RAF was the Short Stirling, led to the creation of the flight engineer trade, and I am grateful to RAF Bomber Crewman by Jonathan Falconer (Waterstones) for his superb overview.

Part One

The flight engineer handled the complicated mechanical, hydraulic, electrical and fuel systems during flight. The flight engineer was also the link between aircrew and groundcrew. Flight engineers commenced operations from April 1941, and in September 1942 the role of Flight Engineer was officially recognised as aircrew with the specialist 'E' flying brevet, a single wing with the letter E embossed and surrounded in Laurel Leaf.

There is an image of Harry’s brevet on his formal portrait (below); and from the family archive at the end of this chapter, we see his Pathfinder Wings and also a flight engineer’s ‘sweetheart’ brooch depicting E for engineer, laurel leaf and single wing. This brooch was worn throughout my lifetime by Grandma Marshall, and Mum afterwards, at appropriate times.

One of the images shows the wing of a model aircraft. This is the model of Avro Lancaster PB402 LQ-M commissioned by me and built by Peter Cunliffe, the author of A Shaky Do. The Aircraft sits on sergeant’s chevrons that were found in the archive at the bottom of a box five years ago. We believe the chevrons belonged to Harry’s future brother-in-law Kenneth Ernest Webb, so Ken’s Handley Page Halifax DK165 MP-E sits upon chevrons too. I like that!

As a family, I’ve often imagined how conversations might have been between the two aircrew. But I was pulled up short the other week when reminded that they’d be 101 years old now. And suddenly, with my mind very much upon the War in Ukraine, I found myself drawing a line in the sands of time…

Yes, Ken. Leave us be.
Finish our accounts off, give yourself a grand total,
for we are at peace,
but you have life to live
and very serious challenges to face.
We’ve set the marker for you.
Don’t make the mistake of living life in the past.

FS 1337884 HA Marshall RAFVR in No 1 Dress wearing the Flight Engineer’s coveted Brevet

This is Uncle Harry's brevet with which we are all familiar. Mum was immensely proud of this brevet. So why did Uncle Harry end up being transferred to RAF Gransden Lodge in Cambridgeshire for service with a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron?

Part Two

Up until 1944, flight engineers for the Canadian heavy bomber squadrons in England were in short supply because the RCAF did not train aircrew flight engineers.

Thus, in 2022, (and thanks, Vanessa, as it is the book you gave me at Christmas) that we three ~ Carol-Vanessa-Ken ~ can now work out precisely why Uncle Harry RAFVR was serving with the RCAF.

Only the RAF could supply them with the shortfall that the RCAF desperately needed.

Part Three

What also surprises me is to learn the scope of Harry’s specialism. I'd always thought only in terms of engines and fuel. But now we find that Harry was responsible for hydraulics, the aircraft’s miles of electrical cabling, but also the landing gear, and the three separate gun turrets.

Let me list this again. For it truly helps us, as a family, when we visualise the Avro Lancaster, that our uncle is indeed the No. 2 ( regardless of the fact that some other crew members were commissioned); a point emphasised in those last photos of Harry at 36 Elmfield Road with his skipper and a couple of other crew members (I’m not entirely sure which ones) eight weeks before their last operation on January 16-17, 1945.

On board the aircraft, Harry was responsible for:

·      Hydraulics

·      Electrical

·      Landing Gear

·      Rear turret movement

·      Mid upper turret movement

·      Forward turret movement

And on top of all that, Harry was, as a flight engineer Flight Sergeant, ‘the link ‘ between his aircrew and PB402's groundcrew, a factor that we must never underestimate.

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this.

He would speak the language of groundcrew. He would understand them. They would all be NCOs (corporals, sergeants, flight sergeants and even warrant officers) and senior aircraftmen. Officers, no matter how ‘cool and good’, simply did not have the same repartee that an aircrew SNCO would have. Period. I speak as a former officer.

They all spoke the same language.

This would have been vital for Harry’s skipper, Flight Lieutenant Leslie Payne … groundcrews will level far more easily with SNCO aircrew than they might with officer aircrew.

Having said that, we know that Harry was popular with his skipper. We know that several of the crew stayed at 36 Elmfield Road on the weekend leave in November 1944, and that all of them went with Mum to the town hall dance. Mum would often relate how popular the crew were when they entered the double-decker bus into town. There was a great cheer from the passengers when they saw “our boys in blue”. And when they alighted the bus, Mum’s account never changed in the way that all the passengers cheered again, shouting out, ‘give em ‘ell, boys!’

In November 1944, German air raids inland were rare. However, the V1 and V2 offensive against the London capital was at its height. One research engine Mail-on-Line suggests ‘that the V-weapons inflicted immense suffering in Britain, causing over 30,000 civilian casualties and left hundreds of thousands homeless, with over 7,250 killed in the London Capital.’

