Flying Officer Ronald Scott Baillie was the son of Major and Mrs James Baillie of 23 Barossa Place, Perth. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in December 1945. His citation describes Ronald as possessing “fine fighting spirit and outstanding efficiency.”
Flying Officer Baillie of RAF 61 Squadron was the mid-upper gunner on Avro Lancaster BI, NG380 which had just bombed the Dortmund-Ems Canal in Germany on the night of 7/8 February 1945. That night, 177 Avro Lancaster and 11 de Haviland Mosquito of RAF 5 Group attacked the canal section near Ladbergen, northeast of Münster, Germany. They were equipped with delayed action bombs which landed harmlessly in nearby fields. The intended target, the banks of the canal were not damaged.
Twelve aircraft of RAF 61 Squadron were detailed to be part of the attack. The meteorological report was 7/10 to 9/10 cloud with tops at 8,000 to 9,000 feet. Pathfinder aircraft marking was by Red and Green T. I.’s (Target Indicator flares) and all aircraft successfully bombed the target, but the results could not be observed at the time owing to the cloud cover.
Flying Officer H. R. Smith, the captain of the Baillie’s aircraft identified the target and bombed at the M.P.I. (Main Point of Impact) of Red T.I’s. 00.01 hours at 9,500 feet.
Lancaster NG 380 was then attacked by jet fighter, a Messerschmitt Me 163. Ten minutes after they had dropped their bombs, Flying Officer H. R. Smith had noticed a white-hot glare racing astern of their aircraft. The Lancaster NG380’s rear gunner, Flying Officer G. Bobenic thought it was a flare dropped by an enemy fighter, but Flying Officer Ronald Bailie identified it as an Me 163 jet fighter. Flying Officer Ronald Baillie could not use his guns as the Me 163 had passed under the Lancaster. Bobenic opened fire and saw some of the tracer rounds from his four Browning machine guns strike home. The Me163 came round for another pass and both Bobenic and Baillie fired. Thousands of feet below they saw the Me 163 explode.
Five minutes later, another Me 163 attacked from the starboard quarter. The guns of Bobenic and Baillie now jammed at the same moment. The Lancaster could do two things, try and get away in a hurry, or turn or face the Me 163 jet so that the bomb-aimers guns in the nose could be brought to bear. Flying Officer Bobenic stated that “Smitty threw us into a stall turn (corkscrew) so fast that we turned over on our backs, we damaged our aircraft, but we brought it back and we got the German fighter.”
The bomb-aimer, at the front of the Lancaster, Sergeant Harris did manage to score strikes on the Me 163. By this time Baillie had cleared his guns and was pouring lead into the circling enemy. Bobenic hand-cocked his two right guns and took over from Baillie. The jet fighter fell to earth, heat coming from the flames and firing his guns into the ground. The Me 163’s tracer rounds were seen by Bobenic to be ricocheting off the fields below.
Thirty minutes later, two of Lancaster NG 380’s, 1,000 lb MC (Medium Capacity) bombs that had been hung up were jettisoned. One Me 163 jet was reported by Flying Officer Smith as seen destroyed at 50.02N, 00.25E at 2.10am, about 50 kms east of Ladbergen near Legden. Three Avro Lancaster’s from 5 Group were lost that night.
No night-time claims against any type of jet- or rocket-propelled aircraft/projectiles were officially recognised by Bomber Command Head Quarters at the time because of the sheer number of such claims and BCHQ believed that most, if not all such claims were against non-piloted projectiles other than aircraft. Only one Messerschmitt Me 163 is recorded in a source as being maybe shot down by Lancaster NG 380 that night. The shooting down of two was reported in the Perthshire Advertiser on 4 April 1945 by the crew of NG 380 and was recorded in the Operations Record Books for RAF 61 Squadron for the night of 7/8 February 1945. Only one Combat Report Pro-Forma, the shooting down of the first Me 163 was available in the National Archives.
The Messerschmitt Me 163 jet operated and were initially tested at the largest Luftwaffe airbase in Northern Germany, the “Adlerhorst” (Eagles Nest) military airport in Rostrup, near Bad Zwischenahn by Erprobungskommando 16 (Testing-command 16). This unit was disbanded on 14 February 1945 and almagamated into Jagdgeschwader (Fighter Wing) 400 and sent to Brandis, near Leipzig, to provide additional protection for the Leuna synthetic gasoline works. South of the airfield, on the banks of Lake Zwischenahn, mooring places for floatplanes were built at E-Hafen (E-Harbour) for the Seefliegerhorst (Naval Flying Base). On 1 May 1945 Canadian troops captured the airfield.
