A Boy called Egg, chapter one
It happened almost everyday and in all weathers. Of all the games they played, this was the best and the most exciting. The squadron queued ready for takeoff, their full-throated roars growing ever louder. One-by-one the brakes were released and the Lancs thundered down the tarmac, arms outstretched, flashing past the swings, over the hopscotch court and scattering squealing children in all directions.
Aged nearly 5, Ian Weldon had become an ‘officer’ and a leader amongst his peer group. He had his own squadron of Lancasters at Monksdown Primary School, Norris Green, Liverpool.
Ian was affectionately dubbed “Egg”
by his parents. He was a much-loved-only son who worshipped his father, Pilot Officer Faber Weldon.
Like all children of serving officers in RAF Bomber Command, especially in Liverpool in 1943, young Ian was accorded an unspoken respect at his school, both amongst his friends and within his neighbourhood.
Most people had experienced the city taking a hammering at the hands of the Luftwaffe between April 1940 and January 1942. Pilot Officer Faber Weldon, 57 Squadron RAF was personally repaying Nazi Germany for what they had been doing to his city.
Ian’s father was a Navigator in 57 Squadron, flying in Lancasters out of RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, a station they briefly shared with 617 Squadron, which was preparing and training for
Operation Chastise. He would have seen the top-secret comings and goings of Lancasters with their Mid-Upper turrets removed and unusual modifications under the fuselage.
One of the last streets to be hit by the Germans during the Liverpool Blitz took place on 10th January 1942, when the house of Alois Hitler Jr. in Upper Stanhope Street, Liverpool 8, was destroyed. Alois was the half-brother of Adolf Hitler. His house was a mere 3 miles from number 4 Forest Lawn, West Derby, Liverpool 12, home to Faber Ernest Frederick Weldon and his wife Bertha, originally from Brittas Bridge, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Alois Hitler had also met and married an Irish woman, Bridget Dowling, and settled in Liverpool, but there the coincidences ended.
Bertha and Faber had married in 1938. He was a former policeman, and it was whilst Bertha was expecting their longed-for child that their baby was simply referred to as “Egg”.
Faber Weldon, aged 31 in 1943, was a giant of a man standing at over 6’ 3”. He may at one time have been the tallest policeman in Liverpool and was even more imposing as he stood atop his podium directing traffic at a busy Liverpool crossroads.
He was the sort who would never have been able to squeeze with ease through an escape tunnel from a German prison camp, or pass himself off in disguise, if he ever got out.
Working at his station in the Lancaster meant he sat close to his friend, 22-year-old Radio Operator, Sergeant Alan Haddow. It’s possible that this photograph, taken in the back garden of Faber’s house at 4 Forest Lawn, West Derby, Liverpool shows Alan, a single man, a Scot from Glasgow and son to Margaret C.L. Haddow of Thornliebank, Renfrewshire.
Just one parent listed in the Runnymede Memorial next of kin records for Alan suggests that his mother Margaret may have been a widow. Perhaps the giant, much older Faber had become a father figure to Alan.
The following photographs, all taken on the same roll of film, show a smiling family visit with Faber, Bertha, and Egg, here bursting with pride, happiness and excitement.
I am especially grateful to Air Commodore Wendy Rothery, Information Officer for the 57 Squadron Association whose grandfather was also a navigator on Lancs in 57 Squadron. Wendy has kindly provided certain details in the following narrative about the last few moments of Faber Weldon and his crew flying the Lancaster Mk I, W.4252, call sign X-Ray on the night of 4/5th April 1943.
X-Ray was one of 15 Lancasters from 57 Squadron, which took off at 21.07 from Scampton to attack the German port of Kiel on that spring night in 1943.
The 4th April saw RAF Bomber Command dispatching a force of 577 aircraft comprising 203 Lancasters, 116 Halifaxes, 90 Stirlings and 168 Wellingtons. Twelve aircraft, representing 2.08 % of the total force failed to return from the raid, the losses comprising 5 Lancasters, 4 Halifaxes, 2 Stirlings, and 1 Wellington, that’s 83 men killed, injured or taken POW.
Some fell to night fighters, some to ground or ship-based flak. As the 57 Squadron Operations Record Book report states, the weather was poor and there was 10/10ths cloud cover rendering the target completely obscured. The bombing effort had to be done by ETA and fire glow seen through cloud.
