The Augsburg Raid

Editor’s note: the daring raid on the MAN diesel engine factory at Augsburg has rightly received extensive coverage in several books, magazine articles and, of course, our own operational history, The King’s Thunderbolts. What follows here is an interesting account first published on 23 April 1992 in the French Newspaper l’Eveil Normand. In translating the article (for me, a challenging lockdown task), I adhered as closely as possible to the intention and meaning conveyed in the author’s French text. The facts remain as written in the original article.

‘The bombers, the bombers!” The radio operator Otto Happel leapt from his chair and tore off his headphones. At his side Walter Oesau, Commandant of the JG2 Richthofen Squadron, also stood up. Six large four-engined British aircraft flew past the window of the commander’s office of the German-occupied airfield at Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy, passing to the north of Tilleul-Othon and Pierrelaye at low level.

The arrival of the bombers came as a surprise. Alarms were screaming. Walter Oesau rushed to the door. After his 100th victory he had been officially withdrawn from flying duties but his Me109 was always there, armed and ready, close to the offices, and he didn’t hesitate to fly it almost every day.

Without parachute, without equipment, Oesau climbed into the narrow cockpit. With a small cloud of smoke, the engine coughed and then started. The mechanics moved away. The Lancasters were flying away but now with a horde of 20 or 30 fighters in pursuit. These are Me109s which had taken off an hour earlier and headed towards Rouen, to intercept a British raid on the suburbs of the town. They came back empty-handed but before landing they were able to engage the Lancasters.

Oesau pushed the throttle fully open and immediately made contact by radio. Provided he could arrive in time to engage, the British four-engined bombers would be the first he had ever encountered. Already he saw an explosion on the horizon. The carnage had started. In just a few minutes, four Lancasters were shot down; 21 British aviators, mostly between 19 and 22 years of age, were dead, shredded and charred.

But let’s go back a little in time. After the terrible year of 1940, when England was saved at the last minute by the courage of ‘The Few’, the year 1941, despite many setbacks, brought some hope. In May the Royal Navy sank the Bismark, a gigantic warship which was as formidable a threat to Atlantic shipping as a fox in a henhouse. In June Hitler had embarked on his crazy adventure, attacking the USSR. A large proportion of the Luftwaffe were deployed to the eastern front, leaving in the west only JG2 Richthofen and JG26 Shiageter Squadrons.

Then on the 7th December 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and the USA entered the war, with their formidable resources and industrial power. The British were no longer alone.

Despite all this, at the start of 1942, the situation was catastrophic. The Japanese had spread throughout the Far East and Singapore had fallen. The cruisers HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, pride of the Royal Navy, had been sunk by Japanese aircraft. Where would the Japanese stop? What will happen if they attack Australia and India?

In North Africa in January 1942, Rommel launched his grand offensive, which would, by August, bring him to the borders of Egypt. If he were to enter, and the Arabs revolted, where would he stop?

As for the Russians, after the disasters of the summer of 1941, they certainly succeeded in stopping the Germans at the gates of Leningrad and Moscow, but were then driven out. What would happen when Hitler launches his great offensive in the spring of 1942?

But there is worse, much worse! Submarine warfare is in full swing and packs of U-boats sink dozens of ships bringing supplies, ammunition, fuel, tanks, and aircraft from the United States. England will be strangled. Something must be done - but what?

Among the countless German military or industrial objectives, the English spotted the MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nurnberg) factory at Augsburg, which manufactured diesel engines for submarines. If it could be destroyed the commissioning of new submarines would be halted.

The raid would be incredibly daring; an act of bravery almost doomed from the start. However, it must be done. This would be a daylight raid, 2,000 km there and back, over enemy territory, and flown at 30m above the ground to avoid radar detection. On this raid they would use the new Lancaster aircraft of 44 and 97 Squadrons, received in December 1941.

On 17th April 1942, six Lancasters of 44 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, led by Sqn Ldr John Nettleton, took off from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, between 1512 and 1517 hours. Six other Lancasters of 97 Squadron, led by Sqn Ldr Sherwood, took off from Woodhall Spa. The two formations were to rendez-vous at Selsey Bill on the English Channel, a rendez-vous which fortunately they missed. The two groups therefore flew on, several kilometres apart, without seeing each other. This would enable the six Lancasters of 97 Sqn to escape the subsequent massacre.

The route from Selsey Bill to Augsburg

Diversionary attacks were mounted by the British to lure the German fighters of JG2 out of Triqueville (near Pont-Audemer), Beaumont-le-Roger, Bernay, Evreux, St Andre de l’Eure and Conches; all areas, which were on or close to the Lancasters’ route. Unfortunately, there was a time lag between the diversionary raids and the passage of the bombers. When Nettleton’s six Lancasters came abeam Beaumont-le-Roger they encountered Me109s returning from Rouen and preparing to land.

