Surviving WWII veterans tell stories of RAF’s elite Pathfinder unit

When the order was given to bail out of his Lancaster bomber after it had taken a catastrophic hit from a German fighter, Dick Raymond did ‘everything wrong’ but still ‘got away with it’.

The then 20-year-old was part of a crew who were downed over Germany during a bombing raid on Brunswick in 1944 during the Second World War. 

He went on to be taken as a prisoner of war and survived a ‘death march’ westwards in horrific wintry conditions amid Germany’s defeat the following year.

Now 98, Mr Raymond is among four veterans from the RAF’s elite Pathfinders who have been newly-photographed and also recounted their tales of survival and tragedy to mark the 80th anniversary of the formation of the unit. 

The secret unit of 20,000 teenagers and men in their early twenties transformed the RAF’s Bomber Command from the brink of extinction from August 1942.

It became a weapon capable of razing whole cities to the ground in a single night, or hitting targets just a few hundred feet wide by using flares that guided bombers with terrifying accuracy. 

In March 1945, Colin Bell, now 101, narrowly cheated death when the Mosquito fighter plane he was flying was targeted by a jet-powered Messerschmitt Me 262. 

Amid the threat of being turned to ‘confetti’ by the bullets of his pursuer, the pilot plummeted more than 10,000 feet and flew at more than 400mph just feet above the ground to shake off his more powerful adversary. 

Gwen Thomas, who is now 96, was in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and worked in the signals office at the Pathfinders’ base in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. 

She suffered the agony of never being able to say goodbye to her fighter pilot boyfriend before he was killed in 1943. 

John Ottewell, 97, witnessed the infamous bombing of the German city of Dresden in his role as a navigator of a Lancaster that took part in the British raid in 1945. 

The stories of the veterans – who are among an estimated 20 men and women from the Pathfinders who are still alive – are also told in historian Will Iredale’s book The Pathfinders, which was published last year. 

Dick Raymond, 98 – dived out of his crashing Lancaster bomber before being captured and sent to PoW camp

Nearing midnight on Monday, 22 May 1944, Dick Raymond, a 20-year-old flight engineer, was busy throwing out strips of metasllic paper called window — which helped confuse the enemy radar — from the bomb bay of his Lancaster bomber on an operation to Brunswick, in Germany, when an almighty bang shook the aircraft. 

The plane had been targeted by a German night fighter and Mr Raymond’s pilot gave the order to bail out. 

Mr Raymond reached for his parachute and clipped it on, before opening the escape hatch. ‘I did everything wrong,’ he recalled. 

‘I didn’t disconnect my intercom, I didn’t disconnect my oxygen, according to the books I should have been throttled but I wasn’t. I got away with it.’ 

Just as he jumped, the plane blew up. ‘I could feel the bang as it exploded’. ‘People say to me ‘Cor weren’t you brave?’ Brave? 

When the order was given to bail out of his Lancaster bomber after it had taken a catastrophic hit from a German fighter, Dick Raymond did ‘everything wrong’ but still ‘got away with it’. The then 20-year-old was part of a crew who were downed over Germany during a bombing raid on Brunswick in 1944 during the Second World War. He went on to be taken as a prisoner of war and survived a notorious ‘death march’ westwards in horrific wintry conditions amid Germany’s defeat the following year. Above: Mr Raymond pictured recently aged 98 (left); and in 1943 

Getting into the swing of things. The celebrations outside the officers’ mess at RAF Wyton — a Pathfinder air station — for VE Day, on May 8th 1945, in front of effigies of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito

‘What do you mean brave? I would have been bloody stupid to stay there and cook wouldn’t I? You don’t hesitate.’ 

Mr Raymond pulled the cord on his chute and savoured the ‘superb tranquillity’ over the noise of the aircraft.

A short time later, he landed in a field in the Netherlands, which were occupied by German forces. He was just 20 years old, alone and afraid. 

Mr Raymond was picked up by some local farmers, who took him to their house and offered him some food. 

But after a few days they had no choice but to hand him to the Germans, who knew he had been shot down. 

He was sent to a prisoner of war (PoW) camp in Poland. 

In January 1945, with the Russians advancing from the east, Mr Raymond was one of around 80,000 Allied PoWs in camps across Germany and Poland who were forced to march westward by the Nazis in brutal winter weather wearing ill-fitting and unsuitable clothing. 

When bread rations ran out, men survived on sugar beet and potatoes, which froze even after being stuffed in pockets. 

‘Horses were dropping through sheer fatigue but they provided the next meal,’ he said.

‘The only reason I survived was because I was young,’ Mr Raymond said. 