Even the Pathfinders arriving shortly before the main force ran into thick cloud and strong winds over the target. Decoy fires set by the Germans were also reported, all of which added to the accuracy problems. As the 57 Squadron ORB bluntly states, “it was a thoroughly disappointing raid”.
At some point during the Operation and shortly after midnight,
X-Ray was hit and suffered damage after releasing the payload of one 4,000 Ib bomb and 96 high capacity 30 Ib incendiaries.
We can only speculate about what happened. Was it shrapnel from Anti-Aircraft fire, or had
X-Ray flown into the grid square of a Luftwaffe Wilde Sau
(Wild Boar) night fighter, which then pounced on its prey silhouetted against the backlit clouds below?
We do know that Radio Operator Alan Haddow sent four signals on the return journey to Scampton, the second, at 00.40 reported that the Bomb Aimer, 20-year-old Sergeant Benjamin Spicer had been wounded and one port engine was out.
For the next hour, the Pilot, Squadron Leader Stanley Wallage would have been working through the rapidly diminishing options with his Pilot Engineer, Sergeant George Harbottle.
There were major problems with
X-Ray, far more serious than merely one Merlin engine out. Both men were aged 25, both were married, and both were running out of time and altitude.
At 01.43, Alan Haddow signaled Scampton they were preparing to ditch. His friend Faber would have passed him the slip of paper on which was written their position - 50°, 20’ North, 04° 25’ East.
The crew would have been preparing for the violent event that was about to happen. Tail Gunner Sergeant Alan Wood would have made his way forward from his position, together with the Mid-Upper Gunner Sergeant Albert Evans; a 34-year-old married man from Stockport, Cheshire.
They would have been joined by Bomb Aimer Benjamin Spicer, his injuries permitting.
Perhaps Sergeant Spicer had already been extracted from his position in the nose and was receiving treatment on the Rest Bed located behind the Radio Operator? He would certainly no longer be lying prone in the nose for a ditching at sea.
Alan Haddow would have grabbed his carrier pigeon, almost certainly named by Alan and which was still standard issue in RAF Bomber Command at that time. He would have placed the tiny message in the bird’s leg canister with the last position of
X-Ray.
The crew would have adopted the bracing position, bunched up tightly together on the fuselage floor as if in a canoe. The man behind gripped and supported the neck of the man in front. Even if Stan Wallage could get
X-Ray down perfectly, the impact with the cold North Sea would be at a neck-snapping, spine-crushing minimum speed of 100 mph.
The strong winds would have made a crucial difference to the outcome of Squadron Leader Wallage’s attempt to ditch the aircraft. The sea state - the height of the waves, would have been much increased. Although winds at the surface are always lighter than at altitude – typically 30% less than at 2,000 feet – they would still have been strong enough to whip up the waves. At this speed, they might as well have been a walls of solid concrete.
All Pilots and crews trained in ditching drill, but their only real experience would have been acquired the first time they did it for real. Ditching at night multiplied the risks exponentially.
X-Rays’ landing lights under the port wing would have illuminated the hostile white caps of the dark green waves flashing past below.
Ditching along the swell at the lowest speed and rate of descent, with reduced power, and with handling difficulties, made a tough task well-nigh impossible.
Alan Haddow sent a final signal at 01:48; impact would have been minutes later.
Alan, Faber and Flight Engineer George Harbottle would have been the last of the crew to assume their brace positions. In one last act, Harbottle would have tightened the seat harness of the Pilot Stanley Wallage on whom their lives now depended.
Their ditching location was 5420N, 0425E, which put them about 172 miles from the Lincolnshire coast and 69 miles north of the coast of enemy occupied Holland. Air Sea Rescue would calculate wind drift and currents as their position would change markedly in the hours ahead.
Nothing more was heard from
X-Ray.
Bomber Command’s superbly resourced and well-led Flying Control Organization managed Air Sea Rescue for all allied aircraft. They would have been placed on alert, immediately swinging into action and were probably already airborne as the ditching signal for
X-Ray
was sent. The FCO was one of the outstanding visionary achievements of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, and was responsible for rescuing thousands of allied airmen and guiding lost aircraft to safety during WWII. If the
X-Ray life raft could be found, ASR would find it.
