Milk run over the Eder Dam

Whilst researching the Dambuster attack on the Eder Dam I came across an interesting snippet of history. It was told to me by my sister’s friend G.C. who was in the RAF in the early 50s.

In 1952 G.C. was based in Germany at RAF Wahn which is now the modern day Cologne Bonn International Airport. He was an aircraft engineer and maintained aircraft batteries for 68 Squadron which operated Gloster Meteor NF11 night fighters.

68 Squadron Gloster Meteor NF11s over Cologne Cathedral

At that time, it was forbidden to drink the local milk as it caused severe illness (probably Brucellosis). Everyone had to use powered milk with everything, which was awful.

Also based at RAF Wahn was the personal transport of Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick the British High Commissioner in West Germany. It was a beautiful twin-engined De Havilland Devon C.2 light transport aeroplane.

1696918-large — RAF De Havilland Devon C.2

Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick was a temperamental and outspoken British career diplomat but Britain’s leading expert on German affairs during the 1930s. He was based in Berlin in 1933 as first secretary to the British Embassy and believed that no business could be done with the Nazi leaders. He held several senior government positions during the war, and when Rudolf Hess parachuted into Britain in 1941 it was Kirkpatrick who was sent to Scotland to identify and interview him. In 1949 became head of the German political division of the Foreign Office, a department that was as big as all the rest of the Foreign Office put together. In 1950 he became the High Commissioner in West Germany and set about in his own direct manner to resolve the problems between Britain and Germany that had so long been a source of difficulty in Europe.

81cjsto5fLL._AC_SL1500_ — Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick

Sir Ivone however, was not prepared to drink his tea with powdered milk. Fresh pasteurized milk was available in the north of Germany. So, he had a 400km round trip twice weekly milk run from RAF Wahn to RAF Bückeburg (between Osnabrück and Hannover) complete with a milkman’s wireframed four-pint milk bottle carrier using his Devon aircraft.

Normally the flight would just involve Kirkpatrick’s personal pilot. On one occasion G.C. was talking to the pilot who invited him along for a jolly, apparently he was always happy for the company. G.C. doesn’t recall the pilot’s name but remembers he was an ex-WW2 Squadron Leader with a significant medal ribbon bar on his chest.

On the 200km flight north-east from Wahn to Bückeburg the topic of the Dambusters raid came up. The pilot asked G.C. if he would like to see one of the dams from the air. Who would turn down that opportunity? G.C. wasn’t about to.

On arrival at Bückeburg the pilot retired for lunch in the officer’s mess whilst G.C. had to make do with the NAAFI. The pilot returned a few hours later complete with the four pints of fresh milk. As they entered the Devon G.C. was entrusted with the precious cargo and told in no uncertain terms “Look after the milk. Don’t spill a drop”.

G.C. can’t remember why, but the Eder Dam was their destination. The flight from Bückeburg took them a dog leg 120km due south until they reached the very western edge of the Eder Reservoir. The pilot descended low, very low as G.C. recalls and they flew eastwards banking sharply to port and starboard as the Eder valley snaked along with no view of the dam in sight. Finally, a steep turn to starboard around a spit of land called the Hammerbergspitze jutting out just a mile before the dam. It had caused so many problems to the Dambuster pilots Shannon, Maudslay, and Knight nine years previously.

G.C. says they were incredibly low probably 100 to 200 feet, but even with an experienced competent pilot they were nowhere near as low as the Dambuster pilots had been. They had made their approach, not along the Eder Reservoir from the west but, down the valley at the side of Waldeck Castle (which can be seen in the picture below) making a steep turn to port over the Hammerbergspitze before getting down to an incredible 60 feet.

0006D8A600000C1D-5422621-image-a-23_1519310454500 — The Eder Dam (Waldeck Castle on the right)

G.C.’s flight took them low over the Eder Dam between the two towers before pulling around for a view along the dam. G.C. recalls it having been fully repaired but the signs of the damage sustained in the early morning of 17 May 1943 were clearly visible.

The final leg of the trip took them west-south-west back to Wahn.

What a jolly.

De Havilland Devon’s in RAF service were reliable and much-loved workhorses. They entered service in 1948 and finally retired in 1984 where I witnessed them auctioned off at RAF Northolt in London.