Controlled Terror

Heroes Remember

Controlled Terror

Transcript

I was gonna tell you about this trip to Kiel, it was April 13th, ‘45. We knew the war was just about over, you know. The Russians were in Berlin, our troops were just into, well into Germany. And we had about our 28th trip in and I said, "Oh come on," you know. This Kiel trip was a black night. You couldn't see your wings, you could not see your wings, it's hard to believe. So we took off and got over Europe, then the word you didn't want to hear is, our navigator says, "Hello skip, we're two minutes early, we gotta do a dog leg." Well a dog leg, all the airplanes are flying east and you have to fly a minute this way, turn around and fly a minute this way. And you know all these bombs are going east and you're going north and south. I said, "Oh no." Because you can't see anything but then our pilot turned on his navigation lights, and then we started our one minute run across the bomber stream and your plane kept going, bum bum bum bum, and you knew you were in the slip stream of another Lancaster. Oh my God, you know, and but it was pretty, then everybody started turning on their navigation lights, like port red and starboard green. And all these little lights, like Christmas time, all these little red and green lights going on all over the place. Because we knew there was no fighters, they were gone the German Luftwaft was finished. And now we gotta come back a minute, once again, bum bum bum bum through the slip stream of these other bombers. So finally, we got back on course heading east with the rest of the boys and we get over the target we were towards the tail end of the target, of the stream and all of a sudden somebody's bombs ahead of us, must have hit an oil storage dump or gasoline. And the whole sky was like this, it went from pitch dark, you couldn't see anything, to daylight. And I look ahead, and here's a Lancaster tail turret, right ahead of us. I look over here on our starboard, and here's a Halifax, we're almost touching wings. I, not kidding, I tried to say, "Dive," but I couldn't. Nothing came out. And then the flames go out. Now you know what happens to your eyes, your eyes have got that flash of bright, and now I know that everybody within three miles is blind, I know that. So I know there's a Halifax over here, we're almost touching wings and there's a Lancaster ahead, we're almost running into, but the mid upper gunner he yells, "Skip, dive!" So the skip dives. Now, what's below us? And I went in my station and I started to shake because I know I was waiting for a crunch of metal against metal. And I said to myself, "Well nobody's bailing out." Because they're over the target, and there's still bombs coming down. So I figure well if we get in a collision, just go down with the ship because nobody's bailing out. But we got, we got out of that okay, we dropped our bombs, come home, I looked in my log book you know what they said? Kiel, easy trip, no flak. Like you got, every trip was danger, and like I said, you got used to it, controlled terror.

Description

Mr. Taschuk recalls a bombing run over Germany, during a particularly dark night, when the light from an explosion revealed how close they’d come to having a collision.

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.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 04:07
Person Interviewed:: Neil Taschuk
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Europe
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 434 Squadron
Occupation:: Wireless Air Gunner

Language selection

Controlled Terror

Heroes Remember