X-Ray’s carrier pigeon would have been released had they made it into the life raft, but it never did arrive back at the Scampton pigeon loft. As Air Commodore Wendy Rothery states -
“the impact was clearly beyond human tolerance”.
Air Sea Rescue flew 35 sorties in relays throughout the night and the approaching dawn in the search for
X-Ray. No trace was ever found of the crew or the Lancaster W.4252. By April 1943,
X-Ray had racked up 248 flying hours having been manufactured by A.V. Roe & Co. Ltd, in December 1942.
The absence of any bodies or wreckage, either found floating, or washed up on beaches in the following months suggests that the seven men went down together, holding each other, inside their Lancaster
X-Ray.
The neighbours saw the Post Office messenger bicycle ride up to number 4 Forest Lawn in West Derby, Liverpool 8. Faber’s wife Bertha came to the door. Trembling, she wiped her hands on her apron and signed for the envelope. She was already descending into shock. The telegram boy briskly mounted his bike and peddled quickly away.
In the days that followed, Bertha received the letter that had been lying in the desk of Faber’s Squadron C/O ever since he started on Ops. Six other final letters with similar sentiments were also winging their dreaded way to the addresses of families throughout the country.
Faber’s final letter to his wife –
a love letter, has never been published before. It’s reproduced here in full, transcribed from his original handwriting.
My darling wife
Would the ill fated day ever arise that you should get this letter, remember to look upon the parting that it conveys in the same light that we have both agreed is the only sensible decision – that I have had my lease of life and unfortunately it was not destined to be the traditional three score years and ten.
I will always remain with you – spiritually, and watch over you both, and if the day comes that you feel you see me in some other personality, through some slight peculiarity which you have seen in me, remember that there is more in the spiritual self than the average human being yet realises. It may be that it provides a means to reliving on this earth the paradise that we have known for this brief five years of bliss that we have been married.
Fate may even have decreed that Ian was a boy, born when he was, for the particular reason of looking after you and taking my place dear, which he can do partly.
Can’t you see now why he was not a girl dear, although we both so much wanted a daughter. Could a daughter’s company replace my absence as well as Ian can dear?
I am sure that in time he will be as big a credit and pleasure to you as you have been to me love. By what little consolation it is, I can say that I have died not only happy but satisfied.
Throughout my life I have, as you know, worked hard at different jobs and never achieved the goal that I am sure that I deserved.
In each case it has just been denied me, although I am sure that I deserved it, having through sheer hard work got my brevet I can honestly say that I have never in my life felt that I have been so much doing a 100% job of work, which is taking my whole effort.
Or which after all is a job which only a small percentage of men could do, so I feel that my every effort is justified and being made the most possible use of, especially at a time of such grave emergency when I feel it an honour to live and die amongst those who are acknowledged to be the pick of the country.
By making the same grade as them I feel that I have achieved something higher than I ever hoped to do. Should I get posted as missing do not give up hope until you get definite news that I am dead. Should this occur I don’t think you will have any difficulty in getting rid of the house for £900, but insist on the buyer paying the legal fees and conveyance, which, when the Leek and Moorland is settled, should give you a clear £450. £300 from the Police Assurance Co. £110 from the Police Benevolent fund and £30 from the funeral society. With this £890 you will have any money you have saved.
Unless you decide to stay in a town teaching it would be best of you to go and live in the country. Invest the money in two small houses, live in one and rent the other, the rent together with the government allowances would comfortably keep you both.
The investing in a small business is of course entirely a matter for you to decide. Egg will by that time be big enough to help you in any undertaking you may decide on.
Sell the bike for £8 - £10 and the tandem for £20 when fitted up with the parts off it that are in the hut.
John will buy any clothes of mine. These three things will collectively pay for any removal expenses incurred.
Egg’s education will be attended to by the government who will provide it.
I must say that thank God with all my heart for giving me five years with the finest wife, mother and son that it possible to have, and the fact of marrying you and having Egg I regard as the two finest and most creditable things I ever did.
God bless and look after you both dearest. Remember I will always be with you and looking after you both somehow.
Ever your loving husband
Fabe XXXXXXXX
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