'It looked like a scene out of a nightmare'
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Former RAF pilot Don Mason, who lives in Thurso, has been awarded the British Empire Medal in the New Year's Honours List in recognition of his services to the community in Caithness. He will be 98 next month but still visits schools and other groups to give slideshow presentations about his war experiences. Here we reproduce an interview with Don which was published in the Groat in June 2004 to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Don flew to Normandy twice on D-Day, first dropping paratroops and then a glider with more troops and equipment.
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WHEN the grey dawn broke over Normandy on June 6, 1944, Don Mason had already made the first of his two contributions to the momentous events of D-Day. The young airman was part of the six-man crew of a modified Stirling bomber that had dropped 22 paratroops and their equipment at Ranville under cover of darkness. Heading for home, the Stirling came under fire from anti-aircraft guns on the French coast but returned unscathed to its base at Fairford in Gloucestershire. In the early evening the same crew were back over Normandy, this time towing a glider with more troops destined for the original dropping zone – and by this stage, almost 12 hours after the start of the Allies' seaborne invasion, the full enormity of Operation Overlord was clear to see. "It looked like a scene out of a nightmare," Don now recalls.
Don had been fascinated with aeroplanes since his childhood in Worcestershire. As a young boy he once walked four miles with his family to see a travelling circus which featured a plane of Great War vintage; Don could only gaze in wonderment as the flying machine entertained the crowds, and he resolved that one day he would fly an aircraft of his own. It was an ambition that would be fulfilled with the onset of World War Two.
Although just 23 at the time of D-Day, Don had already clocked up numerous operations as a bomber pilot. He had been severely injured in a fighter attack over Germany in 1941 and was declared medically unfit. After being reinstated on appeal, he was retrained as a radio observer.
"We had been in No. 3 Group Bomber Command," says Don, who moved to Thurso in the 1980s but whose Caithness connection goes back to 1940 when he flew Blenheims out of Wick. "The whole squadron were suddenly lifted out of Bomber Command and put into 38 Group, airborne support, which was a completely new role because we'd never worked with paratroops or the like before."
He was now in 620 Squadron, flying a modified version of the Stirling four-engined heavy bomber: the Mk IV troop-carrier and glider tug. "We had to do a lot of exercises to get used to that aeroplane and to get used to dropping troops and towing gliders, which obviously was a different ball game altogether... it required a lot of different techniques.
"And it was necessary with any airborne group to drop them accurately in as tight a bunch as possible – therefore you'd got to operate at a low height and also not get them scattered, so timing was important.
"There developed a formation flying technique which was called starboard echelon, so you've got two lines of aircraft flying parallel to one another. We had to practise these on group exercises, and a number of things happened: tow ropes broke, gliders went down in different places.
"On one group exercise we were flying along in this starboard echelon formation and there were literally hundreds of us – it wasn't just my squadron, it was a number of different squadrons – and suddenly an aircraft in the port line veered straight across into an aircraft in the starboard line and they both went down in flames. We lost two aircraft and two crews, just like that, on an exercise. Those are the things that stick in the mind."
That tragic accident occurred on May 19, 1944, in one of the last group exercises before D-Day. It was becoming clear that a big operation was imminent, one that would have major repercussions for the course of the war.
"Obviously we knew something was happening," Don says, "because we were practising with troops and gliders and whatever. But we weren't aware, of course, until the 4th of June when we were briefed originally."
The invasion was scheduled initially for June 5 but was postponed for 24 hours because of the weather. "Before that we had the indications of the airfield being closed off and we weren't allowed to leave – we were shut in, the mail was censored."
Paratroops of the 6th Airborne Division had been arriving at Fairford from the middle of May, and glider pilots were gathering there too as the security arrangements became ever tighter. The troops camped out on the airfield and Don remembers: "One thing that struck me was that most of them were not very big men but the amount of equipment they carried was phenomenal, with kitbags full of gear strapped to their legs. The other thing that struck me as quite remarkable was they were all carrying water bottles full of white rum!"
