Douglas A-20J-10-DO, 43-10129, of the 416th Bomb Group destroyed by flak over Beauvoir, France on 12 May 44.

Account of the attack by a Ventura pilot http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/61/a3537461.shtml

Contributed by peter_ricketts People in story: Flt Lt Albert Ricketts Location of story: Eindhoven, Holland Background to story: Royal Air Force Article ID: A3537461 Contributed on: 17 January 2005

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Peter Ricketts [son] on behalf of Albert Ricketts [the author] and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The story describes Operation Oyster, which was a daylight-bombing raid on Phillips Radio Works, Holland, on December 6th 1942. This raid was at the time the largest daylight-bombing raid of the war. This is an account by Fl. Lt Albert Ricketts and is an extract from his WW11 Memoirs. Albert had trained as a pilot and was eventually posted to 21 squadron based at Methwold, Norfolk. Operation Oyster was his first bombing raid (undertaken on his mother’s birthday); he held the rank of Sergeant and piloted a Lockheed Ventura aircraft with a crew of 4. At the end of the raid his aircraft ditched into the sea about 7 miles off Felixstowe and all were safely recovered.

My arrival at 21 Sqdn, which was positioned at RAF Bodney, which was a satellite to RAF Watton, in Norfolk, heralded the start of all that I had wanted since I joined the RAF and for which my training had hopefully prepared me.

The squadron had very recently been re — equipped with Lockheed Ventura A/c which was a medium daylight bomber carrying 3 x 500lb and 4 x 250lb bombs, replacing the Bristol Blenheim Mk 4 which had done sterling work both in the Middle East and Northern Europe. The Squadron had recently returned from the Middle East where they had been involved in a low level attack on the German Fleet at Taranto in the Mediterranean Sea. Not only was 21 Sqdn being re — equipped but the whole of 2 Group, which was a daylight Bomber group within Bomber Command, was also being re — equipped with other types of aircraft which included Douglas Bostons, North American Mitchells, perhaps better known as the B 25 which was famed for its raid on Tokyo where the aircraft took of from an Aircraft Carrier. Later on De Havilland Mosquitoes also joined the Group.

Whilst at Bodney I went on an SBA refresher course at RAF Horsham St. Faith which was on the outskirts of Norwich. Whilst I was on that course, the Sqdn moved to RAF Methwold which was a satellite to RAF Feltwell, again in Norfolk. At Feltwell was our sister Squadrons on Venturas. These were, 464 RAAF Sqdn and 487 RNZAF Sqdn making up 140 Wing of 2 Group of Bomber Command..

The first Operations carried by the recently re - equipped Group were Cloud Cover operations. This was individual aircraft flying to the target in cloud and only dropping out occasionally to verify its position and adjust accordingly. One of our crews were briefed to bomb the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and following the laid down procedure eventually broke cloud immediately over Rotterdam harbour just as our training said he would. I joined the Squadron too late to be competent enough to take part in these operations during which we lost we lost 3 aircraft & crews. One of those aircraft was piloted by a Canadian by the name of Sgt Henry whose aircraft was lettered ' R '.

When the replacement was delivered on the 27/11/42 to our parent station at R.A.F. Feltwell, the home of our sister squadrons, and modified to bring it up to date, I was told that this was to be my A/c and would be lettered ' R '. Interestingly, each one of my crew had the letter ' R ' in their initials namely R. S. Thompson, E. R. Goddard, W. R. Legge and myself A. V. Ricketts. After a considerable amount of training, we were adjudged to be capable of carrying out this type of operation and were briefed to bomb the harbour at Antwerp in The Netherlands. Being briefed to fly in cloud at 1000 ft with the freezing level at 800 ft, I didn't fancy the idea of the A/c being coated in ice and was pleased when the operation was called off for that reason.

