'About time I got up.'

On August 15, 1940, during the Battle of Britain, about 50 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers left their bases in Aalborg, Denmark, and attacked RAF Driffield. The raid killed 13 people, damaged or destroyed 12 Whitley bombers, and heavily damaged all five hangars, forcing the Bomber Command station to temporarily close for repairs.

Hangar damaged in the Luftwaffe attack, with an unfortunate Whitley bomber visible behind the open doors.

Former Whitley pilot Ian Brownlee, who was stationed at the base at the time of the raid, spoke about his memories of that fateful day to RAF Stories:

“I was fast asleep in the mess, in my room in the mess. At about midday*, I woke up to hear air raid sirens going off. And then I woke fully on realising that things were happening.

I could hear bombs exploding and gunfire going off. And I thought, "It's about time I got up."

So, I walked across my room to get my dressing gown, which was hanging on the door at the opposite side of the room. And as I got there, a bomb exploded on the end of the mess, the other end where I was. Immediately visibility in my room was zero.

Crashing and banging, the ceiling fell down. And it fell on the bed, and it would've fallen on me but the door had flown open and I instinctively grabbed the door and pulled it towards myself, so I was pinned between the door and the wall. And the falling ceiling was diverted by the top of the door. So, I was uninjured.

There was an air raid shelter behind the guard room at the entrance to the camp that had a direct hit from a shell, from a bomb, and there were some six airmen killed in that, just one shelter.

A number of the hangars were hit, I remember seeing the effects of cannon fire on the end wall of a hangar. They're reinforced concrete and these cannon shells had gone right through the 18-inch thickness of reinforced concrete and you could see daylight through these holes.

A Women's Royal Air Force driver was driving across the airfield in a vehicle, on duty. She was killed. She was the first WAAF personnel to be killed on active service in the Royal Air Force during that war.

I made a note that some 12 or so Whitleys were destroyed or damaged during this raid, but most were replaced by the next day. That was the extraordinary thing. This happened on Monday and replacement Whitleys were arriving at Driffield that afternoon.

It was as quick and as rapid and as efficient as that. Most impressive.”

Find more at the RAF Stories website.

*After checking through a few of my reference books and online records, it seems likely that Mr Brownlee was serving with 77 Squadron at the time of the attack on RAF Driffield, and would have been having a well-deserved lie-in after taking part in an operation to bomb an oil refinery at Bordeaux.