77 Squadron: A Raid Too Far

[@philbosworth3789]

Woody @WW2TV suggested I give this a watch, and I'm glad I did.

[@captaincrash9286]

On 5th March 1945, Halifax LW210 of 426 Sqn encountered unexpected icing conditions which caused it to break up and crash onto Nunthorpe Grove in York. My dad was a pupil at Nunthorpe school at the time. The aircraft hit two houses, killing the occupants and most of the crew. Three rescuers were killed by delayed action bombs.Two of the crew bailed out at low altitude. One was killed, but the WOp/AG Pilot Officer John Low was saved when an exploding bomb inflated his parachute. The rest of the crew are buried in Stonefall cemetary in Harrogate. PO Low subsequently married one of his nurses, and returned to Canada with her, where they had a number of children. It would be interesting to see you cover this story.

[@MySkyranger]

Thank you for producing these sad stories. I myself read almost all bomber command WW2 stories of these unbelievably brave very young men. And like you I will never forget what they did for is all. It’s a great pity this is not compulsory reading for the sad, ignorant weak youth of today. What did they suffer and die for I often ask myself.

[@Davlavi]

Informative thanks.

[@donallen8414]

This is a very well presented and researched documentary. As I have worked in Sterkrade a number of times, I know the area very well. Today this is a part of the City of Oberhausen. At least one bunker where people would go during air raids is preserved as a museum today. In a historic twist, engineers and workers from Sterkrade were involved in building the largest and most modern such coal-to-oil plants that are in operation today. They are all located in Northwest China, and can produce up to 4 million tons of diesel per year each. Three of them could have supplied Nazi Germany with enough fuel in 1944. China builds them for the same reason as Nazi Germany. What surprises me is how fast most factories recovered in Oberhausen after 1945, and how little effect all the bombardments had on the medium or long term.

[@harryspeakup8452]

There have been some great comments on this video, and this is one of them. Very interesting, thanks for mentioning your experiences of the Sterkrade site and its personnel

[@colinblick8946]

Thanks for this story Catherine…… makes you realise how grateful we should be😎👌🏽

[@jimbaird8976]

Well researched, presented and produced. Subscribed and liked

[@Redhand1949]

One correction, Catherine. There now IS a second restored Halifax, NA337, at the National Air Force Museum of Canada. It was recovered from a lake in Norway, and its restoration took a full decade. I have long been a student of the Allied strategic bombing campaigns against Germany in WWII, both Bomber Command and the USAAF. I have written a couple of books about a B-17 group that flew from Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. One covers the period from mid-1943 to early 1944, with the focus on one crew that managed to get through their 25 missions with no one getting seriously injured or killed. The other is a more general unit history covering the same unit during the entire war. The RAF and USAAF heavy bomber casualties during that war were unbelievably high. I thank you for taking the time to tell some of these stories yourself. All those who flew these missions deserve to be remembered. Do continue to do these aviation subjects!

[@harryspeakup8452]

Thanks for that: duly noted

[@CatherineWarr]

Thanks for that! Having one more surviving example of a rare aircraft is better than only having one, after all!

[@charlieoscar09]

Brilliant video this Katherine......Really enjoy your war stuff

[@WW2TV]

Brilliant stuff Catherine. Bravo!

[@jazzper_nl]

Interesting video! I'm currently researching Lancaster X KB734 VR-F of 419th squadron (RCAF) which was downed that night (16/17 june Sterkrade raid) in my hometown Zeist.

[@brianwhetton9621]

Thanks for your report. Lest we forget : We shall remember them.

[@TurbosTantrums]

An interesting link to one of your previous videos - looking up RAF Full Sutton on Wikipedia it mentions: "In the 1950s it was part of RAF Flying Training Command, as No. 103 Flying Refresher School RAF and then as No. 207 Advanced Flying School RAF. Both of these schools held training on Meteor aircraft as a response to the Korean War. One of the aircraft, WF831, crashed onto the railway line in 1952 just as a goods train was passing." Also, I note from the German caption of the picture of Sterkrade, that the actual facility was the "Gute-Hoffnung-Hütte" or "Good Hope Forge".

[@daseteam]

Thanks for this, Catherine. Looking forward to more stuff from you. PS: Greetings from Germany.

