February 24, 1945 - Is this the bus to North Killingholme?

From the Operations Record Book:  

The Squadron was stood down from operations and another day devoted to training which included both day and night cross country exercise and practice bombing.

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After their harrowing experience of the night before on the raid to Pforzheim, rear-gunner Hicks was dismayed when the remaining crew were given vouchers and a bus timetable to get them back to base at North Killingholme.  Meanwhile, Tom Ditson, suffering from a double fracture of the right scapula, was treated first at Manston's station sick quarters and then transferred to No. 16 Canadian General Hospital in Marston Green near Birmingham, England for further treatment.

Hicks described the experience in May 1998, posted on the 550 Squadron website:

In the morning we obtained a ride out to where our aircraft “D” for dog was resting.  We then were aware of what had happened.  We counted over sixty holes in all parts of the aircraft.  There were holes that revealed the sides of the gas tanks, a shift of one inch either way would have no doubt set the aircraft on fire.  The incendiaries had hit the aircraft, caught fire, then with their immense heat burned through the aircraft falling out the bottom, they then continued their downward trip.  One had fallen behind the firewall of No. 1 engine, then started to burn and fell through, this caused the pilot to feather the engine.  There were many holes in the tailplane and we could now see where one of the incendiaries had burned through the main operating rod some two inches in diameter effectively causing the left rudder to malfunction.  There were some ten incendiaries still imbedded in various parts of the interior of the aircraft that had luckily not ignited.  The aircraft was written off on the spot.  Again, someone was looking out for me.

While saying goodbye to our old friend “D” for Dog, out in the middle of the airport we heard, on this Manston airport, an unholy screaming sound.  Out on the runway we could see an aircraft, not familiar to any of us taxiing up one of the runways.  Questioning one of the ground crew revealed this to be one of the first jet aircraft that the R.A.F. were now using.

Because of what we felt was quite an ordeal, we had expected that our home squadron would send some form of transport to pick us up and take us home.  No such luck.  We were issued vouchers and given the bus schedule.  Still in our flying gear we headed for home.  We were more than disappointed, after all we had not only written off an aircraft but came very close to buying it.

When we arrived back at home base we were met by the gunners of the crew that was the permanently assigned “D” for dog.  They said “What did you do to our aircraft?” I replied, “Hey, sorry, we wrote it off at Manston.”  Their jovial response was “Good, now we will get a new one.”

After this ordeal, we as a crew discussed what we would have done if we came up on the target on our bombing run and found another aircraft underneath us and that the possibility existed that we could hit him with our bomb load.  Our conclusion to a man [unanimously] was that no way would be go around again to make this bombing run and that if he was underneath too bad.  It was certainly a mercenary approach and was quickly dismissed from our minds that those conditions would ever exist.  We held no animosity to the crew that had dropped their load on us.

Now back to the business of fighting this war.