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 PrintableVersion Flying to ChristThe wartime story of Joe Pilkington in a Liberator bomberIn an age of preoccupation with the superficial, to discover a man of real quality and courage can be exciting and humbling. Such a man is my 76 year old friend, Joe Pilkington. Let me tell you a bit about him. Joe was born in Norden, near Rochdale in 1923. He left school at 14 and became an apprentice painter and decorator. But from an early age he was fascinated with flying. His first airborne experience was a pleasure trip in a biplane from Southport beach at the age of 13. When War II broke out. Joe seized the opportunity to get into the air and at 18 he joined the RAF. He joined 224 squadron coastal command as a crew member on a B.24 Liberator bomber. Their special task was to seek out and sink German U. boats and surface shipping in the North Atlantic and the North Sea. Rough weatherJoe takes over: 'As we flew north from our base near Elgin on the east coast of Scotland the weather began to deteriorate rapidly. All the crew knew that this was as great a hazard as enemy action. Our search area was the Fjord entrances on the Norwegian coast; our target, U-boats attempting to break out into the allied shipping lanes. In one sense, poor weather with low cloud suited us because the Germans had fighter squadrons at Stavanger and Bergen and Focke Wolfe 190s and Messerschmidt 109s could run rings round our cumbersome B24. And though our top speed was around 310mph our need to conserve fuel and the huge payload of bombs and torpedoes meant we usually cruised at about 170 knots. On this particular sortie by the time we had completed our first box circuit we were in the teeth of a full-blown gale. Our skipper, Clive, however, was very committed and would always try and complete a mission if at all possible. We liked him for his discipline. The aircraft was being thrown about the sky so that maximum skill was required to cope. Flying a given compass heading requires allowance for 'drift', sideways movement caused by cross winds. In the case of a Liberator the amount of drift is worked out using calibrations in the rear turret in conjunction with a marker buoy. A flame float is dropped and the rear gunner lines his sight on the flame until the navigator asks for the reading. A drift of 3-5 degrees is usual, on this occasion the reading was a massive 23 degrees. I stumbled back to speak to the gunner and get confirmation, only to find he had been sick all over his controls. Hardly surprising as the tail of our aircraft seemed to be turning round like a tumble drier. On my return to the flight deck my eyes caught sight of a high and rocky island looming through the squall. Clive threw the plane into a steep bank to avoid collision then decided to head for home. Beginning to prayIt was that dreadful day as I made my way through the bomb bay to my wireless position that I said to God, 'Only you can get us back through this'. I don't know if that constituted a true prayer but it was certainly said with some feeling and we were all greatly relieved when we caught sight of the runaway lights of the Milltown airfield. Even then, the approach had to be made from well to one side in hope of touching down at the right point on the narrow tarmac. Seven overshoots later, we were getting very tense, but somehow on the eighth attempt Clive, got everything just right and we lurched onto the runaway. I don't know about the other ten members of the crew, but I said a prayer of thanks that night and it was the beginning of regular bedtime prayers. Not that I had been converted, or even wanted to be at that time, but I believed in God and it seemed the least I could do. SkaggerakThe early part of 1945 was a period of intense activity in the sea areas between Norway and Denmark, and Denmark and Sweden (a neutral country). These waterways are called the Skaggerak and Kattegat. The Germans were still in full occupation and control of Denmark and Norway, but hard pressed nearly everywhere else, and the shipping lanes were busier than ever with plenty of support flak ships and fighter aircraft including radar equipped night fighters. This shipping was obviously an important target for the RAF. Our Liberator aircraft were fitted with a 'Leigh Light' which was a large searchlight placed under the starboard wing. During the final stages of a bombing run guided by the radar operator, the Light was switched on to illuminate the target and so give the bomb-aimer clear sight of the target vessel |There was, in fact a serious disadvantage which was that if the target happened to be equipped with anti-aircraft guns it was a simple matter for them to fire at the beam. One night before the use of these searchlights was suspended, the duty Sergeant, who acted as liaison between Operations and the flight crews, sent an orderly round asking for a stand-in with a crew who were short of a wire-less/radar operator. A crew member was 'grounded' because of a heavy cold. Having had a full day off since my last flight I volunteered to take the lad's place. After a few minutes I had donned my flying kit and was ready to leave for the briefing. At the precise moment that I opened the hut door our flight engineer arrived and asked, 'Where are you going?'. When I told him, he said, 'You can't'. We have that special new equipment to test fly in the morning and a lot of it's up to you to do'. So I had to withdraw my offer to act as stand-in. That Liberator I would have been on was downed near Gothenburg. Later I remember Don saying, 'Lucky I stopped you, mate,' and feeling lucky myself. If Don had been just one minute later I would have definitely missed him, but it is surprising how easily one could accept such an escape without realising the true providence of it. We were young and our shallow philosophy was, 'They'll only get you if your name's on the shell'!. Saved againAs if one close shave wasn't enough for a while, another amazing brush with death occurred a week or so later. It was a good, clear night and the patrol area was again the Skaggerak and Kattegat. This particular patrol area did in all honesty cause us some apprehension. One of our navigators, a Canadian by the name of Gordon Dilts, usually did a bit of crooning - 'Spring will be a little late this year', was his favourite, but he didn't sing much on Skaggerak nights. We dropped to just below 300 feet when we approached the wide entrance to the Skaggerak in order to keep below enemy shore radar and this height would be maintained throughout the operation. When it was my spell of duty on the radar I began to 'have a field day' picking up targets one after the other. The decision to attack was left to the navigator who was supposed to know which were legitimate military targets and which were not. There was a lot of civilian or neutral traffic, The navigator on duty at the time, sitting on the opposite side of the gangway from me just behind the pilots, was a New Zealander on his very last operational flight. As quickly as I found a possible target he would turn it down saying, 'That's a civilian ship or that's a flak ship.' I honestly don't see how he could really know. Later on during the flight I was in the mid-upper turret, which is right on top of the fuselage and it may seem surprising, but I was able to marvel at the canopy of stars above me. I could see blacked-out Kristiansund on the south coast of Norway, then as we flew along the Kattegat there was the odd, presumably Swedish, ship looking like a cluster of diamonds with full illumination. Gothenburg with no black-out was something special too, glittering distinctly, the only illuminated spot on either coastline. One sight that is still as crystal clear in my mind's eye which left me dumbstruck for several seconds, was the underside of a German fighter passing right over us in the opposite direction, no more than 12 feet above us. As it flashed past, probably with total joint closing speed of over 400 mph, it was so close I got a clear glimpse of its markings, even in the dark. He evidently did not see us, but in all probability he was homing in on us by radar, and the fact we were flying so low caused him to miss seeing us. The top surfaces of a B24 were camouflaged. Later, towards the end of the patrol I again had cause to be angry with the navigator because, being back on radar again, I picked up three blips approaching fast and I could tell by the closing speed that they were aircraft. Maybe the fighter which almost rammed us had reported our presence in the areas. We kept changing course as I passed the position of the fighters to the skipper and all the while I'm thinking, 'If we'd dropped our bombs early on we could have been home by now'. I wasn't at all pleased to be taking the bomb load back. The operation lasted 10 hours 50 mins and to me it seemed to have been a dangerous waste of time.' Higher purposeAs time went on Joe came to realise his life had been preserved for a higher purpose. Following the war he returned to his native Lancashire and married his first wife, Phyllis. She had been brought up in the fear of the Lord at the Strict Baptist Chapel in Haslingden. It was there that they both came to faith and assurance and they continued to serve the Lord and His people together until her death from cancer in March 1964. Malcolm MacGregor,
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