Elias Ellis last mission

In the northern winter of 1945 I was a member of 467 Squadron RAAF, based at Waddington in Lincolnshire. The operation scheduled on the night of ½ February 1945 was to Siegen to the east of Cologne. My regular crew (under Squadron Leader Eric Langlois) weren’t flying that night. Flight Lieutenant Keith Livingstone’s (NG197, PO-G) rear gunner went sick and as squadron gunnery leader, it was my responsibility to nominate a replacement gunner. I nominated myself (it was the last trip to complete my second tour of operations).

Because it would be the last trip to complete my second tour and Flight Lieutenant Livingstone’s final trip to complete his crew’s tour, I jokingly said, prior to briefing, to the other members of the crew, “ we are a moral to get the ‘chop’ tonight”.

At briefing, we were told by the Intelligence Officer, as was the practice during that stage of the war, not to ‘make waves’ (try and escape) in the event of being shot down, as the end of the war was imminent.

The trip to target was uneventful, apart from the usual flack over the route towards Germany. Over Siegen, low cloud stretching to the horizon made bombing difficult. We flew low enough to observe a number of fires burning separately throughout the city. It could not have been called a highly successful raid. During our bombing run we had aimed at the skymarkers laid on by the Pathfinder Force. As we turned away after bombing, the bomb aimer, F/O McMahon, told the skipper that a 1000 pounder was hung up in the bomb bay. While the bomb aimer was endeavouring to free the bomb, the aircraft was hit in the starboard inner engine, which burst into flames. As there was no attack from the rear, obviously the attack had come from the front of the aircraft; probably underneath from the upward firing guns of a night fighter flown by Hauptmann Heinz Rökker in his Ju 88G-6 from 2./NJG 2. Subsequent discussions between the crew indicated that no-one recalled seeing a night fighter.

The next thing I recall is the Flight Engineer, F/O E Parsons RAF, saying “Where is my parachute?’ The skipper called over the intercom and said “Looks like we’ve had it fellows. You’d better bail out.” I was wearing a ‘back’ type parachute and I turned the turret for and aft and got out into the fuselage. After walking up forward I met the mid upper gunner, F/O Ray Browne RAF, who had already jettisoned the escape hatch. The flames of the fire in the engine were streaming down the side of the aircraft. Ray said “You bastard Ellis, you ‘mozzed’ us!” He then turned and disappeared through the escape hatch. I followed suit and the next thing I knew was a welcome jerk on the parachute harness which indicated that the chute had opened.

While descending, I could still hear Ray, who, of course, was floating down below me, saying “You bastard, Ellis!” I saw the burning aircraft pass underneath us and then it turned back onto its original course. I thought “Hell, he’s flying back to base and leaving us in Germany!”

The next thing I knew was landing in a snow drift (about 6 feet deep), I released myself from my parachute harness and buried the parachute in the snow.

I decided to walk in what I hoped was a northerly direction heading hopefully towards England. After walking some distance, I discovered that my escape kit had been left behind in my flying suit near the parachute. I retraced my steps, but couldn’t relocate where I had buried the chute.

I commenced walking again in what I hoped was a northerly direction and after about 2-3 hours, I came upon the wreckage of a bombed out train. After a quick survey, I took refuge in a wrecked carriage. I shivered there until daylight when a train went past and somehow I knew that I had been seen by the locomotive crew. About an hour later two German soldiers flushed me out of the carriage and took me prisoner. They asked me whether I had a gun or knife and I answered “No gun, no gun!”. They searched me but didn’t take anything (I was wearing my wristwatch). I was taken to a military post and there given a cup of ersatz coffee. I was then taken and locked in a cave fitted with a door in the side of a hill.

After the door clanged shut and I was left with my confused thoughts, the main feeling I had was how freezing cold it was. After a sleepless night, I was taken out by a guard to the post and given another cup of ersatz coffee. At the post I met two members of the crew, F/O Parsons, the Flight Engineer and F/O Ray Browne.

Over the next two days the remainder of the crew had been rounded up and the seven of us were then herded onto a train under guard.