Bad Zwischenahn is about 150 kms northwest of where Lancaster NG 380 was attacked by jet aircraft. The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was a rocket powered interceptor piloted aircraft capable of exceeding 620 mph in level fight but had only fuel enough for 7.5 minutes endurance. It is more likely that the Me 163’s were operating from airbases along the route home of NG380. Two bases are the most likely candidates, Twente, and Deelen, Netherlands. Twente is about 58 kms east of Deelen and 21 kms from Legden.
Deelen is just north of Arnhem where an allied military operation to outflank the German Defences and seize strategic bridges using paratroopers and glider born troops, 17 September 1944 to 26 September 1944. To the south of Legden, in the Ardennes (280 kms), the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive campaign on the Western Front had just taken place, 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945.
In July 1944 the German Me 163 test pilot, Heini Dittmar reached 700 mph, a speed unmatched until 1953. Mach 1, the speed of sound at sea level is approximately 768 mph. The Me 163 was powered by Hellmuth Walter Kommanditgesellschaft HWK 109-509A-2 bi-propellant liquid-fuelled rocket motors. The fuel used was a dangerous highly volatile mix of C-Stoff (fuel – methyl alcohol, mixed with hydrazine hydrate) and T-Stoff (oxidiser – hydrogen peroxide). This is what is known as a hypergolic propellant, the rocket propellant combination that was used in German WW2 rocket engines. These components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. By the end of 1944, 91 Me 163 aircraft had been delivered, but a lack of fuel kept most on the ground. The Me 163 Komets attacked singly or in pairs, a typical tactic was to fly vertically upward through the bombers at 9,000 m (30,000 ft), climb to 10,700–12,000 m (35,100–39,400 ft), then dive through the formation again, firing as they went. This approach afforded the pilot two brief chances to fire a few rounds from his cannons before gliding back to his airfield. Some Me 163 pilots reported it was possible to make four passes on a bomber, but only if it was flying alone.
To have shot down two Me 163’s is quite an achievement for the crew of Avro Lancaster NG380. The attacking Me 163’s flew at three times the speed of the Lancaster, around 600 mph. The deflection angle, the shooting ahead of the target by the in your head calculating of the lead time for an aiming point so that the Me 163 would fly through the bullets was an act of incredible skill.
Ronald Baillie was 23 years old when he helped shoot down the two Me 163’s, he started his R.A.F. career with the Perth Academy Air Defence Cadet Corp of the Perth Squadron of the Air Training Squadron (A.T.C.). Before joining he was in his second year at Dundee Art College and was a member of the 10th (Academy) Boy Scouts. By May 1941 he was a member of a night fighter squadron fighting with the RAF.
Research by Ken Bruce
Notes:
Three days before NG380 shot down the Me 163’s, on 4 February 1945, the Red Army made a request at the Yalta conference for air action to hinder the enemy from moving troops to the Eastern Front. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met 1945 in the ballroom of the Livadia Palace, the summer residence of the Tsars near Yalta in Crimea. This led to the increased RAF and USAF bombing of cities in Germany in order to disrupt the movement of troops. Intelligence had suggested that dozens of German army divisions were moving to the Eastern Front to try and stop the Soviet advance which by now was approaching the River Oder, Germanies border with Poland, and only 90 kms from Berlin. One of the cities to be attacked was Dresden and in 4 raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 650,000 incendiaries bombs, and 3,900 tons high explosive were dropped. The bombing resulted in a firestorm which destroyed 1,600 acres of the city centre. It is estimated that between 22,700 and 25,00 people were killed in Dresden.
Avro Lancaster Specifications:
Machinery 4 Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V12 engines, rated at 1,280 hp each
Armament 8×7.7mm Browning machine guns in three turrets, 10,000kg of bombs
Crew 7
Span 31.09 m
Length 21.11 m
Height 5.97 m
Wing Area 120.50 m²
Weight, Empty 16,705 kg
Weight, Loaded 28,636 kg
Speed, Maximum 448 km/h
Service Ceiling 8,160 m
Range, Normal 4,320 km