[@larsjensen1358]

Thank You Catherine for reminding us about the Incredible Brave Men who sacrificed their lives for Democracy and Freedom. It must have taken something very special to climb into a bomber night af night, knowing that death was flying along side, and that the chance of surviving a full tour of duty was little.

[@pissedoff-is1mt]

Not seen your docs before and am very impressed both with content and the presenter, please keep them coming.

[@allandavis8201]

Thank you so much for brining the story of this raid to our attention, very informative and interesting, but most of all it is so poignant, so many of the stories of heroes of the RAF and all allied forces are being lost into the mist of time, every one that somebody, like yourself, records in some way means it is saved for posterity. Rest in Peace all those who payed the ultimate price of freedom. Lest We Forget. ………….Per Ardua Aad Astra my brothers. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱

[@harryspeakup8452]

Sad to see the last WW2 building go. Even 20 years ago when I used to fly into Full Sutton occasionally there were a lot more wartime remnants visible

[@CJArnold-hq3ey]

Thanks for the history lesson Mrs cheers from South Oz 🇦🇺

[@Froobyone]

Thank you for telling their story.

[@AnthonyBrown12324]

I like the way you have a coherent story, including the background and wider story but the personal details also make it interesting. Very nice presentation keep up your good work. I noticed you have a wide body of videos

[@jonnaylor3154]

Hi Cath, excellent video, i just subscribed the other day, the video you made about Kirkstall forge some time ago caught my eye, my wife's from Kirkstall born and bread, and we found it interesting as several of her family members worked at the forge back in the day. Keep up the good work and Thank you.👍

[@turnerja100]

Well done, lovely video ... these things need to be remembered 😢

[@jimmorrison5493]

This is an excellent presentation, thank you young lass. Keep on ❤️

[@cuthbert246]

Brilliant video did not know about this particular raid so thanks for the info. Keep up the good work. Best Wishes.

[@WW2TV]

Thanks

[@mickpalmer3521]

There are still lots of old airfield buildings surviving around Yorkshire , Riccal near Selby , look closely at the side of the road , part of the runway and in a farm yard what look like living quarters . The book Yorkshire Airfields WW2 is a good read with a ' now and then ' for anyone interested in exploring WW2 airfields .

[@kat13man]

Excellent delivery. Very enjoyable to watch and informative. Yes, Bomber Command paid a terrible price. The German night fighters were quite effect at attacking from below shrouded in darkness while the RAF bomber was outlined against the brighter night sky and stars. Also there was some compliancy on the part of Bomber Command in not recognizing that the darkness of night did not really cloak their bombers from the German night fighters. As a result some RAF gunner refrained from firing thinking to do would give away their position. Also, the Germans keyed in on the many electronic emissions from the RAF bombers that were thought to be protective. Russian losses on the East Front were much less because their bomber had no such electronic device and often no radio. Just goes to show that trying to make things better can often make them worse. A frightening loss of life and truly a duty of terror. Looking forward to your next episode.

[@Sim0nTrains]

Awesome video Catherine, enjoyed it

[@swisscottagecleanairaction]

Great research. Thanks.

[@landoremick7422]

Another great little documentary reminding us of our ancestors sacrifice to keep our country free. Shame we cannot keep ourselves free nowadays

[@motorinstructeur]

Thanks for keeping the memory alive love. Just subscribed. ❤

[@harryspeakup8452]

Episode 5 of the Channel 4 documentary, "Abandoned Railways From Above", which has today premiered on the channel, features Cath during the making of this KZbin film. In a few minutes it will become available to view on the C4 online catch-up service

[@phillipsteadman6261]

Great stuff Cath, enjoying your delivery ....keep it up....the reality of these guys flying into hell, to help win a war and our freedoms we can never and must never be forgotten, both my parients were the lucky ones to live through it. RAF. Thankyou for your dedication to history.

[@HerewardtheWake-ri1hy]

My dad was a POW slave worker in Magdeburg synthetic oil plant for 14 months until April 1944. He was bombed on a regular basis by the RAF and USAAF.

[@babaganoush6106]

cracking vid many thanks your sentiments are so important; we should remember that war is terrible

[@blueshirt11111111111]

I find it so sad that the office wiĺl be demolished. Hasn't there been discussion about preserving it and including a small memorial and exhibition? Great video.