That was the last we heard of Cloud Cover operations, for a while. We then concentrated our training on daylight low level operations and from the 21st to 30th Nov, numerous factories in England were ' bombed ' during these practices. We air tested our aircraft both on the 30th Nov and 1st Dec in view of the forthcoming raid. Eventually on the 2nd Dec we were briefed for a raid on the Phillips Radio Works at Eindhoven in The Netherlands. This was going to be, so far, the largest daylight bombing operation of the War involving the whole of 2 Group amounting to about 100 aircraft made up of Bostons, Mitchells ( B25s ) some Mosquitoes and of course Venturas. Due to fog at the target, the raid was put back daily. Each day, whilst the weather at base was good, there was fog at the target and so there was nothing for it but to return to the mess and enjoy the liquid refreshment but bed was the least thing on our minds.

At last on the 6th (my mother's birthday ) the weather was favourable and at 1230hrs, after re — briefing, it was all systems go and the relief and anticipation was plain for all to see. We got into our A/c ' R ' but my air gunner reported that the gun turret was u/s (unserviceable ) and we had to change to another A/c i.e. ' P '. We found out some days later that the flap, which could be raised to enable the air gunner to get in and out of the turret more easily and which had attached to it a control column to make the turret rotate, to raise and lower the guns ( 2 ) with a firing button at the top, could only be brought down with the guns in the ' up ' position, otherwise the turret would not operate.

By this time all of the Squadron A/c had taken off. Having waited this long we were not going to be denied the opportunity of ' fighting the enemy ' and so we were anxious to get airborne as quickly as possible. In doing so I didn't strap myself in and as soon as the last crew member was inside the A/c and before the door was properly shut, we were building up speed for take off. The fact that we swung on take off and narrowly missed the Air Traffic Control building didn't seem to matter.

We were on our way and anxious to catch up with the squadron aircraft who, by this time, were out of sight. It wasn't too long before we could see them in the distance and was catching up quite quickly. Because we were the last to take off we eventually joined up at the back of the ' gaggle ' of A/c. Having now ' joined up ' with the rest of the squadron, I was able to relax ( as much as one could flying at 235mph at 0 ft. ) Our Sqdn was on the starboard side of 464 Sqdn who was leading the Wing on this operation with 487 Sqdn being on their port side.

Eventually we reached the English coast and crossed it at Southwold in Suffolk. Now over the water without any trees or buildings to hamper us we were right down on the water so as to prevent the German Radar from picking us up and making life difficult for us when we crossed into Holland.

Having been over the water for about 10 mins or so, I saw an aircraft of 464 Sqdn dive into the sea seemingly for no apparent reason. I had to remind myself not to do the same. The course that 464 was flying kept pushing our Sqdn slightly to starboard which meant that when we crossed the Dutch Coast it was over a bird sanctuary so that the noise caused the birds to take off and fly into the aircraft as they passed over. One of the birds hit our windscreen in front of the navigator’s position leaving a bloodstain where it had hit.

The navigator of the Ventura doubled up as the bomb aimer and therefore sat in front of an alleyway to enable him to move down into the bomb-aimer’s position although in this raid, because it was low level, myself as the pilot would release the bombs.

On both sides of the nose of the Ventura were 4 small windows, some of them by the alleyway, and a bird came in through one of them, up the alleyway and hit Ron Thompson in the unmentionables. It wasn't until he saw the feathers that he realised it wasn't his blood. Now we were over land which was quite flat and with ' flak ' towers about 30 ft high, we had to fly as low as possible so as to avoid being shot at. Not long after crossing the Dutch coast we were in the area of the ' dykes ' and of course there were roads on some of these. It came as a bit of a surprise to see a fellow on a bike some 10 ft or so higher than our A/c riding along one of them. He seemed oblivious to our a/c and this was reported by other crews.

Our prearranged track took us to a place called Turnhout where we made a port turn on to our course to Eindhoven which was about 12 miles away. It wasn't long before we were being shot at by guns on the top of the Phillips factory. As we were approaching the factory the bomb doors were opened ready for the bombs to be released. As we were the last A/c to drop our bombs it wasn't surprising that, with the bombing that had gone on before we arrived, the factory was well and truly alight and billowing smoke. The incendiaries we were dropping were of a new type ( for the period ) and exploding on impact the contents would stick to whatever it hit and continue burning.