Stirling LJ 865 took off from Fairford at 23.40 hours on June 5 in what was code-named Operation Tonga, with Don as wireless operator/air gunner. On board were 22 fully equipped paratroops and the BBC correspondent Guy Byam.
Don's chief recollection of that night flight over the English Channel is the sight of vast numbers of landing craft and other vessels in the assembly area – which was known as "Piccadilly Circus" – as they awaited the signal to head for the beaches.
"We were briefed to drop precisely at a time and place," he explains. "It was important to get the troops on the ground in a bunch, not scattered. We were only over mid-Channel so we did an orbit – that was a bit dicey with so many aircraft about, all flying in one direction, and us crossing the stream. It all went to build up the tension."
Finally, at 01.10 hours, the troops were released at Ranville, where they were to set up a homing beacon to aid following aircraft and also to assist in holding bridges over the nearby river Orne after the seaborne invasion had begun. Don remembers the red light in the fuselage turning to green on reaching the dropping zone. "They all had to go together. Naturally some hesitated on the lip of the door – but they had all got to go."
(The intrepid Byam, who accompanied the troops that night, was subsequently killed while on a mission to Berlin with an American Flying Fortress crew.)
In the lead-up to the drop, there had been a close encounter between the Stirling and a group of paratroops released by a nearby Dakota. "He released his troops and they came past us and we flew right through and didn't touch one," says Don.
"There was no flak at all over Normandy but then we had to fly in a northerly direction towards the Pas de Calais after dropping our troops, which was a feint because the Germans expected us to attack the Pas de Calais rather than anywhere else. So we flew on a northerly track and we experienced flak around Le Havre and Dieppe, and then when we exited France towards Beachy Head we got some light flak on the coast, but there wasn't a great deal of resistance."
It was a different matter altogether when Don and his crew-mates embarked on their second operation of D-Day, code-named Mallard.
This time their Stirling had a Horsa glider in tow, containing more troops bound for the Ranville area along with an armoured jeep, four anti-tank guns and ammunition. Take-off time was 17.35 hours and the glider was to be released at 18.15.
Don remembers the scene vividly: "The Channel was still littered with shipping but when we approached the Normandy coast it was a chaotic mass of ships and landing craft and smoke and explosions. It looked like a scene out of a nightmare, really. And, of course, as we went over land and approached the landing zone there was a lot more activity and a lot more flak.
"You couldn't tow a glider above 135 knots so it was fairly slow. You were low because you didn't want the glider to be shot down before it could get down to land. So obviously a big aircraft like the Stirling, with a 100ft wingspan or thereabouts, and a Horsa glider behind it, was a good target. In fact, all 16 of our aircraft were hit by anti-aircraft fire."
Indeed one of those planes was shot down and crash-landed into the beachhead. The airmen were uninjured and got away for a while before being picked up by a German patrol.
Subsequently the German position where they were held prisoner was captured and the crew returned to base.
Reflecting on the chaos and confusion of D-Day, does Don recall feeling scared by what was happening around him? "Well, everybody's scared – I don't care what anyone says," he replies. "If you're not scared you don't perform, but it's discipline and training that takes you through. You do reach a point of no return.
"This is rude, I know, but it's what I call s**t or bust. You go on and do it. It's a matter of accepting what's going on and just dealing with it, and doing the job you're supposed to do.
"It's not a question of bravery. I'm very suspicious when people say, 'Oh, you're a brave man,' or 'You've got a lot of courage.' You react to circumstances. It's a question of training and discipline and doing your job, without really recognising the probability of being killed.
"And I think to some extent the uniform protects you – you feel less vulnerable when you've got a uniform on and you're acting in that capacity. Everything happens very quickly.
"So I'm very suspicious about 'bravery'. I think we react more instinctively based on our training and our own individuality. I don't think I could have coped with being an infantryman, for instance. I don't know how those chaps did it, because it must have been hell on earth for them."
Don can look back on hundreds of hours of operational flying in a distinguished RAF career that included missions for the Special Operations Executive. And yet, despite the passage of years, he has never forgotten the thrill of his first tantalising taste of aviation.
