WW2 Bomber Command: Allan Henry Ross

[Liz Turner]

Alcluith - as promised in the "tennis" post, here's the information I've managed to find about Allan Henry Ross. I was amazed how easy it was to find this once I started looking - and so far it hasn't cost me anything! [Allan would have been by great uncle (my grandfather's half-brother)]. As yet I have not had to pay anything for this information (other than the cost of the books I bought to get some background about the RAF and the times).

Allan Henry Ross was born in 1922 in Edinburgh (edit: in fact born in Rothesay and moved to Edinburgh as young boy) and died on the night of 30th March 1944, whilst on the infamous Nuremberg raid. I've been able to find out, from his service number from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site, and where and when he joined up (Edinburgh Feb 1942 - from another web site - details of which I failed to keep!) and that he joined the RAFVR. He eventually was attached to 101 Squadron as F/S (Air Bomber).

Allan died on his 20th mission in DV276 (SR-R) on a Lancaster flying from Ludford Magna (known to those posted there as Mudford Magna - excessive mud when it rained, which was often). I've been able to trace information about 101 Sqdn from 1939 until the end of WW2.

From another web site I was able to find out that his plane began their bombing run at around 01:28 on the night of 30/31 March over Nuremberg and that his plane was the sixth (of seven lost that night by 101 Sqdn) to be shot down. There were 95 planes lost that night each carrying either 7 or 8 crew (depending on whether they were ABC planes or not). Allan was in a crew of 8 as his plane was ABC - the squadron converted in October 1943.

I have been able to find the names of the young men he was flying with (from another web page). Update: 14/7/08 From a contact on RAFCommands, I've now got the complete crew lists for the twenty missions he flew between December 1943 and March 1944. The lady I was in touch with has the ORBs (Operational Record Books) for 101 Squadron because her father flew with them at the same time Allan was there. Thanks Leslie and also Robin.

Sources I've found very helpful in my search:-
http://www.rafcommands.currantbun.com/home.html - contains information about all the RAF Sqds.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/billchurch ... mberg.html - contains information about the Nuremberg "massacre".

http://www.bombercrew.com/BCATP.htm - training schools for bomber crews

http://lostbombers.co.uk/ - exactly what it says

http://www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp?menuid=14 - Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Two books by Kevin Wilson: Bomber Boys and Men of Air; one book by John Nicholl and Tony Rennell. These three books were immensely readable and contained firsthand accounts and memories of those who survived the air bombing war in Europe between 1939 and 1945.

Things I still would like to find out if I can:-
What exactly was an air bomber? 14/7/08 Thanks to Alcuith I now know this!
Which other missions would he have been on? Most likely he became operational around Jan/Feb 1944 at the latest because he was on his 5th flight when he went down. 14/7/08 - I now have this information and will now try to find out where he did his training before joining the ABCs on 101 Squadron.
Where did Allan train? (I suspect it was in Canada - need to check with my mum to see if she can remember anything - although she was only about 7 at the time). I now know that Allan WAS in Canada training and have managed to track down two photos. I also now know that he was at 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit before joining 101 Squadron.

If you've taken the time to read this - thank you!

Liz

PS : Had some great help from two people I made contact with through the web pages for 156 Squadron.

[AndrewP]

Hi Liz,

He is also listed on the Scottish National War Memorial website.

http://www.snwm.org

Surname: ROSS
Firstname: Allan Henry
Service number: 1344679
Date of death: 31/03/1944
Place of birth: Rothesay
SNWM roll: ROYAL AIR FORCE and DOMINION AIR FORCES
Rank: Flt Sgt
Theatre of death: R.A.F.V.R. B.C.

They have his birthplace as Rothesay rather than Edinburgh as you have found elsewhere.

I read online that Dominion Air Forces were from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Liz Turner]

Hi Andrew

My error - my gt grandfather was the headmaster at Rothesay Academy and you're right Allan was born in Rothesay. The family moved to Edinburgh when his father retired, and Allan joined up from there. I'm annoyed with myself for not keeping a note of the web page I found which can tell people where a service member joined up (and in which month) based on their service number. I thought I'd book-marked it but didn't

Liz

[Alcluith]

Hi Liz,

You have gathered quite a lot already well done, it's a minefield regarding the records.

The information on the Lost Bombers site gives you a lot of information previous missions, including who shot them down and how many hours (95 hrs) the aircraft had been flying etc.

Having his service number and provided you or your mum is the surviving next of kin you can get his service records which should tell you where he trained and when he was attached to 101 Sqn but very little else and at £30.00 might not be worth getting.
Then there are the operational records for Ludford Magna. which should tell you what missions DV276 was on.
It's likely Allan would have flown 5 previous missions as stated and possible some training flights as well.

