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ahead of Peter Grant, Briden of 149 Squadron was also heavily damaged and losing fuel fast.
    Then, perhaps ninety miles west of Wilhelmshaven, Grant glanced up for a moment to find that ‘quite suddenly, there were just a few Wellingtons flying alone in the clear sky’. 4 The German fighters had reached the limit of their endurance. They retired, to claim thirty-four victories, twenty-six of which were confirmed by the Reich Air Ministry. They had lost two Me109s, a further one which was written off after crashlanding, and almost all the Me110s which took part in the action were more or less damaged. In reality, ten British aircraft had already been totally destroyed out of the original twenty-four. It was not an impressiveperformance by the Germans. Even after their belated interception, they made repeated ineffectual long-range attacks. If their tactics had been better, it would have been remarkable if any British aircraft survived at all. But for the British, by any objective assessment, it had been a disastrous day.
    As the remnants of the formation lumbered home, the Wellingtons of Briden and Ramshaw were steadily dropping back. There was no longer any merit in radio silence. Briden called Harris, his section leader: could they take the shortest possible route home, because he was losing petrol very fast? Forty miles out from the English coast, a few minutes after 3 pm, Briden’s engines spluttered and died. The Wellington glided smoothly down towards the icy sea below, cartwheeled to starboard as it touched, then settled. Harris circled above it, watching the crew struggling around their dinghy. He ordered his own crew to throw out their dinghy to assist. After a struggle, they set it free. But it inflated as it fell away from the aircraft, struck the tail and jammed there. With his rudder controls crippled, Harris with difficulty flew on to make a forced landing at Coltishall. Lifeboats put out from Cromer and Sheringham to Briden’s last reported position, but the North Sea in December is not a welcoming refuge. Like so many men who ditched in her waters in the next five years, neither Briden nor his crew were ever seen again. They had been warned in training that they might expect to survive for fifteen minutes under such conditions.
    Sergeant Ramshaw of 9 Squadron was more fortunate. His engines died at last just short of Grimsby. Lilley, his rear gunner, was already critically wounded when they ditched and was lost with the aircraft. Ramshaw and the remainder of his crew were picked up by a trawler and by nightfall lay in Grimsby hospital.
    Thus the twelve surviving aircraft – ten, discounting the two which had not attacked – came home. Soon after 4 pm, after almost seven hours in the air, the eight remaining in the formation touched down. At Honington, only Peter Grant and Sergeant Purdy landed. Grant told his tale to the CO and the Adjutant in theofficers’ mess, then went exhausted to bed. An officer who put his head into the mess a little later found it deserted but for the CO, who sat bowed and old, alone by the fireplace.
    Slaughter of these proportions at this, still squeamish, moment of the war provoked an unprecedented upheaval and post-mortem both at 3 Group and at Bomber Command. Ludlow-Hewitt, a C-in-C already well known for his sensitivity to casualties, flew in person to Norfolk to hear first-hand accounts of the operation. Group-Captain Hugh Pughe-Lloyd, a 3 Group staff officer who had commanded 9 Squadron until a few weeks before, said in one of a mass of reports inspired by the disaster: ‘I dislike the course taken to the target. On this occasion we make a landfall near the German–Danish frontier and run the whole way down it, giving the enemy all the warning he can get.’ This was almost the only instance of open criticism of the planning of the operation.
    Most senior officers studied the events of 18 December and drew much more hopeful and face-saving conclusions. They readily