On 1945-01-28, Squadron Leader A. Ross Dawson, the Chief Technical Officer with 424/433 Sqns at Skipton on Swale, wrote in his diary:
Warning: The following material contains graphic content that may not be suitable for all readers
"Well, we had quite an exciting day (and tragic too) as seems to happen quite frequently on Sundays. We got 8 a/c from 424 & 6 from 433 all ready to go on an op to Stuttgart. The bomb load, 1 2000 pounder plus 12 500 lb clusters of incendiaries; 10% of these being the explosive type. Everything was shaping up well just before take off at 7:15 pm & all the kites were lined up raring to go. Old Sanders was off first in 424 in "O" for Oboe & then W/C Clyde Marshall in "T" Tare. The runway was pretty icy but it didn't seem to bother them much. I was up in the Control tower as per usual checking the kites as they took off. W/C Ted Williams who was to take over 424 Sqdn from Marshall when he finished his tour was third off in S for Sugar. I watched his lights down the runway & thought he was safely airborne when for some unaccountable reason the lights didn't seem to lift as they should & the thought flashed through my mind Oh oh, here it comes! Sure enough it did! If it hadn't been so horrible it might have been very pretty. A great blinding flash of flame rose up followed by thick billowing clouds of black smoke right at the intersection of the two runways. At intervals of a second or so the pyrotechnics were going off in all colours of the rainbow & then the incendiaries started with their vivid white flames interspersed with the occasional explosive one which sent up streamers of white fire in all directions & silhouetted against the black clouds of smoke & reddened by the flames underneath. It looked very much like the Toronto Ex. fireworks especially with the sharp chattering of the machine gun ammunition going off in the background.
"The crash trucks & ambulance raced out immediately while we endeavored to think out a way of getting the other 11 a/c away on the op which of course always comes first. Unfortunately the crash blocked off the only two cleared runways while the third hadn't been cleared of snow yet so we were stuck & cancelled the rest of the op for good.
"When the crash occurred, it shook the building a little but not as much as if a big bomb had gone off so we decided that the 2000 pounder hadn't gone off yet. We knew from experience that it takes almost 1/2 hour for a 2000 pounder to heat up enough to blow up in a fire so we had to work fast to prevent any more damage to the aircraft parked near the crash. W/C Tambling & I raced out in his car to see what we could do with 15 minutes of our 1/2 hour grace already gone. We picked up Squadron Leader Stinson on the way & decided to start up and taxi the two nearest kites away from the vicinity. I climbed in with Tambling first to get him started & noticed he was so excited he tried starting the engines without turning on the fuel cocks nor his booster mag switches. For some reason or other I hadn't got too excited yet & fixed him up ok. The minutes just seem to tear by before we got him started up & away he went. I hopped out then to get Stinson going. He hadn't even got his engines started yet & there was less than 5 minutes to go! I had to make up my mind whether to start running for safety or go to help him which of course didn't leave much choice. Exactly on the 1/2 hour mark we got two of the four engines going but to get out of the dispersal area we had to taxi up nearer the blazing wreckage than ever; about 50' or so between me & a 2000 pounder ready to go up at any second; more darn fun. Anyway, after what seemed ages & ages we made it out ok & got well away from the crash.
Back at the control tower the crash truck had returned to say that there was one survivor; the tail gunner who was only slightly bruised but was quite dazed from shock & found wandering around on his feet amongst the debris. By the time an hour was up the fire almost out & still no bomb gone off, we ventured out to find a great crater about 20 feet deep & 40' across; it had gone off the moment of impact! All our taxiing a/c to safety was for nothing but still exciting enough when we didn't know what was going to happen. Blasts always seems to work in peculiar ways & what seemed to us like a very small explosion from petrol tanks from the comparatively close vicinity of the control tower shook everything up as far away as Leeming & threw people out of bed a few miles away. The bodies were all recovered finally in pieces & so we packed up for the night to get some sleep. As a slight aftermath, when I got to my billet all the parcels & groceries which I had sitting on a shelf in my room had been blown off on to the floor including my nice birthday cake; candles & all which I hadn't eaten yet; the one Mrs. Mac sent me." Note: This is the event that Squadron Leader Dawson believes was the reason he received an MBE.
6 Group Unavailable
424 Tiger Squadron (Castigandos castigamus) RAF Skipton-on-Swale. Halifax BIII aircraft LW 164 QB-C swung on take-off for an operation against targets in Stuttgart, Germany, crashed and exploded, killing all members of the crew with the exception of the rear air-gunner, who was thrown clear. Flying Officer J E H B Tremblay (RCAF) survived, severely injured
Wing Commander E M Williams AFC (RCAF), Pilot Officer R E Chatfield (RCAF), Pilot Officer D J Doyle (RCAF), Flying Officer w Fleming (RCAF), Pilot Officer R J Nicolls (RCAF) and Sergeant L Tongue (RAFVR) were all killed in action in the crash
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Diary of A Ross Dawson, courtesy CWMDespite the loss of Halifax BIII LW164 and her crew, the operation ahead: 602 aircraft - 316 Halifaxes, 258 Lancasters, 28 Mosquitoes - of 1, 4, 6 and 8 Groups. 11 aircraft - 6 Lancasters, 4 Halifaxes, I Mosquito - lost.
This raid was split into 2 parts, with a 3-hour interval. The first force - of 226 aircraft - was directed against the important railway yards at Kornwestheim, a town lo the north of Stuttgart, and the second was against the north-western Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen, where the target is believed to have been the Hirth aero-engine factory. The target area was mostly cloud-covered for both raids and the bombing, on sky-markers, was scattered.
There are some interesting local reports. Bombs fell in many parts of Stuttgart's northern and western suburbs. The important Bosch works, in the suburb of Feuer-bach, was hit. The attack on Kornwestheim was the worst suffered by that town during the war; the Kornwestheim local report shows that the local people felt they had been bombed by mistake and that the main target was in Stuttgart. 14 high, explosive bombs fell in the industrial area of the town and in the railway yards. Fires burned for up to 12 hours. 123 people were killed in Stuttgart and 41 in Kornwest-. heim. A large number of bombs fell outside Stuttgart, particularly in the east around a decoy fire site which was also firing dummy target-indicator rockets into the air. The village of Weilimdorf, situated not far away, complained bitterly about its damage and casualties!
Our local expert, Heinz Bardua, also tells the story of the newly promoted Flak Leutnant at his battery position at Vaihingen, situated just south of the decoy fire site. With bombs falling all around his position, the Leutnant thought that the raid was directed against the Flak positions. He ignored regulations about conservation of ammunition and shot his entire stock at the radar echoes of the attacking bombers, 2 Lancasters and a Halifax crashed in the immediate vicinity, much to the relief of the officer, who had feared a court martial because of his prodigious use of ammunition.
This was the last large R.A.F. raid on Stuttgart. Herr Bardua says that the city had endured 53 major raids, most of them by the R.A.F., during which 32,549 blocks of flats or houses were destroyed (67 per cent of the total). After the war, 49 million cubic metres of rubble had to be cleared. 4,562 people died in the air raids, among them 770 prisoners of war or foreign workers. Stuttgart's experience was not as severe as other German cities. Its location, spread out in a series of deep valleys, had consistently frustrated the Pathfinders and the shelters dug into the sides of the surrounding hills had saved many lives