Now we learn just why the wing has the laurel leaf. My only regret is that I did not realise all of this when Mum and Dad or Grandad and Grandma were with us.

In completing Uncle Harry's family biography, I do so because the author of the authority on the Pathfinder Force, Dr. Jennie Gray, is preparing a history of the various squadrons within the Path Finder Force and has requested information on 405 (City of Vancouver) Squadron R.C.A.F based at RAF Gransden Lodge, Cambridgeshire. The Squadron Coat of Arms is displayed at the end of this chapter.

Part Four

By 1944, the problem of mixed crews, where the captain of the aircraft and the navigator were Sergeant-Pilot and Sergeant-Navigator but with gunners, bombardiers and wireless operators often holding commissions, required the RAF to level the playing field. 

They did so by commissioning the majority of sergeant-pilots and sergeant-navigators.

Dad mentioned that Ken’s commission was being processed when he was killed in action in April 1943, but I have nothing else to go on. Now, of course, I can finally see the procedure that was being put in place and gathering pace as the air war heightened to its crescendo with the Battle of Berlin in 1944. Harry was in the thick of that as it covered the period November 18, 1943 – March 31, 1944. Operations then extended to cover the Normandy Invasion and the advance across the Rhine into Nazi Germany itself.

Part Five

We learn, too, why Harry’s wing has the laurel leaf. The laurel leaf denoted that the flight engineer trade had been formally recognised as a specialist trade. In other words, it is now on a par with pilots, navigators and bombardiers.

Hitherto, the triangular command structure within aircrew would be a pilot ~ navigator ~ bombardier. The wireless operator/air gunner (he performed both functions in four engine heavy bombers) dovetailed into that. Surrounding this grouping would be the defensive three men gunnery, fore, aft and mid-upper.

Flight engineers also became, in many cases, defacto second pilots.

This was actively encouraged by RAF high command to offset the increasing number of pilots being killed or seriously injured mid-flight but leaving the remainder of the crew with an aircraft that was still flyable. In such an event, the surviving crew had no option but to bail out. There are many instances, however, of flight engineers, and bombardiers, successfully landing or crash-landing their aircraft, and all crew surviving.

Hence, in Harry's case, we know from Mum, that Harry was regularly allowed to take control and fly the Lancaster once they were over the North Sea and out of occupied territory. Harry would have been schooled by Les Payne; he would have understood how to weave the Lancaster, i.e., never to fly straight for more than a few meters. Weaving was its principal defence, to make targeting by German anti-aircraft guns, and fighters, more difficult to obtain a fix on.

Part Six

The gunners were the eyes and ears of the aircraft.

The navigator guided the pilot to the target, and then a safe course back to England.

The bombardier then took over from the navigator and guided the pilot to the drop zone right up to the “bombs away”.

During this time, the bombardier was the captain of the aircraft. Absolute accuracy was essential, as they were laying the pathway to the target for Main Force. This was done by “ground marking” in varying colours, at specific predetermined heights. Thus, when we see film footage of air raids over Germany, we often see what appears to be thousands of tracer falling gently in a shower and many hundreds of meters in vertical length. These enabled Main Force to plot their course to the Target as they followed in behind the Path Finder Force. By now, German anti-aircraft defences had worked out precisely the purpose and function of the Path Finder Force, which became their primary target.

At the height of the Strategic Air Offensive in 1944-45, the German defences were highly efficient and were able to “copy” the marking systems, to lure Main Force away from the target to open country. This was especially effective when there was 10-10 cloud cover over the actual target.

Upon “bombs away”, the aircraft invariably gained a sudden massive severe uplift that required very accurate flying and handling by the pilots who had now resumed captaincy. Enemy fighters knew that this was a very vulnerable moment for the aircraft, as crews would very often also, momentarily, be disoriented. The pilots would, if under attack, also now be flying specifically according to gunnery instructions, those instructions enabling the pilot to so position the aircraft, that the gunners could get line-of-sight and target onto the enemy fighter.

In his book A Shaky Do, Peter Cunliffe reports one incident of a Short Stirling four engine bomber being repeatedly attacked and fighting off the Focke-Wulf night fighter. The engagement was persistent, and eventually the German pilot succeeded in shooting the stricken bomber down. But in his battle report, he spoke of the Stirling pilot’s capability and how the Luftwaffe pilot marvelled at seeing the Allies’ largest four-engine bomber being thrown about the sky in violent evasive action with all the agility and perfection of a Spitfire. That gives us a measure of the quality of aircrews generally. The Stirling dwarfed both the Lancaster and Halifax, even the American B17 Flying Fortress.