When they arrived at another PoW camp thirty miles south of Berlin, a small party of men including Mr Raymond decided to make a break for it under the cover of darkness and met up with advancing Americans. 

He was flown home via Brussels and now lives in Devon. 

Pathfinder airmen and WAAFs let their hair down in the officers’ mess at RAF Wyton — a Pathfinder air station

Gwen Thomas, 96 – Never said goodbye to her RAF Lancaster pilot boyfriend, hours before he was killed

Gwen Thomas was an young member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force working in the signals office at in Huntington, Cambridgeshire, where the Pathfinders were based.  

In late 1943 she fell in love with Bruce Smeaton, a handsome 23-year-old Lancaster pilot from Warrington who was based at a nearby Pathfinder air station. 

When she wasn’t with Bruce, Ms Thomas would call him every day at 11:30am before the airfield was locked down with no outside communication if he was flying on operations that night. 

One night after she finished duty in Huntington, she asked a friend to wake her the following morning so she could call Bruce and tell him she loved him. 

But the friend forgot, Ms Thomas didn’t call him in time before the airbase was locked down. ‘I was praying all day he wouldn’t fly,’ Thomas said. 

Gwen Thomas, 96, was an young WAAF working in the signals office at in Huntington, Cambridgeshire, where the Pathfinders were based. She suffered the agony of never being able to say goodbye to her fighter pilot boyfriend before he was killed in 1943. Above: Ms Thomas is seen recently and in 1944

That night, Smeaton took off for Berlin, and Ms Thomas, who had finished her shift at 11pm, went to bed thinking of her boyfriend somewhere over Germany, praying he’d return safely. 

The following morning, she walked into the signals office. ‘I knew by the faces of people that he hadn’t come back. I walked next door and it said ‘failed to return’ on the board.’ 

She was heartbroken. Ms Thomas did not intend to find love again and instead got her head down keeping busy as a Pathfinder signals operator. 

But in July 1944 she met Nick Carter – a Pathfinder navigation instructor – and they fell in love. ‘I still had the loss of Bruce in my heart. 

But gradually Nick and I became very close and I knew that I was in love with him.’ They were soon engaged. 

Ground crew pose in front of a Pathfinder squadron Mosquito. The motto of the Pathfinders was ‘We Guide to Strike’

When the war ended, like many ground crew, Thomas was given an opportunity to hitch a ride in a Lancaster over Germany as part of the so-called Cook’s Tours – named after a travel agency – to see for herself just why thousands of young men like Smeaton had sacrificed their lives. 

‘You were given a bag to be sick and you had to pay half a crown if you used it,’ recalled Thomas. 

‘We knew we had bombed the likes of Cologne, but it was astonishing to see the damage for oneself.’ 

Now aged 97, Ms Thomas — now known as Wendy Carter — lives near Battle in East Sussex. 

Colin Bell, 101 – Flew fifty operations over Nazi Germany and cheated death at the hands of the Luftwaffe

In March 1945, 24-year-old Colin Bell and his navigator Doug Redmond were making their way back to their 608 Squadron base at Downham Market, in Norfolk, following a raid on Berlin. 

All seemed quiet, until – in the gloom of the cockpit – a white light on the instrument panel flicked on brightly.

For Mr Bell, piloting his Mosquito through the inky night sky, this seemingly innocuous little dot spelt big trouble. The Mosquito was equipped with airborne radar detection equipment. 

The light on Mr Bell’s instrument panel meant an enemy fighter was closing in using its own inboard radar equipment to establish visual identification before it attacked.

Mr Bell immediately tipped the Mosquito on its wing and into a power dive, plummeting more than 10,000 feet to try and shake the off the fighter.

‘We had been intercepted before but this attack was the most persistent and dangerous because we couldn’t shake the Germans,’ Mr Bell said. ‘Once he got a visual on me, I was dead’.

Colin Bell, 101, is among four veterans from the RAF’s elite Pathfinders unit that have been photographed to mark the 80th anniversary of its formation. He is seen above this year and in 1942

They were being attacked by the Nazis’ new secret weapon — the Messerschmitt Me 262 – a jet-powered fighter-bomber – which could reach speeds of 500mph. 

The partially-wooden Mosquito, powered with two Merlin Spitfire engines, was one of the fastest planes in the world, but no match for the jet.

‘A single accurate blast from a Me 262 cannon would turn your aircraft into confetti,’ Bell recalled. 

In a last desperate throw of the dice, Mr Bell took his Mosquito down to the deck, flying at speeds of 400mph just a few feet above the trees. 

‘I knew that at ground level jets consume tremendous amounts of aviation fuel. And a Me 262 had only 45 minutes flying time from take-off to landing.’ 