"I fell in love with aeroplanes when I was a kid when Alan Cobham's Flying Circus came to visit our town with an old World War One aeroplane, and it was fascinating," Don says. "He had a couple of old SE5s [fighter aircraft] and you could have a flip round the field for 10 shillings – but of course 10 shillings was half a man's wage, so we just stood there with our mouths open.
"But the smell of hot engine oil, castor oil and fumes and what-not got into you. I was determined to try to get into it in some way, and of course that's what I did."
He grew up in Kingswinford, Worcestershire, where his father ran a transport yard. Don trained as a motor mechanic after leaving school at the age of 13 and went on to qualify as a motor vehicle technician in the summer of 1939. He was called up when war broke out in September of that year, having joined the volunteer reserve two years previously.
After pilot training he enjoyed rapid promotion in Bomber Command and was an acting squadron leader when, returning from a mission near Hanover in May 1941, his aircraft was attacked from below by an unseen German fighter plane. The bomb aimer, navigator, flight engineer and wireless operator were all killed but Don survived along with his mid-upper and rear gunner. Somehow he managed to return his crippled Stirling to an emergency landing field on the east coast of England despite suffering severe spinal injuries, damage to his left eye, lacerations around his head and a hole in his knee. He still bears the scars.
Don spent eight months in hospital and was discharged as medically unfit. However, he refused to accept that his flying career was over and lodged an objection with the air ministry. Eventually his appeal was successful and he was reinstated, being retrained in the new discipline of radio observer.
Operations in the aftermath of D-Day included Market Garden in September 1944 – "I went to Arnhem five times during that debacle," says Don – and he continued in Stirlings until '46.
He and his first wife Lillian were married in 1942 and they had three children: daughter Elaine, now living in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and sons Peter and Robert, who are both ex-Navy. Peter is in Denmark while Robert has a management post at Dounreay.
Don returned to the motor trade after the war and became general service manager with a large garage group. He then spent more than 20 years working in further education, including a spell as head of the engineering department at a college of technology in Salisbury.
Lillian died in 1984 after many years of ill-health and in 1988 Don moved to Thurso, coming out of retirement to work for eight years with local firm Ashley Ann. In 1990 he was married for a second time, to Lybster-born Isabel, whose three daughters became part of the family. Isabel died in 1998.
Don still keeps in touch with three of his former crew-mates from those D-Day operations: Jim Wayman, the rear gunner, who lives in Dorset; Eric Winter, flight engineer, in Coventry; and Sid Harrison, the mid-upper gunner, who lives in Crewe. However, there was a particularly close and enduring bond between Don and his pilot, New Zealander Frank Cox.
"Although our families were half a world apart, they sort of grew up together – he came over [to this country] and I went to New Zealand," says Don. "In 1996 his daughter rang me from New Zealand and said Frank was dying of bowel cancer – he knew he was terminally ill and he hadn't got long to live. They had asked him if there was anything he really wanted, and he'd said, 'I'd love to see my old mate again.' So I went to New Zealand and I was with him when he died.
"Now you can't explain relationships like that – they exist because of the worth of each one of you to the other in action. It's what they call camaraderie. I'm still in touch with his family."
As his thoughts return to the events of 1944 on the Normandy beaches, Don agrees that D-Day was a turning point – "there's no doubt about that". But he adds: "I regret to say I don't think we've learned any lessons. I don't think we should be doing what we're doing now [in Iraq].
"As I look back I think first of all how lucky I was and I feel very sad about the people who gave their lives in that struggle. It's not really appreciated, the sacrifices that were made both on the home front and in action. It's a sad reflection on society, I feel.
"We ought to be very thankful that we're free, because that's what it was about. We should remember that this country wouldn't be free if it had been overrun by Nazi Germany.
"It was all for a cause. People may say, 'Oh, that's patriotic nonsense.' But it isn't."
* This is a slightly edited version of an interview first published in the John O'Groat Journal of June 4, 2004.