The JG2 Richthofen Squadron was the cream of the German fighter units. Among the JG2’s elite pilots were Wick, Balthazar, Oesau, Leie, Egon Mayer, Assi Hahn, Greisert, Buhligen, Rudorffer, etc … many of whom now engaged the Lancasters.

The Lancasters immediately tightened their formation for better defence. They were at a real disadvantage because the Germans could shoot from 800 metres with their 20mm cannon and the Lancasters could only respond with their 7mm machine guns from a range of 300-400 metres. This disparity was well understood by the RAF but on this occasion the proof became apparent once again; even well-armed bombers could not hope to withstand attacks by resolute fighters in broad daylight. Later the RAF would carry out almost all operations by night. However, even this would still not prevent enormous losses. Of 7,377 Lancasters built, 3,349 were destroyed in combat, not counting those which had to be re-built on return.

Hauptman Greisert, commander of 2 Group, who was in the lead, approached Lancaster KM-V, flown by Beckett. A flame erupted from one engine, grew larger, ignited the wing fuel tanks and then the fire spread to the fuselage. Soon the aircraft was transformed into a flaming torch. Jack Currie, a veteran Lancaster pilot, in his book ‘Augsburg Raid’, describes the death of Lancaster V for Victor thus: “….. plowing a black furrow in a field, crashing into a clump of trees and 30 tons of steel and aluminium, wood and equipment, fuel and rubber, ammunition and explosives, and seven crew members disintegrated into small debris.” Beckett’s aircraft fell beside the D840 Conches-Le Neubourg road, some 500 metres from the Acroisse crossroads.

Then came the turn of WO Crum’s aircraft KM-T. The fuselage was torn apart by shells from Feldwebel Bossekert. But the 30 year old Crum was an experienced pilot. He first jettisoned his bombs, which bounced off the ground without exploding. Although slightly injured, he kept his aircraft under control, chose a field without trees, animals, or other obstacles and pulled off a perfect belly-landing. Crum then got out of the aircraft as if getting off a bus at Piccadilly. The other crew members followed, except one. Bert Dowty, in the Lancaster’s nose compartment, was stuck and unable to free himself, despite struggling like a devil in a clam (sic). He didn’t know that the bomb load had been jettisoned but he did know that they were fuzed with a 7 second delay and thought they could explode at any time. He was eventually freed from his turret and the crew set about destroying the radar and the IFF equipment by setting the whole aircraft on fire. But the flares fired from their Very pistol failed to pierce the aircraft’s metal skin. They resorted to the rescue axe and finally gasoline flowed onto the ground. However, matches were strictly forbidden by aircrew regulations so they lacked the means to ignite it. Fortunately Bert Dowty, level-headed and indomitable, had hidden a few in the bottom of his pack of cigarettes.

With one strike, the Lancaster burst into flames. The crew members had to push back the inhabitants of the nearby small village of Folleville, who had moved towards them, because the aircraft’s ammunition began to explode; bullets flew towards the wood which bordered the field.

Crum ran towards the Bois-Normand farm. He didn’t follow the rest of his crew because another Lancaster had come down at almost the same time and he could see a large black cloud rising ahead of him. This aircraft was that of Sandford, his good friend, who was flying KM-P. The stricken aircraft broke the top off a farm building and disintegrated in a sea of flames; explosions spread out over more than 100 metres. But Crum wouldn’t make it to the wreckage. He realised that no one could still be alive and he saw the tracks of vehicles everywhere. German troops had followed the action by radio from nearby Beaumont-le-Roger.

Crum slipped away and hid in a barn, where he would be arrested the following morning. At subsequent reunions of former POWs, Crum had always been surrounded by the warm gratitude of his crew members whose lives he saved thanks to his impeccable forced landing.

Monsieur Jacob, the owner of the Bois-Normand farm, who was ploughing nearby, bowed his head as the Lancasters passed a few metres above him. He had great difficulty in controlling his horses which had panicked because of the noise of the engines and the detonations of cannons and machine guns. Then he saw Crum’s aircraft land in the field. He ran to the huge black cloud that had risen above the roofs of the farm to discover burning debris and charred corpses.

The salvo of shells that brought down Sandford’s Lancaster had been fired by Unteroffizier Pohl; for him it would have been a moment of triumph. There would be celebrations at Beaumont-le-Roger, with cakes and wine - maybe even champagne - to mark a memorable evening because it was he who had just gained the Richthofen Squadron’s 1000th victory and he would be the hero of the party.

One day we should also write about the adventures of the other six crew members of Lancaster KM-T. For the moment though, they were hiding in a wood. That evening, they knocked on the door of a farm in Portes, the home of Mme Dupont, a courageous young woman of 21 years, who ran the farm alone while her husband was held prisoner in Germany. Mme Dupont fed the downed aviators and gave them shelter for the night.

