Night Bombers (2009)

 

By chance and suggestion algorithm on YouTube som rare archive colour footage of an RAF bombing raid on Berlin in the winter of 1943.

It had been re-cut and given a new narrative by the amateur cameraman Air Commodore Henry Illife Cozens with the perspective of 30 years.

His daughter, delivering his eulogy in 1997 after he died at 91 said:

[Deemed too old to fly combat in WW2]...he grew tired of his desk job, and managed to secure the post of Commanding Officer at RAF Hemswell, the bomber base of the Polish 305 Squadron in Lincolnshire. ... he shot a 16mm colour film, entitled ‘Night Bombers’. After being released under the 30 year rule, it was shown on BBC Television in 1978

The film starts early in the morning in an aircraft hangar, with the mechanics working on a Lancaster bomber which has come back from a night-time raid. It then follows that Lancaster and its crew throughout the day, from the loading up of the bombs, the briefing of the crew on their mission, the crew getting ready to go, and the aircraft taxiing out, which was totally stage managed by my father one Sunday afternoon, because being Station Commander he had the clout to make them practice taxiing.

The Lancasters are then shown taking off. This was shot in two parts, one where he is going alongside another Lancaster as it takes off and the second where he’s actually inside.

The footage then shows the crew flying to Germany, as well as the raid itself, which he shot through the open bomb bay doors and was intended to show new crews what a night-time bombing raid was like. This is the most iconic part of the film which is often used in documentaries, particularly the shot of the shadow of another Lancaster below his one. It is a sad fact that many crews were killed by ‘friendly fire’ when the bomb load of a Lancaster flying above, hit ones below them.

After the raid the film records the flight home, having to land by FIDO due to fog, the crew debrief and, finally, the Lancaster back in the hangar early the next morning being prepared for the following night’s mission.

He was grounded in April 1944, along with all station commanders and staff officers, after a staff officer, who had been briefed on the plans of D-Day, was lost over Germany. He then served as the Senior Air Staff Officer at No 1 Group Bomber Command until the end of the war.

Remarkable story.

Tailgunner

One of the features of the film is the acknowledgement of how dangerous and uncomfortable flying as a tailgunner had been. Going to the Australian War Memorial you can still see the huge 1944 painting by Dennis Adams of the loneliness of a Halifax Bomber gunner, the role of my father, before a night fighter brought him down over Berlin.