16-18 August 1944
The "Liberator" heavy bomber has the following characteristics:
- Maximum speed up to 350km\h
- Range 12h
- Maximum weight 32t
- Armament 12 heavy machine guns which provide all round fire
- Bombing load 3-4 tons, maximum 5 tons
- Crew - 8 members: 2 pilots, navigator, radio operator, bomber, 3 shooters.
Crew composition of this airplane:
- commander senior pilot Van Eissen
- 2nd pilot - lieutenant Hamilton
- Navigator - senior lieutenant Holliday
- Radio operator - lieutenant Austin
- Bomber - sergeant aviator of British Royal aviation Leechfield
- Shooters - sergeants of British Royal aviation Piston, Mais and Hudson
Of mentioned crew all of the officers are from staff of South African aviation while sergeants are from the British aviation. This is explained by a lack of personnel in the South African aviation which consists solely of volunteers. At the same time there is an excess of personnel in the British aviation. In the latest time the losses among the flight crews appeared to be lower than expected as a result of what considerable human resources are available and recruiting into the British air force was stopped. There are also a lot of materiel reserves and all the units have considerable amounts of backup vehicles, so if an airplane is damaged the crew gets a replacement immediately.
Of the crew, the commander capt. Van Eissen is a South African of Dutch
(Boer) descent.
26 years of age.
Flying for 8 years.
Education: mining engineer, gold mining specialist.
According to claims of all other crew members, Van Eissen is a very experienced, brave and capable pilot who has rescued the lives of the entire crew three times. Flew various aircrafts. Flies on the “Liberator” only recently.
In its current composition the crew is flying for 2 months. They flew 9 combat missions, two of which to South France, others to Ploeshti, Bucharest to objects near Vien, mining Danube and the most recent flight to Warsaw. [...]
In Italy the South African aviation is part of the 15th Air Fleet which has a mixed composition because it has both AMerican and English units. Heavy bombers are based at a powerful airfield center at Fodin region.
In the night from 13 to 14 August some very difficult operations to support
the expected landing missions in South France were expected. However
absolutely unexpectedly Churchill who then was at Neapoles has personally
ordered to take 40-50 liberators and send them to Warsaw. He allegedly
claimed that this operation is even more important than the support of
invasion of South France. The case is that Polish partisan staff has a radio
connection with the allied command in Italy and Churchill while in Neapoles
received a help request from the Poles.
He ordered to send over 100
heavy bombers within 3 nights so that each would airdrop around 3 tons of
weapons, ammo and food for the Polish partisans.
On the first night from 13th to 14th of August 5 units of 8 aircraft each flew out. The mission was to drop supplies from low altitude of 450 - 500 feet above the objects precisely marked on the Warsaw map.
Austin calls this operation “suicide” and others agree with him.
At that night only one of the units, part of which was Van Eissen’s crew, lost two aircraft of eight. The losses of other units are unknown, but there were losses for sure. Also part of the aircraft returned without fulfilling their mission because of strong winds in the area of the city. The Polish partisans have thanked over the radio and reported that the cargo was dropped precisely and they received it. They also said that one of “Liberators” fell on the Warsaw train station.
On the next day in the evening of August 14th approximately the same quantity of aircraft was sent as before. Wherein one vehicle from the South African unit flew for the second time.
No special instructions, clarifications or explanations were given to the crews before their flight to Warsaw. The flight was a special high importance mission by the personal order of the Prime Minister.
The crew and their commander only know about the situation in Poland from
the English press, that is that there are partisans that take orders from
the London government and the partisans that are connected with the Red
Army. It is not clear to them why those two groups have disagreements.
Lieutenant Austin thinks that the situation in Poland is somewhat
similar to the situation in Yugoslavia: both here and there the governments
in London have little communication to their country which causes friction
between them.
Before the flight captain Van Eissen received a detailed plan of Warsaw with regions occupied by the Polish rebels marked on it. They explained to him that the Poles will set up lighting marks and the cargou must be dropped above those marks. They succeeded in doing so in the previous night.
