Avro Lancaster: Bailing Out

[The Wooksta!]

The RAF used IR detectors as well, apparently under the codename Resin.  It's all very sketchy and no one really knows much about it.  Edgar Brooks found some references to it in the PRO.

[kitnut617]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fact that the German fighters were equipped with radar emission detectors which were more successful than their radar intercept equipment. Brian has eluded to the tail-warning radar (called 'Rebecca'), and once the RAF twigged to what was happening it was either switched off or removed totally.  All the German detector had to do was to be tuned in to the wave length for that night and it was just follow back to the source.  But the bombing radar H2O was just as bad which was also used to help with navigation, and the German detectors for this is where they had the most success, considering just about every British bomber was equipped with it and once the bomber stream was found it was a free-for-all.

[KJ_Lesnick]

pyro-manic

Been doing a bit of reading on Schrage-Musik, and found that Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer (top-scoring nightfighter ace) downed seven Lancasters in nineteen minutes on Feb. 21st 1945. Fish in a barrel comes to mind...

That's impressive!  I wonder if he was inspired by the Dresden raid.  This isn't me getting all high and mighty, but spite and revenge are very inspirational and one can use anger as a fuel.


rickshaw

While the RAF at a late stage added tail-warning radar, the problem with of course using radar is that it is an emitter and therefore can lead a hunter to it's prey much more effectively.

I thought it was a passive device...


The Wooksta!

The RAF used IR detectors as well, apparently under the codename Resin.

Did this also entail a laser emitter fitted to the nose and tail of all the bombers in the stream?  I remember reading a book by an RAF pilot (Leslie Hay) who mentioned a radar directed ranging device and an IR system


kitnut617

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fact that the German fighters were equipped with radar emission detectors which were more successful than their radar intercept equipment.

I didn't know that

All the German detector had to do was to be tuned in to the wave length for that night and it was just follow back to the source.

Wow

[rickshaw]

rickshaw

While the RAF at a late stage added tail-warning radar, the problem with of course using radar is that it is an emitter and therefore can lead a hunter to it's prey much more effectively.

I thought it was a passive device...

No, it was an active device.

The Wooksta!

The RAF used IR detectors as well, apparently under the codename Resin.

Did this also entail a laser emitter fitted to the nose and tail of all the bombers in the stream?  I remember reading a book by an RAF pilot (Leslie Hay) who mentioned a radar directed ranging device and an IR system

Considering that Lasers weren't invented until after WWII, I rather doubt you'd find one fitted to the nose or tail of any aircraft flying in WWII.

kitnut617

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fact that the German fighters were equipped with radar emission detectors which were more successful than their radar intercept equipment.

I didn't know that

I alluded to it, in one of the previous posts.

All the German detector had to do was to be tuned in to the wave length for that night and it was just follow back to the source.

Wow

Any radio emitter can be homed in on.  Radar is a powerful radio source.  It's how it works.   So therefore it can be detected with the appropriate equipment.

The German equipment was codenamed IIRC "Naxos".

Kendra are you doing any research by yourself?  This is all basic stuff mentioned in most histories of the RAF Bomber offensive.

[KJ_Lesnick]

rickshaw

Considering that Lasers weren't invented until after WWII, I rather doubt you'd find one fitted to the nose or tail of any aircraft flying in WWII.

Well maybe some kind of IR light?  I remember something mentioned about that.

[tahsin]

This must be the IR device the Germans tried on 110s around 1940-41 before they had radars. Might be called the Spanner Anlage as far as I remember it.

[aston]

Hi, whatiffers - first post ......

I've read this thread with special interest in the life or death human situation of trying to save one's life escaping from a damaged, crashing plane. I do find it amazing that it was allowed to be so difficult and wonder what that shows about attitudes of designers, the authorities, the crews and the times.

Colourful cutaway views of the times show crew members comfortably at their posts, looking unconcerned and unthreatened. It is as though if a 'problem' arose they were then to proceed to a hatch and exit the aircraft in good order ..... in contrast to the nightmare of the reality. I wonder just how much the lives of the men were cared about - as though they were expected to do their duty and die uncomplainingly - regrettable but that's war. I imagine hatches tend to compromise the strength of an airframe, but even so, given the ingenuity devoted to all equipment during wartime it should, surely, have been possible to do more for your men. In particular I read of parachutes being hooked up away from crew members and having to be fetched before bailing out. How many men were throw into mid-air without a parachute, to fall to their deaths?

I fantasise that if I were designing those aircraft my starting point would be escape methods whereby, by pulling a lever, the person could drop from the plane with parachute attached. Bomber Command losses were something like 50% .... depending on how the figures are looked at? ...... what are comparable figures, pro rata, for American losses (and even German aircraft, given their presumed technical design superiority - I note the comment about He IIIs). There are accounts of fighter canopies jamming and trapping pilots. Why no means of blowing the thing off somehow? ...... well, releasing it anyway. Spitfires had that crowbar on the side entrance flap; looks a bit lame to me.

Otherwise concerning armour - American aircrew are shown with infantry helmets and, perhaps?, body armour ..... so why not for British airmen? Could that be American can-do practicality versus British stiff upper lip fatalism and misplace Moral Fibre. Would the weight gain from some judicious pieces of armour plate, amounting to, say, one bomb, have been worth some lives - and aircraft - saved? Youtube has many clips of German gun-camera film of attacks on American bombers ..... horrific to watch as cannon fire hits unprotected gun turrets, where gunners didn't stand a chance.

