A few years ago I was presented with a folder from my grandma. It contained a small amount about my great uncle: Flight Sergeant William Briddon. Five years on, this is the information uncovered and where my journey has led …
William, shown right, was born in 1923 in South Wingfield (where I am from) in Derbyshire at Hollywells Farm (shown below), the fourth and youngest of his family. He had many interests growing up. A religious man, he was a local preacher in the chapel at South Wingfield and also a keen musician. He was involved in Sunday School and being born on the farm a keen farmer. But as my grandma and aunty have told me he loved aviation. When they would be out in the fields working he would get everyone gazing into the skies at the sound of an engine. This passion got him into the ATC, where he was at the outbreak of war. Classed as Land Army he was told not to sign up, but to carry on working the land. This he did until he couldn’t take not being involved any more, and in 1943 he signed up for aircrew RAF.
He trained at various RAF establishments: Madeley, Walney, Yatesbury, Bruntingthorpe, Wigtown, HCU Stradishall. In November 1944, he was posted to 214 Squadron at RAF Oulton, Norfolk, flying B-17G Flying Fortress' at the time.
Aerial shot of RAF Oulton
He started operational flying in December, and flew 10 ops doing Jostle and Window patrol including Xmas Eve without incident. However into the New Year things were to change.
On 7th February 1945 he and his crew set off on a Jostle patrol to Ladbergen, this was the first real encounter with the horror of war:
A Crew shot from RAF Oulton
‘On 7th February 1945, the crew went on special duty operations jamming radio and radar while Six Group was bombing the Dortmund Ems Canal. There was heavy flak. They had been jamming for twenty minutes, then gained height slowly. The bombers were busy bombing the canal and dodging a horde of German night fighters.
When it was home time, the crew set course, but they got left behind as the other aircraft were a lot faster. In the vicinity of Essen they were coned by a multitude of searchlights. Essen was heavily defended with 400 heavy flak guns. One of the second tour waist gunners told the pilot Harry Bennett (Benny) to fly into the thickest of the flak. When Frank Hudson, tail gunner, asked ‘Why?’ next day, he told Frank that the flak was automatically controlled so the next burst would explode elsewhere.
They got past Essen but were jumped by a Junkers 88 night fighter, which stayed behind them and started shooting. This was a poor manoeuvre on his part, as he should have attacked on a curve pursuit. This though, gave Frank the opportunity to shoot point-blank. Frank's tracers converged on the fighter; knocking silver sparks off him. He had been aiming at the nose of the plane and even seen the pilot. But Frank switched his gunfire to the fighter’s tanks, between the nose and the engines, knowing his explosive incendiaries would penetrate the fighter’s armoured tanks. The fighter's pilot had stopped firing, presumably killed, when suddenly there was a great yellow flash from his exploding tanks. While Frank continued to fire at the fighter, the fighter's crew fired back with their cannons and machine guns. A tracer appeared to be coming straight towards Frank, so he yelled, "Port go!" The tail of the Fortress came up and the tracer tore through the belly of the plane.
The radar device (H2S), which was fixed under the plane, was blown to bits. Frank lost his bike seat when it was also blown to smithereens. A cannon shell tugged at the crotch of his trousers, scorching his battle-dress pants. Frank also had a few holes in his clothes where bullets just missed him and his epaulette was shot off. He had a penny in his pocket and a tin of tobacco. A spent bullet hit the tin and squashed the tobacco into a black pulp. It also put a big dent in the penny, which saved his hip joint from severe damage. Jock Murdoch, one of the waist gunners, got a bullet through his forearm between the two bones. Being a Scotsman his swearing was magnificent! Bill Church, the other waist gunner, had his ammunition tank blown up. The flash blinded him temporarily. The wireless operator (William Briddon) got a hole through his battle-dress, which wrecked his transmitter. The pilot had a heel of his boot shot off. The bottom got shot off the navigators’ compartment, losing the two nose guns. The navigator, Ernest "Paddy" Paddick, sat sideways and a cannon shell penetrated his hip joint, went through his lower belly and out the other hip joint and lay on the seat beside him without exploding. The mid-upper gunner, Leslie, tried to render first aid but Paddy fought back. The bomb aimer wasn’t able to help because he couldn’t cross the great gap in the floor. They resumed course, but there then appeared to be a fire under the starboard wing. On throttling back, the glow disappeared and they decided that the turbo supercharger had been shot off one of the engines.
They continued home, heading for a long emergency strip at RAF Manston, Kent, as they thought they would have no wheels. The bomb aimer, Frank Hares, navigated them to Manston, with the little remaining navigating equipment. He later received a DFM for his efforts.
It was a pretty ropy landing. They did a few loops as they only had one wheel. The pilot, Harry ‘Benny’ Bennett subsequently received the DFC. Frank Hudson was recommended for a DFC by the gunnery leader Flight Lieutenant Phillips, but so many had been issued that month, that Frank was told he would receive his at the end of his tour. Frank never completed his tour so he never received his DFM. But the Group Captain did congratulate him.’
This incident in which my great uncle saw shrapnel burn a hole through his flight suit and battle dress was saved from burns to his skin by a copy of his New Testament which was in his pocket, which I have to this day.
The crew were sent home on leave for R&R following this incident. My grandma and auntie remember well. They recall him being very different to usual: quiet, secluded, sombre, very out of character. They remember him trying to tell the family of the incident and broke out in sweats right the way through, continuing to do so for the rest of his leave.