The duration of the operation was planned to be 10 hours from 7 o’clock in the evening till 5 o’clock in the morning. In the previous night one of the crews had been in the air for 11 hours and 45 minutes, that is returned with dry fuel tanks, but still made it to the airfield.
Radio communication was only with the base, but not the Poles. They flew on sensors only. Foreseeing the German night fighters they were dropping silver foil chaff. In the latest time the Germans frequently use radio direction finding when fighting the night bombers. Such devices are found not only on the approach to the important objects, but also installed on the night fighters made of ordinary JU-88. The silver foil causes electrical discharge and makes the screens of radio direction finders become covered in dots and basically useless.
Along the way the crew observed many fires. The crew members suppose that those were caused by Germans-barbarians who burn Polish villages and cities when retreating. Warsaw was also on fire.
When approaching Warsaw the “Liberator” encountered heavy and very precise anti-air fire. Austin thinks that this was the most precise fire of those he had experienced and he was in Ploiesti, Bucharest and Vein.
They failed their mission despite having a strict order to go as low as possible despite any enemy fire. Two shooters were killed: Meis and Hudson. Two engines caught flames and went out of order. Then the third one bursted in flames. The commander had an instruction to go East in case of emergency and try to reach the Russians. He didn't know the precise place where they crossed the front.
In case the crew fell into German hands, they had an instruction to only call their name and surname, rank and number; not to give any other testimonies. However all the crew members think that the Germans would still kill them anyways.
Fulfilling his instructions the commander turned East, but the burning plane began to fall. Then he dropped the supplies because those were blocking the exits. According to his calculations all of the 12 parachutes with a total weight of 3 tons had to land on the Soviet side with the exception of one that caught fire.
They failed to land and the commander ordered the crew to jump. When the aircraft was less than 300 meters above the ground, the commander pushed out the disturbed second pilot Hamilton out and jumped after him. Hamilton however was so much out of focus that he opened his parachute too late and crashed to death. Van Eissen hurt his leg when landing and others landed successfully.
All in all the following are alive: Van Eissen, Holliday, Austin, Lichfield, Piston. All found themselves on the Soviet territory. The aircraft crashed and exploded to pieces.
The crew was received very well by both the Soviet soldiers and officers and Polish civilians. Many flowers were brought to the graves of the dead pilots and English pilots were deeply touched by that.
Both Van Eissen and Austin think that there is “something wrong” with these flights to Warsaw because they caused a lot of casualties. At the same time it is doubtful that those supplies would significantly help the Polish partisans. Probably the Polish government in London has miscalculated something or maybe deliberately gave incorrect information to Churchill.
They think that due to high casualties on the third night the flights above Warsaw could be cancelled.
About the relationship between the government in exile in London. The position of the Soviet government regarding the Polish question was explained to the crew, highlighting that the Polish government did not establish any connection with the Red Army. Also it was noted that the actions of the Polish government in exile have caused unneeded sacrifices both among the partisans and Polish civilians and also among the British pilots.
Captain Van Eissen and lieutenant Austin have fully agreed with our point of view. They told us that even before the flight they considered it useless to fly to Warsaw for almost 1500km while the Russian forces are mere 20km away from Warsaw.
Lieutenant Austin says that he considered this a “suicide” flight. Captain Van-Eissen adds that the “Liberator” is designed to drop bombs from a height no less than 14 000 feet (5000m) and not to fly over the enemy AA artillery at a height of 100-150 meters. In such conditions they would almost certainly be shot down by enemy’s small-caliber AA guns. Lieutenant Austin said that before the flight he has given away some of his belongings, thinking that he will never return. He didn’t do that before the other flights.
Both of them say that they were very surprised that they were not told where the frontline and the closest Russian airfields were. They both claim that they did not object against this, in their opinion wrong mission aloud because the military discipline forbids that and they would go under trial for that.
Source: ЦАМО РФ. Ф. 233. Оп. 2380. Д. 16. Л. 77–82.