The navigator now fixed course for home, giving the pilot coordinates and positioning, to execute the about turn. The turn was also a very vulnerable moment for all aircrews. Meanwhile, the three gunners are watching intently, or actively firing. As already explained, if the latter, then the pilot suddenly finds that he has become the taxi driver, flying to the order of the gunners, constantly putting the aircraft into the best possible position to give his gunners the widest firing angle. These angles were often acute.

Part Seven

Why do I repeat this?

Because I want any reader in my family to understand fully just what our uncles were doing in their war service and which, collectively, with that ‘greatest generation’, has enabled all of us to live for 80 years in peace. With the War in Ukraine, I want my family to understand just what is being done on the battlefield by the Ukraine Armed Forces to achieve their successes against the invading Russian forces.

With the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, that eighty-year peace has ended for good.

We have a new world order and even though we will not live to see it, the children and grandchildren in this family must understand that the rest of the century will be dealing with the menace of Russia and China, totalitarian states that have no desire for liberal democracy and freedom, who are intent in the decline and demise of the United States of America.

It is for NATO and the West to make sure that those totalitarian regimes totally fail in their obscene objectives.

Totalitarianism requires the removal of all people who do not subscribe to dictatorship.

This is, bluntly, achieved by genocide. We saw this with the Holocaust, and we know full well China’s policy with regard to the Uyghur People, and, if it has the chance, also the independent sovereign state and island of Taiwan. We have seen what happened to Hong Kong, where the Treaty made with the United Kingdom and the Hong Kong government was ripped up three years ago, and where autocracy is now very firmly in place, and where all opposition is removed to mainland high security prisons “for re-education”. That is what the Nazis did! And worse!!

In Ukraine, we are very aware not only of an intention to wipe out ‘Ukrainianism’, as Russian pundits call it, but to do so by the most brutal means. Russia, fully supported by the Russian people, is doing the same.

Part Eight

To continue from Part Seven.

Meanwhile, the flight engineer is maintaining control of engine status, carrying out the pilot’s instructions, boosting or decreasing fuel supply depending upon the manoeuvre or dogfight they are engaged in.

There is one instance (one of many in fact) I've read this weekend of a Lancaster’s artificial horizon failing. This meant that flying at night and with 10/10 cloud, there was no natural visible horizon. The Lancaster was attacked, and the pilot managed to escape the attack. They continued to the target, the navigator’s skills were absolutely crucial to guide them blind and they released their bombs. On the return, they were again attacked, and took violent evasive action. The crew were completely disorientated, as well as fighting off the repeated attacks.

In a sudden unexpected cloud break the pilot then discovered that the ground was "above me". The Lancaster had somehow inverted but was flying perfectly, upside down!

I've also read of many instances this weekend where the rear turret was "taken out”. Each time, the pilot would instruct the mid-upper gunner to go aft to report injury and damage. In other words, exactly that which had happened with the Webb Crew in 1943 on the Plzen Raid flying DK 165 MP-E.

Part Nine

 The mind boggles as to what exactly the RCAF was doing flying four-engine heavy bombers like the Sterling and Halifax without flight engineers!

I've learnt much today and am thrilled to share this with the whole family. I do not share any of this information with families of any crews as they will do their own research.

But chapter 30 is specifically talking about Harry Marshall’s role as flight engineer in the Royal Air Force. As I have said elsewhere in Windsor Street Days, Ken’s war was relatively short and brutal, whereas Harry’s war was very long, and very brutal.

Harry’s war ended, like thousands of crews, in an instant. It is best that I refer to the definitive Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War by W R Chorley for 1945

Part Ten

Harry’s Avro Lancaster Mk III PB402 LQ-M took off at 18:13 hours from RAF Gransden Lodge, Cambridgeshire, on Operation Zeitz. The crew’s objective was to assist in the marking of the Braunkohle Benzin synthetic-oil plant in readiness for Main Force approaching from behind them. The entry on page 50 records that all the crew are buried in the Commonwealth War Grave Commission Durnbach War Cemetery.

The Payne Crew are buried in the same line:

F/L H L Payne RCAF ~ Pilot

Sgt H A Marshall RAF ~ Flight Engineer

F/O H E Novak RCAF ~ Navigator

F/O D G McKay RCAF ~ Bombardier

P/O A B Miller RCAF ~ WO/AG

F/S J A Bruggeman RCAF ~ Gunner

F/S B R Cunliffe RCAF ~ Gunner

F/S N L L Smith RCAF ~ Gunner

The record reports that the stricken Lancaster came down in Pfaffenhausen. However, the record also confirms that there are at least four locations in Germany with the same name, but that it is believed that this Lancaster came down in Pfaffenhausen that lies on the road between Krumbach and Mindelheim.

Part Eleven

But that is not all. On page 52, the Record reports that Avro Lancaster Mk X KB850 WL-O of 434 Squadron took off at 17:19 from RAF Croft 4 miles from Darlington, County Durham, to attack the Braunkohle-Benzin synthetic-oil plant.

