By Peter Hart
The wheat fields in the gentle countryside of northern France are quiet now.
The ageless stone buildings of tiny Morenneville house the same families that have lived the rhythm of rural life for many generations. Beneath the tranquil surface, however, lie memories of one night so terrible they are passed from generation to generation.
The flight
On the evening of July 28, 1944, 20-year-old Flt Lieut. Alex Campbell, an RCAF pilot attached to RAF No. 514 Sqdn Waterbeach, sat at the controls of Lancaster heavy bomber A2-C and waited for the signal to begin his 25th mission. Darkness had descended leaving a mere glow of sunset in the Western sky. Beside him sat 2nd Pilot Bob Giffin, along for this ride only before receiving his own command.
Behind them, the seasoned crew – flight engineer Jock Donaldson, 18, bomb aimer Jack “Chappie” Chapman, 24, navigator Earl “Judy” Garland, 24, wireless operator Ben Lyons, 22, mid-upper air gunner Earl “Jonesy” Jones, 17, and rear air gunner Sam Harvey, 20.
All were single except Earl, and all were volunteers.
The young Canadian was apprehensive. He was to follow the same route they had three days previously to attack the marshalling yards of Stuttgart again. Tonight, there was a bright and deadly moon, and although they were promised there would be cloud cover, who could know.
“We all thought they’d be waiting for us,” Alex said of the Luftwaffe night fighters. “And indeed they were.”
The crash
Crossing the French coastline, the crew made the course correction that would loop them toward their target, still hiding in a thin but diminishing band of cloud. Ben called out he had an unidentified blip on his screen, low and to starboard, holding about 300 yards back. Then another appeared astern, then a third on the port side, all staying just out of sight. The rest happened in the measure of a few heartbeats.
From Alex’s report: “Suddenly, we burst into bright moonlight! I immediately put the Lancaster into an evasive-action corkscrew manoeuvre. But, it was too late. Our gunners could already see the tracers firing from a radar-equipped Ju-88. The 20 mm shells were thumping and tearing at our aircraft.”
The entire port-side wing was set ablaze, leaving a long column of flame streaming behind. Then the Junkers came around for another attack, leaving only one of the four engines running, and the Perspex and instruments smashed. When the extinguishers failed to subdue the roaring flames, Alex ordered the crew to jump while he fought to keep the Lancaster level.
Sam was the last to go, refusing to leave his guns until the ammo was exhausted. As soon as Alex let go of the controls, the stricken Lancaster pitched over into a steep dive so quickly he was momentarily weightless.
He scrambled for the narrow escape hatch, but the webbing of his chute harness snagged. As the plane screamed downward in its death spiral to the ground, he was stuck fast, hanging head-first half out of the plane.
“At least I was facing backwards,” he says. “Had I been looking forward I would have lost my eyes to the blast,” now about 300 miles an hour.
Finally finding a hand hold, he was able to unhook himself to fall headfirst toward the ground. His flying boots were ripped off by the wind and his chute harness jerked down his body to remain wrapped around his legs alone, with the unopened chute pack flailing in the wind above him.
The flaming wreck of the Lancaster went by and below. He looked back at the tangle of harness above him just as a glint of moonlight flashed off the handle of the ripcord. Hauling himself hand-over-hand back up the harness, he grabbed the wildly-swinging handle and yanked.
The rescue
Dazed by the heavy landing on his neck and shoulders, Alex lay listening to the fading drone of the bomber flight and the popping and banging coming from the burning wreck. By the time he regained his feet, figures were running toward the scene.
“Je suis Canadien! Je suis Canadien,” he called over and over to two or three women. After a quick exchange among themselves, they led him across the field and into a small building attached to a stable.
An older man arrived. In a flurry of broken English and French, they were asking Alex questions as he was trying to warn them about unexploded ordinance in the aircraft.
Within minutes the first soldiers were banging on the door. The older man shoved him down into a corner and convinced the Germans that no airman was there. Fifteen minutes later, they were back. Alex was pushed down into a corner of one of the stalls with the horse, and in a flash, covered with straw.
From his hideout, he could see the light of the door opening and voices as the searchers moved down the stalls. They stopped opposite him for what seemed an eternity. The tension was agonizing.
“The slightest sneeze would be the end for me and for the farmer.”
That family hid him for two days until, dressed in the farmer’s clothing, he walked two days to a secret camp for downed airmen in the Freteval Forest. Two weeks later, he was liberated by the fast moving forces of General Patton’s 3rd Army.
The finish
All but two of the crew escaped. Earl Garland was badly wounded and was unable to run. He surrendered to a sentry and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
Bob Giffin’s chute became tangled as he attempted to jump, causing his death. He is buried in the local Churchyard at Saint-Cloud-en-Dunois.
Thirty-nine of the 494 bombers flying that night were shot down. As desperate as their story is, Alex’s crew beat the odds. Of every 100 airmen in Bomber Command, 55 were killed and only 27 survived without being killed, wounded or captured. Less than 50 per cent of the crews finished their first tour of 30 operations.
On his return to Canada in late 1944, Alex was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for keeping the crippled Lancaster aloft while his crew jumped. The citation includes, “For heroism and thinking of the safety of his crew.”
He married Hazel Morrison to whom he was engaged before the war. She was a member of the RCAF Women’s Division at Brantford where he first trained. They have four children, eight grandchildren, and continue to live an active life together.
The return
The story doesn’t end there. Sixty-eight years after the crash, Alex’s son Bob Campbell of Hawkins Lake, accompanied by his sisters Wendy Allen and Donna Campbell, gathered at Chateaudun, France along with the sons of bomb aimer Jack Chapman and rear gunner Sam Harvey.
There they met people who had treated the wounds of the crew and spirited them to safety. They were hosted like royalty by a large group of families, young and old, including the mayors of the nearby towns.
The people created an extensive display of the research they had done on that night. They were also taken to Morenneville where there is a plaque at the site of the crash.
“For these people, memories of the war are always with them. It is a present reality.”Peter
The prize and the price
The Luftwaffe pilot believed to be the one who shot down A2-C that night was Johannes Strassner, who flew with ace Heinz Rokker. By the time Alex tried to contact him, Strassner had passed away.
“It was a giant contest between us and I lost that one. I would have enjoyed meeting and talking with him. I feel no animosity towards him, none whatsoever.”
It is fitting the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was just awarded to the European Union, an organization of states that were for centuries deadly enemies. The Nobel citation reads: “The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”
The European Union’s marvellous accomplishment, built through the exercise of the best in human nature, has come at a terrifying cost. Alex Campbell has had to learn to live with the trauma of the frightful memories and disturbing scenes, which visit him nightly to this very day.
It is the sacrifice and heroism of men and women like him who have made possible the great European project. History is in their debt.
Lest we forget.