Unfortunately the A/c in front of me was too close to the building when his bombs exploded so that they stuck to his plane and it went down in flames after he passed over the factory. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, as soon as I had released our bombs, I made the A/c climb rapidly and so we disappeared into the smoke and levelled out at about 600ft. I continued to fly at that height blind and on instruments until we were out of the smoke and then realised how vulnerable we were.

I pushed the nose of the A/c down quickly so as not to attract the anti - aircraft fire little realising the confusion this was causing to Bill Legge who was the air gunner in the downward rear facing gun position. These guns were fed by a switch back system from the bullet panniers positioned on both sides of the A/c. These switch backs didn't have a cover on them and the sudden descent of the A/c caused the bullets, which were linked together, to come out of the switch backs and wrap themselves around Bill's neck.

The expletives he used were unprintable. However now that we were back to ground level, it wasn't long before we were being shot at once again from the flak towers, making us fly even closer to the ground. Not long after leaving the target I managed to make the A/c hit a tree. Fortunately we hit it head on and about one third of the way down. Had it been a wing that hit the tree I would not be alive today to tell this story. The impact was not such that it would cause us to crash but did enough damage to make life quite difficult for us to keep flying. It wasn't too long before I realised that the pitot head ( that that provides the force of air for the air speed indicator to work ) had been ripped off.

Part of the underside of the wing had been ripped away so that Ron was able to see the ground through the side of the A/c. Just before we were about to leave the Dutch Coast our starboard engine packed up. I could only conjecture that the collision had damaged the pipe line to the engine and I had no alternative but to feather the prop and fly on only one, again a practice I had carried out quite often. This was necessary so as to reduce 'drag' and stay airborne.

At about this time I realised that we had lost a lot of fuel and therefore I felt it imperative that we made a landfall in the U.K. as quickly as possible and so we altered course for Felixstowe in Suffolk. Gradually inching higher and higher so that if an emergency occurred we would have sufficient height to deal with it. It wasn't too long before we were at 1,300ft although without any idea of the speed at which we were flying it was important that I didn't cause the A/c to lose flying speed and thereby stall and lose the height that I had been able to gain. Although I didn't think of it at the time, I realised later how much I appreciated all the training I had been put through and the thoroughness with which my instructors had done their job.

About 5 minutes after leaving the coast, Bob my upper gunner reported that there was a squadron of fighters due north of us and it wasn't until they had completely circled our A/c did we realise they were friendly, thank goodness. About this time we realised that our W/T radio was useless due more than likely to our radio aerials being swept away in our collision with the tree. Half way across the water we encountered a rather large Royal Navy warship.

We didn't have any means of contact with them except by firing off the colours of the day and following the laid down procedure of always passing astern of the ship. We had been told that the Navy always fired first and asked questions afterwards. I don't blame them but being on one engine I wasn't happy about having to take evasive action. Fortunately it wasn't necessary which was lucky when we saw the guns that could have used against us.

Not long after leaving the warship I noticed a Spitfire flying on my starboard side and in formation with my A/c. It was a comforting thought and I can only presume that the squadron of fighters that circled us had radioed their base ( we found out later that this was RAF Coltishall in Norfolk ) and asked for this A/c to stay with us until we had reached land or had ditched in the sea. About this time I realised that there was a distinct possibility that we may not reach Felixstowe Airfield and therefore confirmed to my crew our ditching arrangements should we need to do so.

Ditching positions were agreed and at the same time I decided that because I didn’t have any idea of my airspeed I would not jettison the panel directly above the Pilot and Navigator as I didn’t know what effect this would have on the handling characteristics of the aircraft and on the stalling speed. Without that exact knowledge I was not prepared to risk my crew’s lives. This meant that if we were forced to ditch, all the crew would have to escape by the same route, namely the ‘ Astrodome ‘ and therefore we would all have to get a move on if we were to survive. Everybody agreed that we would have to move quickly should we be forced to ditch.