..... and I wonder how much awareness there was of Schrage Musik among the bomber crews ...... how many survived it to think about counter measures? I think some British bombers had in-the-field fitting of single gun positions in the rear lower fuselage but surely an observation position would have been desirable. I read that German night-fighters tended to leave bombers alone if the turrets were constantly moving. Was that a definite conscious tactic by the bomber gunners?

Finally ..... perhaps others have heard the story of a rear gunner who survived the rear fuselage of, probably, a Lancaster or Halifax, breaking away when it descended like a huge tree-leaf flitting from side to side until it landed (fairly) softly. There is another account of an airman falling from great height and landing on heavily snow-covered pine trees on a hillside, also with deep snow, and thankfully surviving. How many similar miraculous survivals of that kind are there?

Apologies for the long post ....  

[The Wooksta!]

There was an F-80 pilot in Korea who bailed out and fell some distance but survived as he landed in deep snow.  Few months later he was complaining of headaches so he was given an X-ray and they found he'd actually broken his neck.

[rickshaw]

Aston,  no need to apologise for the length of your post.

What must be understood is that any opening in an aircraft structure means that it is weakened.  That's why escape hatches were kept to a minimum.   Designers weren't careless about the lives of the crew of the aircraft they designed, nor were military commanders who ordered the designs.  However, they could often by coldly calculating.

As to the use of personal armour, yes USAAF bomber crews did wear flak jackets (where do you think the name came from?) and helmets.  So did German bomber crews.  For the RAF, The Boys and Girls Book of World Knowledge offers this:

The first usage of the term "flak jacket" refers to the armour originally developed by the Wilkinson Sword company during World War II to help protect Royal Air Force (RAF) aircrew from the flying debris and shrapnel thrown by German anti-aircraft guns' high-explosive shells (flak itself is an abbreviation for the German word "Fliegerabwehrkanone" (anti-aircraft gun)).[3] The idea for the flak jacket came from Col. Malcolm C. Grow, Surgeon of the US Eighth Air Force in Britain. He thought that many wounds he was treating could have been prevented by some kind of light armor. In 1943 he was awarded the Legion of Merit for developing the flak vest.

Unfortunately, flak jackets proved to be too bulky for wear within the confines of the RAF's standard bomber aircraft, the Avro Lancaster. The Royal Air Force subsequently offered the jackets to the United States Army Air Forces, which adopted them as a Defense Standard.[4]
[...]
Col. Grow's request to the Wilkinson Sword company was to develop a vest that could stop a .45 caliber round fired at close range.[5] Although flak jackets offered some basic protection against small caliber bullets and shell fragments (which was obviously welcomed by their users), ultimately they proved to be less effective than hoped...

The RAF made a choice - better to be able to move around and escape than to wear a protective jacket which would make egress more difficult.

The British actually led the world in the development and issuing of personal protection during WWII, with the Army after it's experiences in Tunisia, widely issuing personal armoured vests for soldiers for Operation OVERLORD.   Operations Research had shown that a large percentage of casualties on the battlefield were caused by shell fragments and so a means of protection would improve survival for the common soldier.

As to removing canopies, various methods were employed to jettison them.  "Blowing them off" tends to be a bit dangerous, to ground crew who have to work around the aircraft (even today, numerous accidents with ejector seats are reported each year) and to the air crew as well when they are "blown off".  The crowbar was a cheap and often effective means of getting out of a Spitfire.  Not a 100% guaranteed but not much is.  The strangest story about getting rid of canopies in WWII I'm aware of was the Do335.  Apparently it had handles attached to the canopy which detached it from the cockpit frame and lifted it at the front so that the airstream would catch and pull it away.  Problem was the handles were literally attached to the canopy so if you held onto them, the story went, your arms would be pulled off as the jettisoning was so quick!  It may have been an apocryphal story.

[Mossie]

Finally ..... perhaps others have heard the story of a rear gunner who survived the rear fuselage of, probably, a Lancaster or Halifax, breaking away when it descended like a huge tree-leaf flitting from side to side until it landed (fairly) softly. There is another account of an airman falling from great height and landing on heavily snow-covered pine trees on a hillside, also with deep snow, and thankfully surviving. How many similar miraculous survivals of that kind are there?

That last one sounds like Nicholas Alkemade.  He jumped from a Lancaster at 18,000ft after seeing his parachute go up in flames, preferring to die from a fall rather than roast in a fire.  IIRC he blacked out for most of the fall and when he was surrounded by the white snow, assumed it was heaven!  He was picked up by the Gestapo who initially gave him a rough time for sticking to his story, until the wreck of the Lanc was inspected and the burnt remains of the rear gunners parachute was indeed found to be in place on it's rack.

IIRC it wan't his only miraculous escape during his life, but I can't recall the details.  I used to go quite heavilly for this kind of thing when I was a kid and this was in a book of 'amazing but true' kind of stories.  Unrelated, but I read a story in Hugh 'Cocky' Dundas's autobiography that a guy on his squadron was in a dogfight when the strap on his goggles snapped and fell into his lap.  He got away with his aircraft relatively unscathed, but when he landed there was a bullet hole in the canopy right where his head was, the bullet has passed so close to his head that it had grazed the strap.

Some of these stories are embelished, some absolutley true.  Unfortunately, talking to some older guys about these amazing stories, for every one amazing survival there's the opposite of the miracle, individuals that should have survived a certain situation but by the cruelest twist of fate ended up dead.  I work with a guy who worked on a disaster team and he can tell you several of both of these kind of stories.