We are delighted to feature another guest post from David Coxon, Honorary Vice President of Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.
David writes:
This is a personal account by Nobby Clark DFC, a No 9 Squadron Lancaster pilot
We bombed the target (Stuttgart) without problems after an uneventful trip out, although there was some flak activity.
Some short time after leaving the target area flying at 20,000 feet we flew into a small amount of flak off to starboard. Not likely to affect us, I thought. How wrong can you be? There was a bright flash and a thump and we were veering off to port at a 50 degree angle – not a little shaken. I was very busy for a few minutes getting the aircraft back to level flight, checking the crew for injuries and sorting out our problem. We had lost power on the starboard outer engine and I closed it down. Although the Lancaster can fly wonderfully well on three engines it felt quite wrong with the aircraft pulling to starboard. The mid-upper gunner piped up to say that the starboard wheel was half down which was the reason for this problem. I selected ‘gear up’ but nothing happened.
We had to increase power on the starboard inner engine to maintain our course and we were a long way from home. She flew quite well for some time until the inner starboard engine started to overheat and to avoid a fire we closed it down so as to have it as a reserve should we need it for a short time. With only two engines on the port side and the drag from the hanging wheel we now had a real problem and started losing height. I found it difficult to hold the rudder fully extended and to hold the good engines lower than the right wing and so the bombardier went into the front of the Lanc and tied his very large woollen scarf around the rudder bar for him to pull when necessary – he did a wonderful job and without this Heath Robinson arrangement we would never have made it home. We both sweated it out for a long time but I was concerned about the feeling in my leg and perticulalry in my foot which was now quite painful.
I was surprised we had not attracted the attention of either searchlights or night fighters, perhaps the Germans were giving us a free ride. It worried me because we were down to 6,000 feet and had been slowly turning to port due to me having to hold the starboard wing down. My navigator did a wonderful job and eventually said we had some 20 minutes to the French coast. We discussed our course of action and decided to keep flying across the English Channel and make an emergency landing or bale out – the crew rejected the bale out option.
We crossed the French Coast at about 4,000 feet and with the English coast up ahead I called, “Mayday, Lancaster C for Charlie on two engines”. Almost immediately came the reply, “Aircraft calling Mayday this is Tangmere, we will throw our Chance Light”. Up into the sky dead ahead appeared this lovely blueish beam of light. I flew over the airfield as dawn was breaking and saw that the airfield was clear and told them that I would land to the right of the long runway on the grass. The girl said, “Standby” but I was committed as there was nowhere else to go and I could not feel my left foot at all. I ordered the crew to crash stations and flew a wide flat turn over the sea. I remember thinking out there how important it was to find the runway but still turning there it was in front of me. I was now down to 500 feet. I selected under cart down in the hope that the bad wheel would come down fully and lock. It didn’t but the port leg did. I decided to land as though I had both and as I slowed down I would select ‘up’. Check speed – all important to maintain our speed over the boundary – flaps fully down – we touched down. I applied the brakes quite gently and waited. She rolled smoothly with me pedalling the rudder and hauling back on the stick and with the upwind boundary hedge coming up I selected under cart ‘up’. There was a bump and a great deal of rattles and she slithered to a standstill without turning.
I went out of the escape hatch and shouted, “Out”, slithered down the wing onto the grass and fell over. I could not get up or stand and sat there watching the blood wagon and fire unit coming towards me. The Doc took off my boots when I told him about my legs and my feet were very white – in a kind of dream I heard someone say, “Frostbite!” and then they put me in the blood wagon.
They treated me well at Tangmere and after a day or so in their sickbay I was flown back to Bardney (Nobby’s No 9 Squadron base) to be greeted by my crew and the squadron bods.
Lancaster ‘C’ Charlie (W4325) was taken down to a Maintenance Unit where she was put together, pronounced airworthy and posted to No 460 Squadron. She did a further three operations before being reported missing on an operation to Stettin.