The next day they travelled through fields and woods near the Breteuil forest, then on to Rugles and Montreuil L’Argille. Starving and numb from cold, they were taken in by Monsieur Demarquay, a farmer in St Aquillin d’Augerons. They were then taken by the young Jacques Courcoui to the home of the Siodeaus in Avernes St Gourgon. They were then moved on to the Legenvre in St Nicolas des Laitiers. The Resistance escorted them to Alencon, where they were met by Francis Cagnard, a courageous and energetic former chief pilot of the Alencon Aero Club. Cagnard escorted them safely across the demarcation line.

They were arrested by the Vichy police in Limoges, and held captive in the old fort of Revere, above Nice, before being transferred on to Italy. Italy had fallen to the Germans in September 1943 and the prisoners would end the war in a sinister camp deep within Poland.

But let us now return to the three surviving Lancasters, still almost unharmed. They had continued their mission, expecting at any moment to be destroyed. The speed with which the other three had been shot down left them with little hope. But why didn’t the german fighters continue to press home their attacks? The explanation might have been that the Me109 pilots were holding back, to give Commandant Oesau the opportunity to gain a new and superb victory, his 101st, and his first four-engined kill. Walter Oesau joined them when they were close to the Evreux airfield.

He immediately closed on the bomber flown by Rhodes, Lancaster KM-H. Perhaps out of chivalry, perhaps to ensure his victory would impress his fellow pilots, or perhaps simply because his 20mm cannon was out of ammunition, he approached very close to his prey and attacked with machine guns, yawing his Me109 from right to left, in the severe wake turbulence left by the bomber’s four Rolls Royce Merlins, to be more sure of hitting one of its engines.

Currie recounts in his book ‘The Painful Death of KM-H’ that the bomber’s demise was terrible to see. At first the Lancaster increased speed, as if the throttles had been pushed fully open. Then it reared up like a frightened animal and veered left, heading straight for Nettleton and Garwell. They would never know whether Rhodes was still in control of his aircraft or not. The crew members who were able to follow the fight were paralysed and held their breath. They saw the burning monster plunge towards them. It seemed as if the aircraft was trying to grab hold of them, like a drowning man desperately trying to grab a life raft. Finally it fell and crashed to the ground, twisting on itself and disappearing in a kaleidoscope of flames, sparks and smoke.

Following Qesau’s victory, the pack relaunched their assault on the last two Lancasters, Nettleton’s and Garwell’s, which were then attacked numerous times. Currie observed, “On both aircraft, torn sheets of metal flapped like the wings of a sparrow.” Suddenly the attacks stopped and in a few seconds the sky was empty. All the Me109s were running out of fuel and they turned for the nearby Evreux airfield.

The two remaining Lancasters, displaying incredible courage, ignored orders to about-turn in the event of such severe losses and continued with their mission. They would not encounter any more German fighters while over occupied France and would be able to release their bombs on the MAN factory. However, intense flak brought down Garwell’s KM-A. Three of the crew were killed and the other four became prisoners of war.

The six Lancasters of 97 Squadron, which had not suffered any fighter attacks, arrived over their objective immediately after Nettleton and dropped their bombs, but they too were savaged by flak. OF-K, Sherwood’s Lancaster, was the only one to escape; Mylock’s OF-P was shot down near Augsburg and all crew members were killed.

Night was now falling as the last four Lancasters headed for home under the protective cloak of darkness. They returned to their base between 2257 and 2325 hours. As for Nettleton, his aircraft’s compass had failed and his radio operator, Churchill, transmitted an urgent SOS asking for a steer. He finally landed at a diversion airfield on the coast of the Irish Sea, a long way from base, at 0050 hrs, almost one and a half hours after the other four.

Nettleton was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest British honour for gallantry. He subsequently died during a raid on Turin. Many other survivors of the Augsburg raid were also killed in subsequent operations. Let us not forget that of the 150,000 aircrew in Bomber Command, more than 50,000 were killed and 20,000 taken prisoner.

This glorious raid cost the RAF dear: 7 aircraft were lost out of the total of 12, plus one other irreparably damaged (a loss rate of 67%). Thirty seven aircrew were killed and 12 taken prisoner - 58% of the total participants.

The damage caused to the MAN factory was not up to expectations, mainly because of the loss of one third of the force before reaching the target. However, the psychological effects on the German population, who believed themselves invulnerable in this part of southern Germany, were important.

When Bert Dowty came to lay his red poppies on the 14 graves at the Beaumont-le-Roger cemetery and on the 7 graves at Evreux cemetery, it was with great emotion that he placed his hand on each of the headstones of his former comrades. They were, like him, around 20 years old at the time. They only wanted to live, to have fun and to love. Now they are forever 20 year-olds in the memory of those who knew them and they will never get to know the miseries of old age.

Bert Dowty