German Defenses And Evasive Maneuvers

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.