We were approaching the English Coast and were about 7 miles away when the engine which had enabled me to get that far ' died ' through lack of fuel. Although I didn't think about it at the time I was about to be tested, in practical terms, as to how much I had learned about how to react in an emergency when ditching an aircraft in the water. The standard procedure for ' ditching ' was to turn into wind so as to reduce the touchdown speed.

Fortunately there was very little or no wind at all making it unnecessary to alter course and had enabled the sea to be like a mill pond. One of the problems of ditching an A/c is the problem caused if the waves are of any size. Fortunately with the sea being like a ' mill pond ' this enabled me to make a very good landing. Because I hadn't been able, at take off, to strap myself in, immediately prior to touch down I put my feet into the instrument panel so as to prevent myself smashing into it due to the sudden stopping of the A/c. This meant that I finished up with my arm up against my face and right up against the windscreen. The only injury I got was a small scratch on the bridge of my nose.

With the remainder of my crew at ' ditching stations ' we were all uninjured. Now we had to vacate the A/c as quickly as possible not an easy task since we all had to get out through the astrodome and particularly since the a/c floated for only about 45 secs. This may not seem very long but I can assure you that it is when you are in a hurry.

As soon as we were out of the A/c we inflated our ' Mae West's ' which followed the advice we were given. This was to wait until we were out of the A/c before inflating them so as to avoid the possibility of ' scagging ' the inflated life jacket and thereby losing its buoyancy. Obviously the first thing to be done after vacating the A/c was to inflate the dinghy. With typical American foresight they had arranged that the door on a Ventura would be deep enough to store an uninflated dinghy and have the outside panel to the door held in place by a strip of fabric. Under the nose of the A/c was a ' sea switch ' which when it came into contact with sea water an electrical charge would be set up which would set off the Co2 bottle attached to the dinghy causing it to inflate and so when we had all got out of the A/c the dinghy was waiting for us. All we had to do was to check to see if it was inflated enough, which it was. Now we had to cut the tie that was holding it to the A/c.

Because the A/c was sinking so fast I, a non swimmer, stepped off the wing into the water believing implicitly that the ' Mae West ' would keep me afloat and it did. Because it was December the water temperature was quite cold but not one of us felt it presumably because our adrenalin was running quite high. The exact time we ditched was 1350 hrs being the time my watch stopped when it was submerged in the water. We were now, all four us, in the dinghy and paddling away as quickly as possible in case the suddenly submerging A/c upset our dinghy.

What we didn't realise was that whilst we were descending to the water and getting into our dinghy, the accompanying Spitfire had gone off to a nearby trawler and indicated the direction to steer to reach the ditched A/c. Because of the help given to us by the pilot of the Spitfire, we were in our dinghy for only about 15 mins. About 45 mins later an Air Sea Rescue launch came alongside the trawler, took us off and back to Felixstowe harbour. By the time we reached the harbour it was starting to get dark. We told the CO of the Air Sea Rescue Unit, of the party that had been arranged at Feltwell and he very kindly arranged for transport to take us to the party. Driving back through the dark in the black out at a speed necessary to ensure that we did not miss the party was very frightening. Still we were determined not to miss the party.

When we arrived the party was in full swing and it surprised most of our squadron that we were there when the last they saw of us was being on one engine and being left behind. At the end of the party we were sat on a grass verge waiting for the wagon to arrive to take us back to base. When it arrived I got up to run to the lorry and promptly fell over. It was only then that I realised how much the day had taken out of me and how tired I was.

As soon as possible I sent a telegram to my wife saying I was safe and would be writing to her. We had discussed the possibility of me sending her a telegram and so as to differentiate with that horrible telegram that would be sent if I was ' missing ', it was agreed I would give her full Christian names on the telegram so that she would know it was from me. This of course is what I did and it worked. It was necessary for me to tell her that I was all right as Venturas for the first time, were mentioned on the radio, as having been involved in a bombing operation and that a total of 13 A/c were missing.

