German Defenses And Evasive Maneuvers

Heroes Remember

German Defenses And Evasive Maneuvers

Transcript

Bombing assignments during wartime were, it was a terrible stress for bomber crews because the enemy defenses were so effective, our losses were very heavy. You were under attack from the moment you crossed the Netherlands or the French Coast up to the targets and back. So you were under attack until you got back home to base. Either over the target which was under heavy attack by night fighters and if a gunner spotted a fighter approaching he would order the pilot to evade. That was called a cork screw where a pilot would evade first to the right, left or so and then you would lose him at night in the darkness but that was only effective if your gunner spotted him before he got too close. Search lights too were part of their defenses because a search light was a beam of light and they could maneuver those lights to cone an aircraft. By coning meaning ten or so beams of light would get one aircraft in the cone then you become visible to the night fighters or to the anti-aircraft guns and the only way to get out of that was to maneuver that Lancaster bomber away from that cone of light and we did get coned once and our pilot who used to fly Hurricanes before we got him as a bomber pilot so he still thought the Lancaster was a fighter so he put that, I think we from about 20,000 feet I think he pulled out about 14,000 before he got out of that cone of light.

Description

Mr. Kondra describes the fact that bombers were anti-aircraft targets from the North Sea into Germany. He discusses the risk from night fighters, and from being coned, a German technique of isolating a bomber in beams of light.

William Kondra

On January 14, 1922, William Kondra was born in Prudhomme, Saskatchewan. He finished Grade 8 at his local school, and, with difficulty, finished high school through correspondence. He was working on local farms for a pittance, so he decided to enlist in the Air Force, where he trained as a bomb aimer/front gunner. Mr. Kondra's tour of duty was completed with his original crew members aboard a Lancaster Bomber, and primarily consisted of air strikes on industrial Germany. Mr. Kondra offers many insights into the technology, strategy and stresses of flying in a bomber.

Meta Data