[@AndrewOgg-fk4ok]

Douglas Lawler would have been my great uncle. He was a navigator with 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds. Douglas died with all his crew off the coast of Holland that sad night.

[@NarnianRailway]

Excellent video to preserve stories from history. Several web sites detail airfields and other facilities from World War 2 but the stories you share are rich in the history. To the east of RAF Full Sutton was another airfield of rare history, RAF Carnaby near Bridlington. It served as emergency airstrip near the coast and runway was 750 feet wide and 9000 feet long. Served as an emergency landing strip for heavy bombers. Perhaps Catherine can discover some fascinating stories from that airfield. In 1959 it was a Thor ballistic missile base and afterwards raceway till redeveloped as the current industrial estate.

[@JohnDoe-tx8lq]

Very sad. It's always my reaction when hearing stories of individual acts of bravery or actions like the D-Day Landings. It's right they are talked about, they where DEFINITELY brave, yet for the entire war countless men and women (quite literally 'countless') died just as bravely, often in completely unknown events, that have been erased from history because no one survived to tell the tale. A lot of well deserved decorated war heroes must find the subsequent attention very difficult, as they remember thier many missing comrades.

[@timeandnourishment1961]

Bomber Command originally set a tour at 30 operations which, I believe, was increased to 40 towards the end of the war. It's less frequently mentioned that an aircrew was actually expected to complete just 12 operations in order to allow for sustainable levels of replacement - this is a matter of record: that the Air Ministry commissioned a bookmaker to calculate the odds of survival of a bomber crew might just be a myth. I greatly appreciated your factual and personal presentation here. Subscribed!

[@rickden8362]

Flying in RAF Bomber Command had the highest casualty rate of ANY allied service branch.

[@timeandnourishment1961]

@@rickden8362 That they did!

[@throttlegalsmagazineaustra7361]

60 ops in a tour if you flew in Pathfinders

[@washingtonradio]

The status of airfield reminds me of the opening scene in the movie "12 O clock High" were the USAAF airfield had been abandoned after the war.

[@gavlosmedia6323]

Brilliant this

[@IanLawrie-l9q]

Well done for doing as you said, keeping the history alive 👍👌👏

[@stoneagepunk]

Well done!

[@danthorley5539]

I was told the old watch tower for the airfield stood where marble building products currently stands. Also I believe there's still a old hanger behind there.

[@geordiedog1749]

Well done, mate. Great shout for a video. I’ve had a bit of a deep dive into this whole ‘strategic bombing’ theme after listening to an online debate during lock down. The debate was about whether the RAF was any use during WW2 and one of the things the ‘Against’ used was how shite the bombing campaign had been. (They didn’t quite use that terminology though:) Anyway, my conclusion, so far, is that (amongst other things) the Crab Creams would have done a lot better using Mossies and not heavies to make up the bulk of their strategic bombing force. The other main thing is just how wrong they were at the start (forgivable) and how they didn’t learn from mistakes (totally not forgivable).

[@rickden8362]

No allied service branch had a higher casualty rate than flying in RAF Bomber Command.

[@dondouglass6415]

What a great presenter this young woman is... Huzzah!!

[@lllordllloyd]

My father flew in 576 Squadron, I was fortunate to visit his former base at Fiskerton last year with the squadron's historian, Matt Wood. It was indeed indescribable to walk on that same ground over 70 years later. My father survived 39 operations and the war. Arthur Harris is often reviled for his contempt for 'panacea targets' and his unapologetic acceptance, indeed espousal, of 'area bombing'. This raid explains the wisdom, or at least justification, of his position: if you can't reliably hit the specific locations to cut off a specific commodity, the entire effort soon becomes pointless. 'Area bombing' was brutal but in the long run was bound to be effective.

[@stevecalvert4369]

My dad George was in the RAF in Yorkshire where he was a police Sgt his Job was to guard crashed aircraft until the amo and crew could be removed . Towards the end of the war he was based in Naples with the Canadian airforce.

[@Johnbg81327.]