It was standard practice for all aircrew who had survived a ditching to be given 4 days survival leave but in our case, as it was our very first operation, the hierarchy thought we could easily be persuaded by our families to ask to be taken off bombing. Needless to say we won the day, visited our families and continued our tour of bombing operations. As mine was the first Ventura to ‘ ditch ‘ and the crew survive, my navigator and I had to report to the Ministry of Aircraft Production to give our account as to how the aircraft behaved in the ditching procedure and thereby confirm that the procedure laid down was correct.

Whilst in London Ron and I had to pay a visit to the makers of the dinghy to give our account of how the dinghy behaved during the ditching and at the same time we had to recount our experiences of the raid and we were interviewed by the late famed Winford Vaughan Thomas of the BBC who, later, took part in heavy bomber raid on Berlin and recorded his experiences whilst over the target. The recording with Mr Thomas was broadcast about 2 months later in a weekly programme about personal experiences of the war. At that interview Ron and I were initiated into the ‘ Goldfish Club ‘ which was a club formed for those persons who had escaped death by the use of their dinghy. Although we were the first members to be initiated into the Club we were not the first members to qualify to join the Club.

During my survival leave the thoughts of what had happened did not come back to haunt me. Perhaps because the raid itself was featured in the press and in the news items in the cinemas my adrenalin was still running quite high. Any thoughts of not wanting to continue as a daylight bomber pilot never entered my head.

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Of the Venturas taking part;

AE695 "B" aborted,

AE945 "E" crashed at Eindhoven crew killed,

AE940 "T" crashed at Eindhoven at 12.32,

AE707 "N" crashed at Rilland -3 crew POW,

AE697 ditched off Bawdsey,

AE702 "Q" crashed Eindhoven crew killed,

AJ213 "N" crashed Vrouwenpolder crew killed,

AJ196 "C" shot down at Woendraecht,

AE902 crashed Woensal all killed,

AE701 "F" crashed Ostkepelle.

Mosquito - DZ371 "A" - was lost, crew KIA.

Boston III AL754 "D" of 107 Sqd crashed on return - crew safe.

Biography of JAMES ERNEST PELLY-FRY November 22, 1911 to December 6, 1994. The following is Mr. Pelly-Fry’s obituary that ran in his local newspaper on December 29, 1994.

Group Captain James Pelly-Fry, who has died aged 83, led Pelly-Fry’s Hell Divers against Italian targets in East Africa in 1940 and two years later was awarded the DSO for his part in Operation Oyster, 2 Group’s biggest and most complex air attack of the war. In December 1942, as commander of the 88 Squadron of Douglas Boston light bombers, Pelly-Fry led one of the eight squadrons briefed to destroy the Phillips factory at Eindhoven, which supplied Germany with a third of its electronics products. A high-level night attack by Bomber Command had been ruled out in order to minimize civilian casualties, and, at lunchtime on December 6, the force of about 100 light bombers swept low over the Dutch coast. Despite an escort of three fighter squadrons on the homeward trip, the daylight sortie was a risky enterprise. Flying at 250 mph at “zero feet” left no room for error; the ground rushed past, Pelly-Fry recalled, “in a blur of fields, minor roads, streams and farm buildings.” Flocks of birds on the Dutch mudflats were an additional hazard; the aircrafts’ canopies and wings became plastered with blood and feathers. Although attacked by FW 190 fighters, the force pressed on. As Pelly-Fry directed his Boston at the main factory building he was so low that the German anti-aircraft gunners on the roof were actually firing down at him. Hit by the flak, he noticed that part of the starboard wing was sticking up vertically and the fabric on one of the ailerons was shredding in the slipstream. Then the starboard engine began an ominous rattle until, throttled back, it quieted. He then found that there were two FW 190s on his tail. Only Pelly-Fry’s evasive skill and the

German pilots’ apparent inexperience enabled him to lose them over the North Sea. Losing height, he managed to make a belly landing on one engine. Nine Venturas, four Bostons and one Mosquito had been lost in the operation, but the Phillips factory had been effectively demolished. It was six months before it resumed production. When Pelly-Fry visited the works after the war – at the invitation of the Phillips directors – he was congratulated on the havoc wreaked by the raid. (Source: www.rafcommands.com)