Library Reference Number: 210
Flying with No. 356 Squadron, South East Asia Command
No.356 Squadron was formed on 15th January 1944 at Salbani, Bengal, India, as a long range Bomber Unit equipped with the Consolidated B24 Liberator. The squadron attacked Japanese bases in South East Asia including Malaya, Sumatra, Thailand, Burma and planted mines outside enemy harbours. In July 1945 the squadron moved to the Cocos Islands to prepare for the invasion of Malaya. Dropping ‘the bomb’ brought about a sudden end to the war before the invasion was necessary, but during its short life, flying conditions were totally different to the European situation. To begin with, vast distances were covered, weather conditions were severe, food scarce and most alarming the constant threat of being brought down into Japanese hands was daunting with no place to run even if escape was possible. In the following account, Dan Brooks touches on some of those concerns in describing his own experiences in flying with No.356 Squadron.
I left RAF Hum (now Bournemouth Airport) on 14th January 1944 as crew member of a Wellington, plus two passengers and seven hours later arrived at Rabat in Morocco. None of the other Wellingtons that left Hum that night ever arrived in Morocco, we knew nothing of this until we arrived in India and enquired about our friends. It transpired that the other 5 aircraft had gone missing over Biscay. All of the Wellingtons were brand new and inclined towards unreliability.
After we left Rabat we had some rather hair-raising experiences. This aircraft seemed determined to prang. We had an engine cut -out on take-off on two occasions and then on one take-off the throttles jammed open which led to a somewhat hairy landing. We arrived six weeks later in Karachi.
The pilot of this Wellington was a F/Sgt Mazey, a dour Australian, and on arrival at Kolar I requested to be attached to another crew and found myself with Bill Heyes, a Canadian and Geoff Piper as first and second pilot. They had seriously differing views on how to fly. On their first operational flight together, Heyes aborted take-off on two occasions due to his interpretation of a magneto drop in power. On the third attempt at take-off Geoff deliberately held the throttles at full power. So, we took off with a full load of bombs and a dispute taking part in the cockpit. This was the last we saw of Geoff Piper as he joined another Squadron.
Bill Heyes was a nice chap. He was a good flier but he was never too happy with formation flying. He kept overshooting the lead aircraft and then throttled back until the stall warning sounded, then overshot the leader again and in the end we finished up about a mile behind the main flight. On low-level attacks he got a bit up tight if the flak was really heavy.
I completed 23 Ops. with Heyes and at the commencement of our 24th, he aborted take-off due to what he said was a mag drop in power, so he was taken off flying altogether and was replaced by MacLeod, another Canadian. This chap scared the life out of us as he employed a sort of delayed take-off method. We only got airborne after stirring up the dust at the end of the runway. Also his eyesight was not all that it could have been and when we brushed the trees at the end of the runway, it was apt to spoil one’s day.
I did a further six Ops with MacLeod, I flew with a number of other crews. On 8th June 1945 we attacked Bilin in Cambodia with fragmentation bombs in pursuit of the retreating Japanese. When the squadron moved to the Cocos Island I remained at Salbani in Bengal. Salbani did not suit me as I have a fair skin and at times one could hardly bear the smell of one’s own skin as the amount of sweat was unable to come through one’s pores and the skin putrefied. We had to put up with prickly heat, ringworm and heat exhaustion.
The local gin was passable, one drank a lot. There were fights, on one occasion an adjoining squadron carried out a raid on us and stole our long suffering piano. There were times when one felt so low. Following upon a crash on takeoff, as I carried the coffin, a smelly liquid flowed over my shoulder and neck.
One night at Salbani whilst coming back from the Mess the monsoon suddenly broke. All hell happened, forked lightening and lumps of water that passed as rain. Within minutes the ground was feet deep in yellow water and the Mid Upper gunner with whom I was having a conversation - he disappeared. What I could not understand was that I could still hear him speaking. He was actually swimming alongside us as he had stepped into an emergency fire reservoir. Next morning in the Mess, it was two feet deep in dirty water and we had to float a bench to the table and then sit on it to keep it down.