Sure enough, the white light soon vanished for good. Bell’s gamble had worked.

Overall, Mr Bell flew 50 operations over Nazi Germany for the Pathfinders – including 13 over Berlin – in the Mosquito, which was nicknamed the ‘wooden wonder’. 

Now aged 101, the veteran lives in Sidcup, Kent. 

An original colour picture of a De havilland Mosquito of 571 Squadron — a Pathfinder squadron — in flight, in September 1944

After around six to ten successful operations, Pathfinder crew could qualify for a special Pathfinder Force badge and certificate, signed by Don Bennett, the Pathfinder Force commander

John Ottewell, 97 – Young navigator who witnessed infamous bombing of Dresden

On Feburary 13, 1945, John Ottwell, a 20-year-old navigator of a Lancaster bomber, was part of the infamous RAF raid on the German city of Dresden. 

Mr Ottewell’s crew acted as deputy master bombers, which meant they had to be ready to oversee the whole raid should the master bomber plane be shot down. 

Being a legitimate military target, the raid was considered a success. 

Although after the second huge daylight raid from the American Eighth Air Force the following day — with over 4,000 tons of bombs dropped in 24 hours — the resulting firestorm was horrific, and the combined raids killed an estimated 25,000 people on the ground. 

‘As far as we were concerned it was just another raid, nothing special,’ Mr Ottewell said.

He was more worried about ensuring his crew – members of the RAF’s 7 Squadron who were on their twelfth Pathfinder mission – got back to England in one piece. 

In many ways, Mr Ottewell and his fellow crewmates were typical of the new generation of Pathfinders who made up such a large part of the force in the final months of the war. 

On Feburary 13, 1945, John Ottewell (pictured right in 1944), a 20-year-old navigator of a Lancaster bomber, was part of the infamous RAF raid on the German city of Dresden. Mr Ottwell’s crew acted as deputy master bombers, which meant they had to be ready to oversee the whole raid should the master bomber plane be shot down 

John Ottewell (far left) with some of his Pathfinder Lancaster crew from 1944. ‘As far as we were concerned it was just another raid’, he recalled of the attack on Dresden in February 1945

Many of the more experienced airmen had been killed or had left the force, replaced by those who had still been at school when the war broke out and were now still in their teens or early twenties. 

Young men, simply obeying orders. 

On May 7, Germany surrendered and the Pathfinders joined a massive humanitarian effort to repatriate 3000 allied PoWs. 

Mr Ottewell and his crew landed in Brussels to pick up two dozen PWs, who were each given large bars of Cadbury’s chocolate. 

But despite months or years of surviving on little food, some refused to eat it. ‘We said: “Well aren’t you going to eat the chocolate?”‘’ recalled Mr Ottewell. 

‘And they replied: “Oh no, we are taking it back to England because England is starving.” 

‘That was the propaganda pumped into them by the Germans. We had to keep telling them: “The war is over. England isn’t starving,”‘ he added.

The stories of the veterans – who are among an estimated 20 men and women from the Pathfinders who are still alive – are also told in historian Will Iredale’s book The Pathfinders , which was published last year

Who were the Pathfinders? Elite unit that transformed success rate of British raids over Germany by dropping flares on targets for following bombers to aim at

The genesis of The Pathfinders came from desperation.

By using RAF Bomber Command, Winston Churchill had one of the few means to take the fight to Hitler in the heart of Nazi Germany. 

Yet after horrific losses in the first two years of the war, by 1941 he realised obsolete aircraft could not defend themselves when flying to targets over Nazi occupied Europe.

They had been forced to abandon daylight bombing and turn to the concealment of night raids, for which their crews were neither adequately trained nor given the tools they needed to operate effectively.

Flying through the pitch black to find a target hundreds of miles away was hard enough. Adding the foul weather, enemy night fighters and hundreds of anti-aircraft guns to the mix, made the efforts of the brave crews all the more commendable.

‘I foresee a never-ending struggle to circumvent the law that we cannot see in the dark,’ one senior RAF officer observed wearily.

Churchill demanded an investigation into bombing accuracy, to establish once and for all what on earth was going wrong. The result was dynamite, revealing that only one one in five RAF bombers sent on operations to Germany and France got within five miles of their target. On moonless nights, this proportion fell to one in fifteen.

The RAF’s Director of Intelligence warned that ‘powerful forces’ were at work to dismantle Bomber Command. He forecast that unless results improved, there was a ‘very grave risk’…for the disintegration of Bomber Command’.

Ground crew pose in front of a Pathfinder squadron Mosquito. The motto of the Pathfinders was ‘We Guide to Strike’

Something needed to be done. And fast.

