The Longest Raid

Heroes Remember

The Longest Raid

Transcript

There had been a Japanese flotilla been identified … had gone into a harbour at Penang, in Sumatra. Named last year with the tsunami, you know, in that area. And this is quite a nice harbour, a very deep basin with a very narrow neck in front of it. And this flotilla was in there, which was on its way to India, really, as support of this whole thing that we’re describing with the Japanese coming across, see, up the Malaya across Burma and Siam. It was about 3,000, it was 3,015 air miles from Dighori to the harbour, straight line. And they said that we wanted our squadron to go there and lay mines across that mouth of the harbour, so … enough mines that they couldn’t get them swept. They couldn’t clear them by the time the British had time to get some ships down there, to do something about helping to counteract this move. So they also said that this trip was going to take about 18 to 19 hours flying time, and the whole trip would be at 500 feet to keep out of the radar, Japanese radar. It’d be all over water. We’d have one pinpoint on the way down. Because we had no navigational aids in those days, I might say, we had no LORAN, no radar. All we used … a sextant for astral navigation, and we used the sextant for sun shots which gives a longitudinal line. You know where you are longitudinally, but you don’t know where you are latitudinally (sic). And we had smoke flares that we’d drop from the aircraft over water. And then the rear gunner would sight them and keep his guns on them. So as the aircraft is drifting, he’d keep following with his guns so he could read up the top of the turret, which was calibrated in degrees, the number of degrees of drift that you had. So it wasn’t a hell of a lot different than Christopher Columbus had, you know, in terms of basic equipment. He had sextants. So it was dead reckoning navigation. It’s very primitive stuff. So you’re flying for, you’re going to be flying one way for about nine hours at least, with only one thing to identify whether you’re right or wrong. And this was an extinct volcano sticking out of the sea when you came up about a thousand feet, and we would encounter that. Well, the next thing is that the aircraft didn’t have enough fuel in its normal tanks to be able to get there and back, so they took out the two front bomb bays. They put in two fuel tanks of 300 gallons each. So it brought us up with the mines and the fuel. The aircraft was designed to fly no more, I think, than about 54,000 pounds, something like that, 54, 55,000. And I think … and you talk to other people here and you check this, but I think that those aircraft finally … we couldn’t get them off from our base with that load on, so we flew them with the mines, but light on fuel, down to a super fortress base, a big U.S. base, which had a nice flat concrete runway. Our runway was typical British. It had a hump in it, you know. And it was short and a hump. You’re running uphill for a while and then you went downhill on it. We flew with our mines on down to this super fort base. We landed there in the morning and then it took off about three o’clock. Then they filled up all the fuel tanks right to the neck. I think, I’m told, we were about 72,000 pounds and we should be at 55,000 pounds. So we were way overweight. In fact, the makers of the aircraft had movie cameras set up along the runway to take pictures of this take-off because it was the heaviest they had ever, that this aircraft had ever lifted off. And of course, in hot air, warm air, it isn’t as dense as cold air and it’s harder to get off. But anyway, we had, I think, twelve aircraft in the mission, twelve aircraft got off. All overheated, you know, the cylinder head temperatures are off the clock. You know you’re ruining engines by doing this, but anyway. Everybody’s off. Everybody got to Penang and everybody got back. It’s incredible because the navy said, or maybe it was our air person afterwards, they anticipated some losses with this trip. And they said that it should be an automatic Distinguished Flying Cross mission if you succeeded in this. It was the longest bomber command raid of the war at this point, so that itself was a distinguishment (sic). So, but since there were no losses at all, there were no medals given out. I always felt a little resentful of that. [inaudible] got the Order of Canada, but I really would have liked to, would have like to have a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Description

Mr. Sharpe talks about an impressive mission to Penang, the longest bomb raid of the Second World War.

Charles Richard “Dick” Sharpe

Charles Richard Sharpe was born in St. Catharines, Ontario on February 11, 1925. His father worked for the Canada Customs Service, getting pensions for wounded Veterans. A Veteran of World War One, Mr. Sharpe’s father told him many stories about the war.

Mr. Sharpe joined the RCAF on the morning of his 18th birthday and became a pilot. He flew 23 missions for the RCAF and rose to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. After the war, Mr. Sharpe became a very successful businessman, serving for many years as CEO of Sears Canada. Among his many awards and recognitions, in 1998, he became a member of the Order of Canada.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 4:44
Person Interviewed:: Charles Richard “Dick” Sharpe
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Southeast Asia
Battle/Campaign:: Burma
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 159 Squadron
Rank:: Lieutenant
Occupation:: Pilot

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The Longest Raid

Heroes Remember

The Longest Raid

Charles Richard “Dick” Sharpe

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