Five Brothers and a War

Operation Manna/Chowhound

type program as we had heard that people in Holland were in some extreme cases surviving on tulip bulbs, tree bark or anything with a little nutrition in it. We checked the big gunny sacks being loaded into our bomb bays in Lancaster M2 [the plane number] in which we did two drops. May 2 we went again to drop food at Rotterdam on another very fine sunny morning. I only recently got a copy through another buddy crew member that flew this mission and to my great surprise, my crew were first over the drop site according to the squadron records. We had flown out over the North Sea fairly low by our usual instructions and had dropped down to be at around 500 feet over the city as we lined up and opened the bomb doors. I was on the port side of our leader, Squadron Leader Fry, and as we turned left on the run into the drop zone I gained a little on Mr. Fry and according to the record did do my "bombing" first. Our claim to fame! But truly, it was the 'Best raid of the War‘ we all agreed."

“Four days previous to this my crew had taken part in a daylight raid to the famous "Eagles Nest"--Hitler's Bavarian retreat in Berchtesgaden with many other bombers from many squadrons operating out of Britain. I believe that this actually was the last real raid of the war and we encountered a token resistance from anti-aircraft batteries in the run up to the mountain target from the valleys below. So we were a little nervous going into the Dutch city of "The Hague" knowing that there was always the possibility that some dyed-in-the-wool Nasty down below hadn't heard about the truce”

the war

Joe Englsih (center) and his crew.

Five Brothers and a War

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