With the information from the Lost Bombers I am sure you can get a lot more

Have a little look at http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/ quite interesting as a general view of the Lancaster.

http://raf-lincolnshire.info/ gives some info on Ludford Magna and 101 Sqn memorials.

with respect to the crew:
"
In a standard Lancaster as used in the war, the crew were accommodated as follows: starting at the nose, the bomb aimer had two positions to man. His primary location was lying prone on the floor of the nose of the aircraft, where he had access to the controls for the bombsight head in front, with the bombsight computer on his left and bomb release selectors on the right. He would also use his view out of the large transparent perspex nose cupola to assist the navigator with map reading. To man the Frazer Nash FN5 nose turret, he simply had to stand up and he would be in position behind the triggers of his twin Browning .303 guns. The bomb aimer's position contained the nose parachute exit in the floor.

Moving backwards, on the roof of the bomb bay the pilot and flight engineer sat side-by-side under the expansive canopy, with the pilot sitting on the left on a raised portion of the floor. The flight engineer sat on a collapsible seat (known as a 'second dicky seat') to the pilot's right, with the fuel selectors and gauges on a panel behind him and to his right.

Behind these crew members, and behind a curtain fitted to allow him to use light to work, sat the navigator. His position had him facing to port with a large chart table in front of him. An instrument panel showing the airspeed, altitude and other details required for navigation was mounted on the side of the fuselage above the chart table.

The radios for the wireless operator were mounted on the left-hand end of the chart table, facing towards the rear of the aircraft. Behind these radios, facing forwards, on a seat at the front of the main spar sat the wireless operator. To his left was a window, and above him was the astrodome, used for visual signalling and also by the navigator for celestial navigation.

Behind the wireless operator were the two spars for the wing, which created a major obstacle for crew members moving down the fuselage even on the ground. On reaching the end of the bomb bay the floor dropped down to the bottom of the fuselage, and the mid upper gunner's Frazer Nash FN50 or FN150 turret was reached. His position allowed a 360° view over the top of the aircraft, with two Browning .303 guns to protect the aircraft from above and to the side.

To the rear of the turret was the side crew door, on the starboard side of the fuselage. This was the main entrance to the aircraft, and also could be used as a parachute exit. At the extreme rear of the aircraft, over the spars for the tailplane, the rear gunner sat in his exposed position in the FN20, FN120 or Rose Rice turret. In the FN20 and FN120 turrets he had four Browning .303 guns, and in the Rose Rice turret he had two .50 Brownings. Neither of the mid upper or rear gunner's positions were heated, and the gunners had to wear electrically heated suits to prevent hypothermia and frostbite. Many rear gunners insisted on having nearly all perspex removed from the turret to give a completely unobstructed view."

If you can find what Allan duties ere then you can see where he was positioned from above.


"At this point the Sqn specialised in a variety of Electronic Warfare roles. The first of these was the Monica active RDF system, fit in Jul 1943. This was followed by the passive Boozer radar warning receiver in Aug 1943. In Oct 1943 the airborne VHF comms jammer known as ABC (Airborne Cigar) was used on operations against Stuttgart. 101 Sqn's ABC-equipped Lancaster provided a crucial offensive electronic warfare capability to Bomber Command during strategic bombing operations. 101 Sqn was directed by HQ to have 10 ABC aircraft available on each day bombing ops were to take place. The intensity of ABC operations continued until Oct 1944 when Command informed 14 Base HQ at Ludford Magna that no more ABC equipment would be supplied to 101 Sqn as the Electronic Countermeasure mission was handed over to 100 Gp. However 100 Gp was overtasked and 101 Sqn continued to fly ABC missions up to Apr 1945. The Sqn flew just under 2500 ABC missions during World War II."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stor ... 1442.shtml
gives a little overview of the ABC and it's role.

The german pilot who shot them down survived the war and there may be more information on him and the incident on some german WWII websites.

It all depends where you want to go.

I would be happy to assist you more either posting here as I find information or off forum to allow yo to decide what you want to post.

hope this is of help

regards

Drew
(alcluith)

[Alcluith]

Liz

forgot to add this

"With its distinctive twin-tail fin and four Merlin engines, the Lancaster carried a crew of seven: pilot, navigator, flight engineer, bomb aimer (doubled as front gunner), wireless operator, mid-upper and rear gunners. Irrespective of rank, the pilot was the commanding officer."

The eighth man was the operator of the ABC Jamming (Airborne Cigar).
Allan would have been the bomber doubling up as front gunner as above. Not sure if these ABC Lancaster actually bombed or just there to jam all enemy aircraft communications (will come back on this).

Therefore Allan would likely be on front gun duty until approaching target then he would take over the role of bomber, then back to front gunner on return trip after raid. (if they didn't bomb I am assuming he would stay as front gunner during the raid).