The monsoon brought out many other things. I have watched through my mosquito net, a snake which was 4 feet long. It was just a couple of feet from my charpoy (bed) and was swallowing MacTavish, a large frog that we kept as a pet to keep insects down. More serious than that, we have flown at 200 feet to get under the monsoon clouds and I have seen a waterspout appear on the starboard side. The B24 was a reliable aircraft .There was a kind of love/hate relationship with the R·1830 radial engine. Prior to take-off on an operational trip we would sit on the grass in full flying gear in the tremendous heat, gulping at a cigarette. Your stomach would be churning over, was it possible to take-off with such a load, in excess of the normal all up weight?
We encountered a series of events that one may have expected on operations, only in our case the distance between base and target was much greater; consequently help and rescue facilities much less than in some other war zones. We were fortunate to survive landing without wheels, engines on fire, injuries caused by ack-ack fire, close encounters with Japanese enemy aircraft and many other life-threatening hazards which I suppose in our youth we had naively come to expect.
Sometimes on the way home across the Bay of Bengal I would look across at the engines and one could be on talking terms with them. On one occasion an engine started to spew oil and on another we flew for 5 hours on 3 engines with smoke pouring from the starboard outer. They could lull you to sleep. I recall the occasion when I noticed that the aircraft was rolling from side to side. The roll became more and more pronounced. I got out of the turret and went up to the flight deck. There I found both pilots and the flight engineer sound asleep. I woke the pilot who adjusted the automatic pilot, which was the cause of the problem.
I was Front Gunner by choice as at times it was 'action man' especially during low-level attacks on rolling stock, AA positions and shipping. The front gunner was in fact doing the job of a Beaufighter or Mosquito - if they had the long range of the Liberator. It was most exciting, with a modicum of fear for good measure.
On one occasion I sat in the front turret for 17 hours and my food intake was two oranges and some tea tablets. We had got into some terrifying monsoon stuff on the way back from a flight to Siam and had to land at Chittagong due to lack of fuel.
On one of our Ops the target was Moulmein in Burma where we were jumped by two Oscar fighters. They didn’t follow the usual line of attack but dived through the squadron from above. A complete surprise indeed. One of them drifted close below our aircraft, so close in fact that I could see the stitching on the pilot's helmet - but I couldn't depress my guns enough to reach him. - - - I remember I kept shouting "Get down you B -" but he dived out of sight.
On 29th March 1945 we made a low-level attack on a well defended bridge on the Burma Siam railway. I was strafing gun positions from 200 feet when my turret doors flew off and I almost departed with them. No real panic when you are aged 22.
On 14th April 1945 I was flying with F/Sgt Sykes over Bangkok all alone in clear air at 9,000 feet. We were the first crew to reach the target which was the Thai Power plant in the centre of the city. We had a direct hit on the target and the rest of the squadron either bombed through the smoke, or went off to a secondary target.
On one occasion the breech cover of one of the guns slammed down on my hand as I tried to clear a stoppage. The feed pawl hooked round one of the bones on my hand and it took two hours to free myself without letting the crew know of my predicament. I thought it best not to cause any kind of alarm. Once free I asked the engineer if he could come forward and bring a pad and bandage as I was bleeding badly. This he did and later was severely reprimanded for opening the First Aid kit - it was ever thus.
In retrospect, I had made a sound choice in leaving the McLeod crew which I mentioned earlier. When it was decided that 356 should move to Cocos Island in preparation for the recapture of Malaya I had completed my maximum flying hours with other crews. Pilot McLeod, however, still had to complete his tour and was posted to Cocos with his crew. Cocos (or Keeling Island) is only a very small atoll in the Indian Ocean approximately midway between western Australia and Sri Lanka. Pilot McLeod set off for Cocos with the remainder of crew on board, lost his way inasmuch he could not find the small atoll and the entire crew perished at sea.
After having completed 32 Operations I was sent with the other tour expired men to set up a Transit Camp at Dhalbumgarh and we took over and ran the Camp entirely on our own. I was made Movements Control Warrant Officer, a task that helped me later in life with general administration. The Camp dealt with airmen or soldiers returning home. This included POWs and emergency cases. I once told a young soldier how fortunate he was to be going home. His reply was "How would you like to be going home to a wife who has just had a child to a German prisoner of war?" I never asked any questions after that.