How did the Brits do it?

(ArtKramr) wrote:

I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions. Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?

Welcome to the brass balls world of the intrepid freight dog,
barnstormer, firefighter, bush pilot, cropduster, etc.

Nothing mysterious here -- the Brits did it the same way the Yanks,
Canucks, Jerries and everyone else did it in crappy weather all over
the world (not just in Europe).

Latest weather report from the ol' teletype machine in hand, you
would launch into the nighttime "can't-see-****" conditions and fly on
instruments while staying on course via a variety of (potentially
deadly!) methods. Such methods included, but were not limited to:

1) Radioing other airplanes in the sky so they can take bearings on
your position or extend a trailing wire antenna and crank the Gibson
Girl (emergency transmitters originally developed by the Luftwaffe)
and navigate via direction-finding equipment and your not-so-trusty
mag compass, and...

2) When push came to shove, descend below the clouds to treetop
level (this, now THIS took "mas grande cajones!") and wander
back and forth across a course you "assume" to be correct while
taking fixes as quickly as possible while hedgehopping to indicate of
any deviations off-course while simultaneously scanning for possible
marker flares or fires from your comrades on the ground before
climbing back up into the soup and continuing on to your target.