It was the Second World War cause célèbre and still provokes heated debate today. MATT CLARK meets an airman from York who flew on the infamous Dresden raid of 1945.

SEVENTY years ago Allied bombs rained down on Germany's seventh largest city. During the resulting firestorm some 25,000 people were killed and controversy surrounding the mission's ethics has raged ever since.

Critics say it was too heavy handed for an operation carried out during the final months of the Second World War. But John Beisly, who spent the night of February 13/14, 1945 in a Lancaster Bomber over Dresden sees things differently.

"People say it was getting near the end of the war, but at that time nobody knew when it would end," he says. "V1 bombs were landing on London for a start, then there was the Battle of the Bulge.

"After D-Day everyone thought this is going well, then all of a sudden it didn't go well and thousands of troops were lost. They dropped 35,000 men at Arnhem, that didn't work either.

"You can never say when a war is going to end, but people like to think about such things afterwards and write letters."

Mr Beisly insists Dresden was a legitimate military target and like most frontline towns was involved in manufacturing munitions.

An official 1942 guide described the city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich", while in 1944 the German Army High Command's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops which supplied the army.

Dresden was also an important rail base for sending troops to fight the Red Army on the Eastern front and, according to the RAF at the time, it had the largest remaining un-bombed built-up area.

So it must have been an important target. The more contentious issue is whether incendiary bombs should have been used, bearing in mind the terrible consequences.

"In all-out war everything is terrible," says Mr Beisly. "You can't avoid casualties, but people don't know what it's like to live that way any more."

There is another argument that says any resource could and should have been used to shorten the war, in order to save thousands of innocent lives. Indeed if it had gone on for another year, how many millions more would have been slaughtered in the concentration camps?

Perhaps the Dresden raids should be seen as an object lesson in the tragedy of war, not to be condemned by hindsight, but a reminder of the lengths countries will go to in their efforts to end an awful conflict.

"It was a really awful conflict," says Mr Beisly. "My squadron only started operations in January 1944 and finished in March 1945. Over that time 30 aircraft were lost, 250 men were killed, 52 are still missing."

And that's just one squadron in one year.

Dresden was among 15 day and 16 night missions Mr Beisly flew as an English flight engineer with 433 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force, based at Skipton-on-Swale, near Thirsk.

York Press:
John’s log book with an entry for the Dresden Raids of 1945

He was lucky to get that far. During training, a Halifax bomber crashed yards in front of him; his Lancaster regularly limped home shot up, on three engines, or both; and Mr Beisly narrowly escaped with his life when a piece of shrapnel shot through the windscreen before whistling past his ear.

But the night he really should have been killed was on a raid against Bochum.

"Over the target, as the bomb aimer said bombs away, we turned for home and almost immediately there was a loud bang," says Mr Beisly. "A large hole appeared in the fuselage next to where I was standing, there were blue sparks flying about and everything went dead. No intercom, no instruments. nothing."

All the electric cables running along the starboard side of the plane had been destroyed, including those feeding the instruments Mr Beisly relied on to monitor the engines. He was left with no choice but to calculate fuel consumption, using dead reckoning and a small circular slide rule.

If that weren't bad enough, it was another of those nights to limp home on three engines – and this time fuel would have to be balanced by instinct, not with the help of instruments.

"I had to sit half way down the plane next to the levers controlling the source of supply," says Mr Beisly. "When an engine 'coughed' I had to quickly switch to another tank."

Somehow the aircraft made it back to England, but the skipper decided not to push his luck any further and elected to land at the earliest opportunity.

So the crew headed for a 'crash' aerodrome in Suffolk and made a direct approach intending to flash the navigation lights with the Morse code for 'F' Freddie, the aircraft's identifying letter.

"This was not to be. There were no wing lights either, so it was necessary for me to to fire the Very [flare] Pistol with the colours of the day," says Mr Beisly.

"It was replied to by a welcome green light [giving permission to touch down] and we flew straight in with a fire engine and ambulance on the runway behind us."

It wasn't just the enemy that caused hazards for Mr Beisly's crew. One day the flare pistol didn't save the men's aircraft, but almost shot it down.

York Press:
John Beisly, second left, and his 433 (RCAF) crew

One of the flight engineer's jobs was to load the gun with the colours of the day, which signalled friendly forces. As soon as the aircraft had taken off and was on course, it was the practice to install the pistol in its operating position in the roof with barrel pointing through an aperture – in case of radio failure.

"On this particular day I removed the Very Pistol from its holster and it immediately fired a shell straight down the front of the aircraft, setting fire to the blackout curtains enclosing the navigators position," says Mr Beisly.

The man tried to beat out the flames with his hands, at the same time beating a retreat to the rear of the aircraft, closely followed by the bomb aimer, who had been setting up his instruments.

"The interior of the aircraft was engulfed in thick white smoke. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and went towards the flames. For a few minutes the skipper was effectively flying in the dark."

When the fire was out windows were opened and after ten minutes the smoke dispersed.

"A request was made for a return to base which the crew executed safely," says Mr Beisly. "A subsequent enquiry established that the pistol had not been unloaded after the previous trip. This was confirmed by the shell being the colours of a previous day."

All of Mr Beisly's operational flying took place after the Normandy landings. A fluid situation, he calls it, because the channel ports had been left behind by the invading forces. This allowed German troops a chance to wreak havoc in surprise attacks.

"Most of our first missions were to bomb those port towns during daylight," he says. "Often we were recalled, probably because of intelligence reports that our troops were in the vicinity."

It was an uncertain time, so much so that Mr Beisly and his crew flew with passport-style photos stashed in their survival kit which resistance fighters could paste in a fake ID card if they were shot down.

"I remember it well," he says. "We had our photo taken in this sports jacket and afterwards it was passed to the next man. So we all appear wearing the same coat. That must have looked a bit odd."

It's exactly 70 years since Mr Beisly flew his final mission, but having flown in Halifax as well as Lancaster Bombers, he has been back in the cockpit more recently as one of the few entitled to go aboard the Yorkshire Air Museum's Halifax, Friday 13th.

"That was a strange feeling," he says. "I thought to myself I didn't have a lot of room did I? I was just 19 when the war finished and it seems surreal to think I really went through all that."