Catherine. Wonderful video. My Dad was an Observer on that raid in P Popsy. He was shot down and was imprisoned in Stalag Luft III. If you want to contact me I have a lot of information on the raid (from my father’s diary) and his time in the prison camp. Could you leave me an email address that I can contact you on - as you can guess I am not in the first flush of youth and email is all I use.

[@CatherineWarr]

Thanks John! You can contact me on cwarrfilms@gmail. com

[@martincotterill823]

Great video, Catherine. Tell the stories of victims of those bombers as well. Only a few were evil Nazis, the rest were people like you and me

[@chopstick266]

What you mean the rest were good nazis?

[@stevejauncey1461]

Can't the office be preserved

[@whtalt92]

Purely from a practical perspective, that is quite an involved process and quite costly too. Depends on who is the current owner, planning permissions, protected status listings, alternatives for location, practicality in dismantling, transporting and reconstructing elsewhere...

[@Jon962-h4i]

An interesting production, but may I respectfully point out that Derek Rogers wasn't awarded his DFM for 'remaining in the sinking aircraft and manning a turret.' In fact, if that did happen as you describe - which I would consider most unlikely - his DFM citation certainly makes no mention of it. Neither does the DFM citation for Sergeant Blackwell. The Flight Engineer, Tommy Godwin, wanted to swim along the inside of the fuselage to rescue a teddy bear that had been presented to the crew by nurses from Northallerton General Hospital (it was going to be flown on ops and then later raffled to raise funds for the hospital), but the Captain, Syd Judd, forbade this. Unfortunately, 'Teddy' went down with the aircraft and was the only casualty of MZ705 (KN-Q).

[@CatherineWarr]

Interesting - could you tell me where this info is? I got the story from the 77 Squadron association website.

[@harryspeakup8452]

Where did you find the citations? They do not show up in The Gazette, but then a lot of DFMs don't

[@Jon962-h4i]

@@CatherineWarr What DFM recs are left are held in the Air 2 files at Kew. Derek Rogers' citation states: "This NCO is the rear gunner of Pilot Officer Judd’s crew, one of the outstanding crews of the squadron, and has now completed 1 German, 9 mining and 15 French operations. On the night of 16th/17th June, 1944, he was detailed with his crew to attack Sterkrade. On the homeward journey, a Ju.88 aircraft was sighted by the rear gunner at 650 yards astern and below, closing in with guns firing. The rear gunner immediately gave instructions to cork-screw, at the same time opening fire with one long burst. The Ju.88 was climbing fast and came up on the port quarter at about 250 yards range. Due to the violent dive taken by the pilot, he and mid upper gunner gave the Ju.88 one long burst at point blank range and the combined gunners resulted in many strikes on the fighter which was seen to burst into flames and dive into cloud immediately followed by a large explosion. The fighter is claimed as destroyed. On another occasion, a similar combat with an enemy night fighter took place on the night of 25th/26th February, 1944. A Ju.88 was sighted whilst circling the target area. Sergeant Rogers gave extensive instructions to the pilot and opened fire with one continuous burst. While the Halifax went into a second dive of the corkscrew, the rear gunner saw the enemy aircraft once again and gave him a fairly long burst, keeping up his fire until the enemy aircraft broke away in a vertical dive. The enemy aircraft is claimed as probably destroyed. Sergeant Rogers has shown exceptional skill coupled with cool determination and courageous endeavour and in recognition of his great devotion to duty, it is strongly recommended that he be granted the immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Medal." 25th June 1944

[@Jon962-h4i]

@@harryspeakup8452 They very rarely do. The extant recs are contained in the Air 2 files at TNA, Kew, of which I have copied around 90% of them.

[@CatherineWarr]

In that case, I would suggest contacting the 77 Squadron Association directly to tell them to update their information, as the story was relayed by a relative of one of the crewmen and listed on the website. Naturally, a lot of faith and trust is placed in official squadron historians and it is not immediately obvious to investigate their claims.

[@alansmithee8831]

A'reyt Catherine. Is the time right yet to make an RAF version of a film like Memphis Belle? This was fiction, but based on the real experiences of the US airmen. There was always an opposition to glorifying these missions due to the idea of bombing civilians no longer being accepted after technology for targeting improved.

[@esk8jaimes]

First comment support *

[@TheBillaro]

'don't get remembered' = aren't remembered

[@rudydevich9046]

What is worse than war?