We found ourselves in a dilapidated passenger carriage and were crammed into a compartment like cattle. With a shudder and rattle, the train started moving and the journey, which was to last five days, commenced. The state of the German railway system and allied air activity at that time made the journey a series of hiding in railway tunnels from marauding aircraft and being sidetracked onto spur lines to allow urgent traffic through.

On the fifth day, we arrived at what we later learned to be Frankfurt. We were taken off the train and marched to the Interrogation Centre (Dulag Luft).

We were locked individually into cells about 6’ x 4’ and equipped with a trestle bed, two blankets and a paliasse. The following morning, as near as I could judge about 10.00am, I received a dreadful cup of ersatz coffee and a slice of ersatz bread that tasted like it was made from sawdust. It was the first food that had passed my lips since England a week before.

We received this food ration twice a day. The only means of keeping track of time was to continue the practice of previous occupants by marking the day on the wall by means of a thumb nail.

After seven days, I was taken to a palatial office, which included a chair placed in front of a huge desk and something I noticed, which I recall vividly after 40 years – on the desk a picture of the Taj Mahal! Behind the desk stood a well dressed civilian who greeted me with the words “How is the accommodation? Is the food alright, Mr Ellis?” in fluent English. He then proceeded to interrogate me on all aspects of my base at Waddington, particularly with regard to whether our aircraft were equipped with the American .50 calibre Browning machine guns. I pleaded ignorance – he then sneered at me and said “I know more about your station than you know yourself – your Station Commanding Officer’s name is Group Captain so and so (naming him) and you are the squadron gunnery leader!” He concluded our meeting by saying “Go away and enjoy our hospitality. I’ll see you later.” After every second day for a fortnight his final words to me after each meeting were “I think you are an idiot.”

The crew were then shipped to a holding centre at Nuremberg. Eventually from there, we were forced marched about 150 miles to Stag VIIA Moosburg, north-east of Munich from whence we were liberated by the American Army.

While at Nuremberg, the crew discussed the fate of the skipper, Flight Lieutenant Keith Livingstone, RAF. The aircraft had been carrying a Second ‘Dickie’, F/O Eagle RAAF, on the Siegen raid (a pilot doing his first operational trip with an experienced crew) and at Frankfurt, the number of crew captured totalled seven. This had satisfied the Germans so they had not looked for an eighth airman.

Members of the crew who became prisoners of war were:

102110 S/Ldr D.O. Sands, DSO, DFC – RAF (Navigator)

53553 F/O E. Parsons DFC – RAF (Flight Engineer)

412818 F/O W. McMahon – RAAF (Bomb Aimer)

182270 P/O J. Pendergast – RAF (Wireless Operator)

172986 F/O R. Browne – RAF (Mid Upper Gunner)

418931 F/Lt E.C. Ellis – RAAF (Rear Gunner)

432138 F/O R.W.G. Eagle – RAAF (Second Pilot)

I subsequently ascertained from the RAF authorities that the skipper was killed over Siegen on 1 February 1945 whilst pilot of Lancaster NG197 of 467 Squadron. He was originally buried at Rengsdorf cemetery; however, in 1948 his body was transferred to Rheinberg Military Cemetery. On returning to England at the end of the war, I learnt that on the night of the raid, other members of the squadron had seen what they thought to be an aircraft explode over the target (Siegen). On our return to Waddington and on learning of the failure of Keith Livingstone’s aircraft to return, they assumed that the explosion was this aircraft, with probably no survivors.

One month after I was shot down, the acting Commanding Officer of 467 Squadron, Wing Commander Eric Langlois, my regular skipper, led the attack on Ladbergen on the night of 3/4 March 1945 and was killed in action. One of the survivors, who became a prisoner of war, was the rear gunner and new squadron gunnery leader, F/O Ray Taylor, RAAF who also ended at Stag VIIA. So with hindsight, it would seem that even if I had missed the operation to Siegen with Keith Livingstone and crew, fate would have decreed that I would probably still have become a prisoner of war at Moosburg.