He was engaged to be married in May 1945 to Marjorie Bancroft, a WAAF from Bruntingthorpe. One day when she was trying on her wedding dress during my uncle's leave he walked in by mistake and saw her. As we say round here: ‘BAD LUCK to see before the wedding day’ … myth?
His first mission back after R&R was to be his last and his crews … bar for a lucky two.
The final fateful flight of Flying Fortress Mark III HB815 BU-J and ten man crew on 3/4th March 1945 has been well documented and was retold through Alistair McDirmid’s words who volunteered for this op, in the Autumn 2011 edition of this magazine.
The principal purpose of the sortie was to drop quantities of WINDOW radar-jamming tin foil to confuse the enemy radar. The ten man crew consisted of:-
F/O Harry ‘Benny’ Bennett DFC – Pilot
F/Sgt Frank Hares DFM
Sgt Leslie Ernest Billington
F/Sgt Leslie Arnold Hadder
F/Sgt Harry ‘Barney’ Barnfield
Sgt Alistair McDermid
W/O Lindsay Joseph Odgers RAAF
W/O R W ‘Bill’ Church
F/Sgt William Briddon
Sgt Patrick James Healy
It was on this same night the Luftwaffe mounted their long planned operation GISELLA - a large scale intruder attack by long range night fighters directed against the RAF bombers as they were returning to their bases in Britain.
William’s aircraft was coming in to land at Oulton at 00.50 hours when it was hit by fire from a Junkers Ju88G-6 of Luftwaffe unit 10/NJG.3 based at Jever. The German pilot flew beneath this aircraft, recognised it as a B-17 Fortress from its tail shape, and attacked it with upward firing cannons. The B-17 crashed just short of the Drem lights in ‘a large cloud of dust but with no fire.’
The crash was witnessed by William’s Flight Commander, Squadron Leader Bob Davies who was approaching Oulton in another Fortress; it was his damaged aircraft that was given priority to land; Leslie's Fortress had to make another circuit, which led to it being attacked.
Davies's account is taken from Confounding the Reich by Bowman and Cushing.
‘Our return to Oulton in the early hours of 4 March was normal, the individual aircraft switching on their navigation lights some time before we crossed the Norfolk coast. As I approached Oulton I heard Control give P/O Bennett clearance to join the circuit. I called saying I was on three engines and was told to come straight in. A few moments later Bennett, who I think was on longish finals, was told to go around again as I was turning long finals and was cleared to land on runway 45. I saw Bennett climbing away, and above me, to my right. Then I saw a fairly long burst of cannon fire and his No.2 engine and wing caught fire. I lost sight of him still climbing and turning right. At this time I heard the tower say "Bandits! Bandits! Switch off all lights." All airfield lights were extinguished. I had landed by now and was stationary. I switched off my navigation lights, or so I thought. However, my rear gunner said, "There is still a white light shining somewhere above me!" I told him it was impossible as both my flight engineer, F/O Fitzsimmonds and I had checked all switches and they were definitely 'off.' While we started madly to check again all the switches the two of us began to feel very naked and also very panicky as we were expecting to be blown apart at any moment. I finally found the small switch which controlled the white formation light situated at the very top of the vertical stabiliser and switched it off. All ten of us only dared to breathe again when we finally found our blacked out dispersal.
However, the night and the fright were not yet over. As my Hillman pick-up was parked at dispersal, I drove with my flight engineer to the still fiercely burning wreck which must have roughly impacted in a flying position. The fuselage (or what was left of it) had broken off aft of the radio room and also aft of the beam gun position. I could not believe any of the crew had survived, but both waist gunners, Sgt Alastair McDirmid and W/O R. W. Church, had 'walked' from the blazing inferno. They had been taken to sick quarters where I spoke briefly to them.’
This was to be F/S William Briddon’s last trip. His body was brought back to South Wingfield where the funeral was to take place. My Grandma can remember the coffin being pulled through the village draped in a Union Jack with the streets lined with locals. His fiancée, Marjorie Bancroft was devastated. This had been her third engagement of the war, all three had been KIA.
Last March, I visited RAF Oulton. All that was left were deserted tin huts and hangars and sheds. And yet this visit was awesome for me. It really brought home the immense challenge I had set myself to locate the crash site. I managed to track down an eyewitness of the crash. Charles Gay was cycling home from a party at the time and saw the event unfold in front of his eyes. Meeting and speaking with him was very overwhelming. He managed to show me a rough idea of where the crash site might be.
A year later, with an awful lot of hard work behind me in gathering a licence to excavate the site, massive amount of letter writing to National Trust (who owns the land) but finally I got the go ahead to metal detect. BINGO! AMAZING! My great uncle’s crash site was found.
For me, it has been a massive journey with a roller coaster of emotions. I am immensely proud of my great uncle William Briddon. I feel I know him now so well with all the research I have gathered. I found a number of pieces from ‘The Dig’ which I brought home as a reminder of my visit, and more importantly in memory of my great uncle.
Here's to you, William, and others who fell in Bomber Command during WW2. Thank you for what you and your comrades did.
My journey has given inspiration to this, a living Memorial of F/Sergeant William Briddon … see below.
Below I am standing at Oulton Memorial where my great uncle served during the war.
By Dan Foster
Great nephew to William Briddon
This article is from the Spring 2012 issue of Confound and Destroy
