Former R.A.F. Air Gunner John Robertson tells his story of a near miss

John came from Glencraig, Fife Scotland, he was an air gunner who completed 73 bombing missions and was awarded the D.F.C. for his part in operations over Europe, and he was also a member of the famous Goldfish Club having come down over the sea during one mission.

John’s account of the incident:

In June 1942 I took part in a raid on Tripoli as the rear gunner in a Wellington bomber. There was a lot of flak over the target and on the run in no one noticed anything out of the ordinary happening to the plane. Mission completed, we had a 300-mile flight back to the desert airfield at Kabrit. But when we landed the ground crew, instead of coming to give us a hand cleared off as fast as they could. We were mystified until we climbed out. Then we got the shock of our lives. Sticking out of the tailfin was a 250-pound bomb.

The bomb had been dropped by a Liberator of the American Air Force over the same target area. “I was only three feet away from the bomb in the rear gunner’s ‘nest ‘. A good job I didn’t know about it at the time!”