The Hamburg Raid

Well, that was not uncommon to see another one close or just above or just below, you know. And today it kind of amuses me when you hear about the private aircraft, you know, like commercial aircraft coming close to another commercial aircraft, you know, 300 yards or more, you know. It’s kind of a ridiculous thing. They didn’t know what three feet was.

Interviewer: And so the fear of mid-air collision was always very evident

Oh ya, very definite, ya, right from take off to finish. I saw more of that actually on a raid on Hamburg one night where there was more of our own bombers going down and the crews jumping, you know, you could see them jumping out. But, you know, we had heavy losses that particular night on Hamburg. Hamburg was a hot target. Lots of anti-aircraft fire, there was fighters up there after us and there was the danger always of collision with our own. But outside of that, you know, there wasn’t much to tell. You could see airplanes being shot up and on fire and fellows, crews jumping and so on but and that kept going on through the raid, you see.