The result was the Pathfinder Force, which was created in August 1942. Its motto was: ‘We Guide to Strike’.

An elite force needed an elite leader. Step forward Don Bennett, a no-nonsense 32-year-old Australian, who Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris — Bomber Command’s commanding officer —described as ‘the most efficient airman I have ever met’.

Bennett could be aloof and humourless, yet he was a remarkable pilot and navigator loved by airmen who served under him. One said: ‘If you were not religious you thought Bennett was Jesus Christ. If you were religious, he was the next best thing’.

Bennett set about creating his fledging force, which would fly in Mosquito and Lancaster bombers ahead of the main force of RAF bombers, locating the target before dropping flares so the rest of the ‘bomber stream’ following behind knew where to aim.

The first Pathfinder mission 18 August 1942 was an unmitigated disaster. Thirty-one Pathfinder aircraft led the 100-strong bomber- raid to bomb completely the wrong town in Denmark rather than the intended target a few miles away over the border in Germany. Pathfinder losses for the first month averaged 9.1%. At this rate there would soon be no Pathfinders left.

‘We felt rather like a star footballer, purchased at some enormous transfer fee, who fails to score a goal during his first season,’ said one.

But, over the following months, as the Pathfinders began to find their rhythm, so results began to improve

Central to the Pathfinder’s success was pioneering technology created by a team of British boffins. The most accurate was a device called Oboe, which used radio pulses to help guide aircraft to the target.

However, Oboe only had a range of around 270 miles, so the Pathfinders also used H2S — a sort of airborne radar which scanned the ground allowing the navigator in the aircraft to identify its location.

The Pathfinders were led by Don Bennett, a no-nonsense 32-year-old Australian, who Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris — Bomber Command’s commanding officer —described as ‘the most efficient airman I have ever met’

But there was no point in being able to navigate to the target if you couldn’t then let the rest of the bombers know where it was. 

So Pathfinder aircraft dropped ‘target indicators’ — brightly coloured flares made with the help of the British fireworks industry — which the crews following behind could see and use to bomb.

These were created by a 29-year-old called Wilfred Coxon. With his thick-chunky wool jumpers and tweet sport’s jackets, Coxon — a former girls’ grammar school chemistry teacher — was an unlikely saviour of Bomber Command.

He had no experience with explosives or armaments but his knowledge of flares and pyrotechnics was second to none, and he soon created a whole series of target indicators, which burst in different colours — red, green or yellow — depending on the job required.

Some had explosive charges to hinder attempts by people on the ground to put them out. 

These sorts of markers — called ground markers — were used in clear weather and dropped in salvos of four or six. Others — called sky markers — burst at a pre-determined height and floated down on parachutes if the target was covered by cloud.

Their research, development and production soon triggered a whole separate industry involving some of Britain’s leading fireworks companies, who until just a few years before had been manufacturing Jumping Jacks and Catherine Wheels to delight children.

Now they would be used to help reap death and destruction. A two-year deal with the firm Aladdin industries alone was worth over £600,000 — £28m in today’s money.

After one mission to Hannover on September 27 1943, one young bomb-aimer on just his second sortie scribbled down in his diary how he watched the target indicators spill out from a Pathfinder aircraft:

‘As we came nearer to the target there came an ethereal vision of a heavy attack under cloudless conditions. The searchlights stood around and formed a vast area of light as bright as day…occasionally strings of tracer crawled slowly across the great cone and then suddenly there was something else. Shower after shower of green target indicators fell downwards like loose broken spheres of emerald snow. Now red ones like rubies and yellow ones like gold and then more green.’

Bennett reckoned the target indictor did ‘more than any other single weapon’ to concentrate the weight of the bomber offensive. 

‘Its effort in the attacks on heavily defended areas such as the Ruhr, Hamburg and Berlin has been of incalculable assistance,’ he said after the war.

But most importantly of all — even with all the tech in the world, it was the men in the Pathfinders who needed to be exceptional.

Acknowledging that an elite squadron required special elements to lure the best men, Pathfinder crews were required to complete 45 ops in one go, rather than the usual two tours of 30 sorties with a break in between.

All Pathfinder airmen were automatically promoted one rank and received a pay rise – in other words, danger money.

After around four to ten successful operations, Pathfinders were awarded a special Pathfinder Force badge — a gilded golden eagle — worn on the left-hand breast.

To be a Pathfinder was extraordinarily dangerous. They were first to a target and often last to leave.

The story of the unit is told in historian Will Iredale’s book, The Pathfinders: The Elite RAF Force that Turned the Tide of WWII.