The crews were invariably in their early twenties. A crew member as old as twenty-five would be regarded as ancient.


regards

Drew

[Alcluith]

Liz

to answer my previous doubt:

They did bomb with reduced payload and interestingly the eight man was a German speaker see explanation below:

"Much of the history of the secret telecommunications war against the Germans during the Second World War is still classified and shrouded in mystery, including the Radio Counter Measures (RCM) of RAF Squadron 101. Originally founded at Farnborough in 1917 as part of the RFC, Squadron 101 served as a night-bomber squadron on the Western Front, [1] was demobilized after the Armistice and re-formed at Bircham Newton in 1928. By 15 June 1943 it was based at Ludford Magna, near Louth in Lincolnshire, as part of No. 1 Group, Bomber Command, having already taken part, for instance, in the 1000-bomber raids on Germany, attacks on Italian targets and, soon after, the raid on the V1 sites at Peenemunde in August 1943.

At Ludford a far more dangerous task was assigned the squadron. Many Allied bombers were falling victim to German night-fighters guided by ground controllers scrutinizing radar screens. [2] An Allied counter-measure named ‘Window’ partially upset this, but the Luftwaffe responded by coordinating the commentaries of several controllers at different locations, and delegating overall command to a single master controller who guided the night-fighters towards the Allied aircraft. The British Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Malvern developed a response to this that was tested by 101 Squadron. It was called ‘Airborne Cigar’, or ABC, a battlefield version of ‘Ground Cigar’, [3] and its original code name was ‘Jostle’. [4] Using a receiver and three 50-watt [5] T.3160-type transmitters, the German VHF frequency – and language - was identified and then jammed. [6] The jamming caused a loud and constantly varying note running up and down the scale of the relevant speech channel. [7]

For this purpose, a German-speaking eighth crew member was included in the crew of especially fitted Lancaster bombers. He was known as the Special Duty Operator, ‘Spec. Op.’, or SO. All were volunteers from various aircrew trades. Since the enemy often gave phoney instructions to divert the jammers, it was essential that they know German reasonably well. In addition, if the Germans changed frequencies the SO would have to be skillful enough to do likewise. [8] The SO had to recognize German codewords – such as Kapelle, for ‘target altitude’ - and log any German transmissions for passing on to Intelligence at the post-flight debriefing. Jewish veteran Flight Sergeant Leslie Temple recalls the Germans trying to distract the SOs [9] by using screaming female voices or martial music. Some sources allege that the SOs were trained in ‘verbal jamming’, that is giving false information in German, but this was very little used. [10]

After trials on 4-6 September 1943, the first operational use of ABC was on a raid over Hanover on 22 September, although other sources mention the night of 7-8 October. [11] The system worked, but the first aircraft using it was lost the following night on another raid. More Lancasters were modified, and by the end of October most of the squadron had been fitted with ABC. The only signs of special equipment were two 7-foot aerials on top of the Lancaster fuselage, another below the bomb-aimer’s window and a shorter receiver at the top-rear of the fuselage. Because of the weight of the radio equipment and extra crew member the aircraft had a reduced bomb load of 1000 lbs.

The SO sat just aft of the main spar on the port side of the aircraft, immediately above the bomb bay, at a desk with three transmitters and a cathode-ray screen. He was cut off completely from the rest of the crew except for his intercom, and was in darkness with no window to observe what was going on. His nearest human contact were the boots of the mid-upper gunner, 4 feet away. In order to avoid distraction the intercom had to be switched off, and only a red ‘call light’, operated by the pilot, was available should there be an emergency. [12] Since there was no room for the SO in the heated forward section of the Lancaster, he, like the mid-upper and rear gunners, had to wear bulky electric suits, slippers and gloves, dangerous if a rushed exit were required. At 20,000 feet over Europe in winter, temperatures often fell to minus 50 C, so the SO would have to wear gloves even though these made it difficult to operate switches. He would lose the skin of his fingers if he attempted to touch metal without them. [13] It was common to have to pull off chunks of frozen condensation from oxygen masks during the flight. [14] The concentrated work of jamming kept the SO’s minds off minor discomforts for most of the flight. [15]

From October 1943 until the end of the war all main-force attacks on German targets were accompanied by Lancasters of 101 Squadron, sometimes up to twenty-seven in one raid. The ABC aircraft were stationed in pairs at regular intervals in the bomber stream so that if one were shot down, other parts of the stream would still be covered. [16] As losses mounted it was thought that German fighters were homing in on ABC aircraft, but no definite evidence for this has been found. However, on 18 November Flying Officer McManus’s Lancaster was brought down over Berlin and examined by the Germans, so it is possible that German ground stations knew enough to vector their fighters onto the Lancasters when ABC was transmitting, making them more vulnerable than other aircraft. [17] SO veteran Ken Lewis, DFM, [18] described how the SOs were nicknamed ‘Jo’s or ‘Jonah’s’ by the other crew members, alluding to the storm unleashed by the biblical character on the ship in which he was a passenger. On the other hand, the losses could have been caused by the rise in 101 participation on raids.

