Coning and Night Fighters

Heroes Remember

Coning and Night Fighters

Transcript

We had to come out of the target area and we crossed a zone what was the Ruhr. The Ruhr was an industrialized area and they had a search light belt in that area and they were quite good at coning the air craft and after two or three times I would have a search light come across me and I would move far enough or fast enough for that. I would get out of the way before he swung back and picked me up again. But with the search lights coning different air craft. There was, one would cone up here. We'd look, that was a Focke-Wulf 190, a night fighter. The person would send off a vary cartridge. A vary cartridge is ball, like a pyrotechnic fire cracker which gives a certain colour when it's fired off. So he would fire off say a double yellow, and the search lights would leave him alone and they'd start up again, try to find somebody else. They'd find one up here an M 8210, another German night fighter, and they would cone him and he would fire off the same cartridge, double yellow or that and out would go the search light. We went through this area and we had about a half a dozen night fighters that were illuminated right off our wing within probably 200 yards of our air craft. Each pilot in that air craft fired off a vary cartridge. We had seven people in our air craft and out of the seven probably any five saw each of the cartridges being fired. When we got back to base and we were being debriefed by the intelligence officer, and we said about the night fighters being caught in our own cones, sending off the cartridge of the day. He said, "Oh fine, what color were the cartridges?" Seven people and not two of us could agree. In the tension of the moment, you saw it and in your mind you said that was a double yellow or whatever it might have been, but none of us took the time to right it down. So it was intelligence which would have been vital, but we couldn't trust our memories.

Description

Mr. Campbell describes the German tactic of coning, illuminating enemy aircraft with powerful search lights so they could be attacked, and what German pilots did if coned by their own lights.

John Campbell

John Campbell was born in October, 1923 in Coleman, Alberta. He was the younger of two brothers. His father was a coal miner and Mr. Campbell credits the mine’s support of the local school for his good education. Following the death of both his parents, he went into the mine. Because of the diverse ethnic mix in Coleman, the onset of war saw many miners return home to serve in their respective forces. He enlisted in 1942, joining the Air Force and becoming a bomber pilot. He finished his full complement of thirty-two missions with the same crew. After the war he remained in the Air Force and was a first responder on the DEW Line.

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