Description
Mr. Taschuk explains why he didn’t think too much of the bombing targets they were assigned, and recalls a mission targeting a civilian mining town.
Neil Taschuk
Mr. Taschuk was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father, a Russian immigrant, fought for Canada in the First World War. Mr. Taschuk joined the air force along with many others from the community, and was sent overseas as soon as he had earned his wireless air gunner (WAG) wings. He was assigned to a Lancaster in Bomber Command's 434 Squadron. Given the casualty rate at the time, it was a near death sentence. Against huge odds and having experienced numerous near misses, he and the rest of his crew were one of few in bomber command who were never injured in any action, training, or other mishaps.
Transcript
Interviewer: Did you ever, I've heard that a lot of the, it was hard to bomb while you're, the targets were hard to reach sometimes and civilians got touched by the bombs. Was it hard knowing that some of your bombs wouldn't reach target and would hit civilians?
No it didn't. Your main object was getting home, safely to base, you didn't care where your bombs fell you know as long as you were on target. Like I said before in war time there's no civilians. They're all at the front line, if you're not making shells, you're making uniforms, you're making boots or making aircraft. And, but that first trip of Bochum like, our government lied to us because when I was younger they said, "We don't bomb civilians." At like you know at the start of the war. But our first target was Bochum, in ‘Happy Valley' in the Ruhr there, and there was three hundred Lancasters being sent out. One hundred were sent to bomb the coal mine, and two hundred to bomb civilians. We were told this by the briefing officer. He said, "We've been after this coal mine for so long," he said, "Now we're going to go after the civilians." He said, "Winter's coming," this is October, October 31st or so, and he told us, he says, "Now we're going to go after civilians. And if we don't kill the worker, we'll blow up his house, kill his wife kill his kids. He's got no where to live he's got no family, he's very disgruntled and he won't produce." And that's what we were told. So this not bombing civilians was a...like I said, everybody is on the front line. These guys were making coal, and coal miners...that's war effort, and if he's got no where to live, well gonna be very unhappy with winter coming on.