The Special Operators included a high proportion of German-speaking Jewish refugees who were especially at risk if captured, as were any of their surviving families in the Reich. One source tells of a crew member who committed suicide when captured by the Germans, [19] perhaps for this reason. There were also British and Commonwealth Jewish RAF personnel, many of whom spoke German or Yiddish at home. Special Operator 1811224 A. J. H. Clayton was captured on the night of 30 March 1944 when his Lancaster was shot down and was probably tortured to death for information on the SOs. [20] Some allege that the SOs were never to be questioned by the rest of the crew about their work. [21]

The Squadron’s casualties were enormous. Between 18 November 1943 and 24 March 1944, for example, seventeen aircraft of 101 Squadron were lost in battles over Berlin. In the Nuremberg raid, five crew members of one Lancaster were lost, including Flying Officer Norman Marrian, the SO, who was badly wounded by friendly fire from a Halifax. He had baled out, but was found dead, suspended by his harness from a tree, two days later, [22] according to a survivor, Sergeant Don Brinkhurst, mid-upper gunner. [23] Sergeant Luffman describes how an SO’s parachute failed to open fully and he died of his injuries. [24] A further four planes were lost over Nuremberg, making six in all, almost one-third of the surviving Squadron. An additional five were lost in the successful raids running up to D Day over France. But only one was lost on D Day itself, when twenty-four Lancasters of 101 helped deceive the enemy into thinking the landing was to take place in the Pas de Calais by forming an ABC barrier between the Normandy beaches to the south and the German fighter bases in Holland and Belgium to the north. Other aircraft simulated airborne landings elsewhere and jammed enemy radars. Countless lives were saved in this ‘Battle of the Ether’, fought by a squadron of which the motto was appropriately Mens Agitat Molem, ‘Mind over matter’. [25]

Maybe its time to take this off post as too much information for site.
maybe you could follow up with digest of findings.

If you make contact though PM I will sent you any more I find by email rather than posting it

rgds

Drew

[Liz Turner]

Drew!!!!

Can't believe all this information. I've only just logged in - was doing some career advice with one of my nephews tonight ...

It will take me ages to digest all that you've come up with. I'm going to print it out, make a cup of tea and work my way through it all. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. I will PM you with my email address at work - I use it more than my home one.

If anyone else has taken time to read this thread, it should prove that there is a lot of information out there which can be found with a bit of persistence and someone like you with some background knowledge.

I've actually been toying with writing an article of some kind about Allan, his brother (my grandfather), my dad, and a great aunt. They all served during WW2: RAFVR, Merchant Navy, Middlesex Regiment (D-Day +4), and WRAF at Bentley Priory and later Bad Eilsen, respectively. I think there might be an interesting story there.

Anyway - off to boil the kettle now and take the print out to bed to read!!

Thanks again.

Liz

Update: Added 9/7/08: Alcluith and I have had some off site chats because I had been thinking about pursuing my great aunt's WW2 exploits, as well as following up on my great uncle. I've now discovered that the two shoulder flashes that we have which belonged to my great aunt were, as we suspected, related to her service. She was attached to SHAEF HQ in Europe and travelled to Paris and Bad Eilsen in 1945.

[marilyn morning]

Liz wrote

I've actually been toying with writing an article of some kind about Allan, his brother (my grandfather), my dad, and a great aunt. They all served during WW2: RAFVR, Merchant Navy, Middlesex Regiment (D-Day +4), and WRAF at Bentley Priory and later Bad Eilsen, respectively. I think there might be an interesting story there.

Hi Liz,

How fascinating it would be to read all about the details of your grandfather, dad and great aunt's service during WW2.

Please post it here on this thread so we can all follow along.

Regards
Marilyn

[Liz Turner]

Hi Marilyn

It will take a while, but I'll try to keep folks up to date. I'm very grateful to Drew, who confirmed some of what I knew and who has provided loads more potential sources for me.

I'd hope to show that with only Allan's service number from the CWGC web pages (and nothing else), others might be able to find as much as I have, without it costing a fortune.

Will keep you posted.

Hope you're well and keeping busy

Liz

[joette]

Just as a little aside we have had a new bench erected in my local park.
I was touched by the inscription which is in memory of Squadron Leader
"Monty" V.Gibbon Bomber Command 181 Squadron.
"Rest comfortably & remember those who died that you may sit in peace"
From the CWGC he was lost over Germany in 1945.Aged 35.
I pass it every day on my way to & from work & it reminds me again of the sacrifice of the few for the many.