KB850 WL-O was part of Main Force. Again, all the Kiehl Bauch Crew are buried together in line at the Commonwealth War Grave Commission Durnbach War Cemetery.

F/L A Kiehl Bauch RCAF ~ Pilot

F/S D Turner RCAF ~ Flight Engineer

F/O G G Shaw RCAF ~ Navigator

F/O N G Fadden RCAF ~ Bombardier

P/O W T Wilson RCAF ~ WO/AG

P/O A G Carolan RCAF ~ Gunner

P/O W D Martin RCAF ~ Gunner

The Chorley Record notes that F/S D Turner RCAF was an Englishman serving with the RCAF; certainly, he had married Margaret Kathleen Turner of Church Stretton and it seems likely from evidence in the CWGC cemetery register that his parents, too, lived in the same area.

Harry was an Englishman serving with the RCAF but on secondment from the RAF (i.e. loaned by the RAF to the RCAF). He would, therefore, have retained his RAF status. Whilst the record states that Harry is a Sergeant, that was his substantive RAF rank, not his temporary rank of Flight Sergeant.

But the tragedy of the loss of these two crews is in the manner of their end.

PB402 LQ-M and KB850 WL-O collided mid-air, both fully laden, on the outgoing flight to Zeitz.

Eye-witnesses talk of a huge explosion in the sky. One would wish to think that death was instantaneous for all fourteen crew. But an eye-witness report notes that from the wreckage of PB402 LQ-M, footsteps marked by a trail of blood were found in the snow leading away from the aircraft. There is no indication which member of the Payne Crew this was, only that those attending the crash site located the body, now dead.

Part Twelve

This happened all too often to aircraft flying in close formation. As, too, did the release of bombloads by crews flying in higher formations hit their comrades flying in lower formation.

Part Thirteen

In many cases, squadrons were rendered non-operational because in one week, or in one night, they lost 80% of their aircraft. If we recall the wartime news reels of 20 plus Lancasters taxiing out to the main runway on the perimeter track past the large hangars, (then multiply that by more than 200 RAF heavy bomber stations) then imagine 80% of those 20 have gone within eight hours, i.e.,16 aircraft have gone (116-128 men) then we begin to grasp the reality.

Groundcrews were reluctant to form too close an attachment with their aircrews simply because of the attrition rate; and there are harrowing accounts of breakdowns by groundcrew who could not cope with losing yet more friends, something that is rarely mentioned.

This is another reason why I keep flying the flag for the unsung warriors and heroes ~ our Groundcrews!

Part Fourteen

Les Payne, Harry’s skipper, reports in his log book on three separate missions that they ‘sighted our first Jet’ and two separate sightings, ‘sighted Jet’. This is important. Why? because a host of conspiracy theories insist that crews were incorrect; that they saw what they wanted to see; that no German jets were ever operational, let alone actually attacking the bomber formations. One has only to read General Adolf Galland’s The First and the Last to blast these theories out of the sky. He was the general officer commanding the squadron of jet fighters, and notably the Messerschmitt ME 262. To those theorists I say this. On yer bike. Don’t waste my time. Take your parallel universe elsewhere

Flight Lieutenant H L Payne RCAF flying training in an Airspeed Oxford over England.Image by kind couresy of his niece, Ms Linda Payne, Canada, who also very kindly released a copy of her Uncle’s flying log book covering his entire service up to the last raid before the 16-17 January 1945 which was entered and signed off by the Squadron Commander, 405 Squadron on the late Flt Lt Payne’s behalf.

Part Fifteen

Over a lifetime, families pass information ‘down the line’ that are true but with the teller’s own slant put upon the facts. This is a failing of human nature. Its worst example is, of course, in all religion and all denominations within every religion. It is why I have no regard for religion even though I have an immoveable faith.

For whatever reason, the post war generation in our family suggested that things were not always happy, that Harry couldn’t wait to get away from his Dad, and so on. Yet all the letters I have in the family archive present a quite different and very positive picture.

This letter is Harry’s last (it is good to see that he signed himself Harrie ~ I really like that); it is four pages addressed to his parents, Frank and Martha Marshall at 36 Elmfield Road. I’m not transcribing it. It is a contemporaneous record in December 1944 and speaks volumes of the love and warmth of our family.

I emphasise one phrase in Uncle Harry’s closing paragraph … Cheerio for now Dad and Mum and all the love in the world to the best Dad and Mum in the world from your ever loving Son Harrie. x x x x x x x x x As I say, THAT says it all!

From Harrie ~ R.C.A.F. Monday ~ to Grandma and Grandad ~ Frank and Martha Marshall : pages 1 and 2

From Harrie ~ R.C.A.F. Monday ~ to Grandma and Grandad ~ Frank and Martha Marshall : pages 3 and 4

2 July 2022
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

First written 1 May 2022