{"id":1556,"date":"2016-09-30T15:24:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T04:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2016-09-30T16:30:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T06:00:34","slug":"thestorybehind101nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2016\/09\/thestorybehind101nights\/","title":{"rendered":"101 Nights: The story behind a war classic"},"content":{"rendered":"
Music writer, bookseller and history buff Robert Brokenmouth paints a picture of the man and the circumstance behind the classic war novel, 101 Nights <\/em>by Ray Ollis<\/a>.<\/h5>\n
\"101<\/h5>\n

The night [was] whirling about them, tossing them easily on its powerful way\u2026 Their throttles were open now, straining against the storm. Hyde checked his petrol, checked his watch, and cast a troubled glance over his shoulder looking for the dawn. If this weather strengthened, the day might find them still over Europe. (101 Nights)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

101 Nights<\/em><\/a> is, as far as I can tell, the first book, fiction or otherwise, to accurately address most of the issues connected with the bombing of Germany during WWII, issues which became more distorted for decades after the end of the war. 101 <\/em>Nights<\/em> tells the story of Ray Ollis\u2019s squadron, 101, and its operations over the skies of Occupied Europe, by night and by day.<\/p>\n

In 2016, we struggle to understand the barbarous necessity of the bombing in WWII. Written 60 years ago, 101 Nights<\/em><\/a> deals with the bombing campaign in the context of Ray\u2019s war; his writing is considered, thoughtful, and matches much present-day opinion.<\/p>\n

\"RaySydneysider Ray Ollis was born to an era where heroes were more reality than myth. Simpson and his Donkey was a tale of noble self-sacrifice; the botched landing at Gallipoli was where Australia found its identity; and aviators had become heroic, semi-godlike figures (while soldiers were the poor buggers who splodged about in the muddy trenches). When Ray turned 18 he needed his parents\u2019 consent to enlist. I doubt they gave it willingly. He went to war because he believed it was the right thing to do, and also: it promised to be an exciting adventure.<\/p>\n

The bombing war was one of rapidly developing technology, and became tit-for-tat, spread over years. One side holding sway first, then another. When WWII began, German bombs were more effective than the British, which were then ‘more metal than charge’. The British only introduced new, more effective bombs (more explosive, thinner casings, better fuses) in the spring of 1941. Most of the British advances in bombing technology and strategy were guided by the example provided by the Germans. It wasn\u2019t until late 1943, three years after the Germans had first bombed England with precision and devastating effect, that Bomber Command were finally able to regularly bomb Germany with comparable devastation.<\/p>\n

By 1944, four-engine Avro Lancaster bombers were flying in their hundreds to their targets, the bomber stream stretching for miles, all to ensure the bombers would arrive over the target and bomb at the same time, all within an hour, to minimise exposure to the enemy\u2019s flak and fighters.<\/p>\n

The noise the Lancasters made was thunderous. The air vibrated and roared as the squadrons flew overhead. Inside, there was no shielding to protect the crews from the racket. The fuselage was just a thin casing of metal. There was little internal heating; rear gunners sat in vicious, bitter draughts often of dozens of degrees below freezing. Frostbite was so common that many gunners were hospitalised, and even rendered unfit for combat.<\/p>\n

Up in the cold dark sky, littered with ice-laden clouds and heaving with sharply shifting winds, somehow a pilot had to get from one place to another without getting lost.<\/p>\n

So \u2026 it\u2019s pitch-black, raining, and you\u2019re flying against strong winds and the aircraft is bucking up, down and around, partly from the hundreds of bomber slipstreams while anti-aircraft guns are firing from below \u2026 how do you know where you are?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s frightening, especially when you consider the lack of reliable electronic aids in those days. It was \u2018no task for a weakling when a small navigational error may result in a forced landing \u2013 at best\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ray became a navigator. The navigators in 101 Squadron had to be very, very good; they had to arrive at a certain point at a certain time regardless of distractions, and they also had to maintain a precise spot within the bomber stream because they were the very first Radio Countermeasures (RCM) Squadron.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe \u2018Special\u2019, their secret, extra crew-member, spoke German, was often Jewish, and sat at a new kind of radio set. For hours, the \u2018Special\u2019, would twiddle the knobs in search of the frequency the Luftwaffe night fighter controllers were using, and then turn on a transmit switch: a microphone would pick up the roar of one of the Lancaster\u2019s four Rolls Royce Merlin engines and transmit this racket from two large poles sticking out below the fuselage, along the frequency and into the Luftwaffe controller\u2019s ears, forcing the Germans to alter their frequency. Over and over.<\/p>\n

The radio transmitter in the 101 Lancasters was extremely powerful, which meant that the only clearly defined bombers the Luftwaffe \u2018saw\u2019 were RCM aircraft. \u2018We attract fighters onto ourselves\u2019, is Ray\u2019s description. The 101 Squadron protected the bombers, so were required to fly more often than other squadrons. They suffered some of the highest casualties.<\/p>\n

Of course, the RAF Fighter Command\u2019s losses were immense. Nearly 3,700 killed, over 1,200 wounded and 600 Prisoners of War but the RAF Bomber Command\u2019s losses were worse. With more than 47,000 killed on operations, over 8,000 non-operational deaths, 530 ground staff killed, nearly 10,000 wounded, those who died as Prisoners of War, the civilians killed as a result of RAF crashes, the training accidents \u2026 Their loss rate can only be compared to the worst slaughter in the killing fields of WWI.<\/p>\n

For all his dreams of mind, of homo sapiens, the articulate, rational being, Man\u2019s body rules him \u2026 if the body\u2019s needs be not met, what then? The body cries out and the body shall be served. The mind becomes a twisted knot of cunning and Man, sacred Man, will hunt and kill and steal and live worse than the wild creatures to preserve his life, his possessions, or even his little comfort. (101 Nights)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 101 Nighs<\/em><\/a>, Ray depicts the operational and moral complexity of Bomber Command, the vast scale of wartime operations toward the end of the war in a way that, until then, had not appeared before the public. He makes it clear that bombing dealt in death and destruction, that he knew he had killed not just the enemy, but civilians as well. And, his friends had died.<\/p>\n

Men should mourn their friends, but they must not go on mourning, piling grief upon grief, lamenting more and ever more dead comrades. That way madness lies: a madness that in war is suicide. (101 Nights)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ray\u2019s widow, Margaret Ollis, recalls that Ray himself \u2018was very badly burned, all his skin, especially on his back… his back was very scarred with graftings, it was all bright red. His hands were a bit peculiar, serviceable, and yes, possibly that was due to burn injuries. He was not good around a bonfire, he had a physical and emotional reaction to fire.\u2019<\/p>\n

The sense of despair and bitterness which runs through 101 Nights <\/em>is tangible; Ray refers to suicide and mercy killing so often \u2026<\/p>\n

I would thank a man for killing me if I were dying in agony. To shoot him now would be kindness. (101 Nights)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026 one wonders if he saw death as a solution to an unsolvable problem.<\/p>\n

After the war, Ray\u2019s mental health began to break down, and at some point he was diagnosed as manic-depressive. Finally committed to a psychiatric institution, Ray exercised all his skill and powers of persuasion to be released, legally sane, in 1972.<\/p>\n

Almost certainly under the influence of alcohol, he then decided to kill himself, annotated a will, wrote a letter to his brother Ron, wrote an entry in his diary, loaded his shotgun and got onto the train, intending to kill Margaret, the children, then himself.<\/p>\n

However.<\/p>\n

After arriving at the train station near Margaret\u2019s house, Ray turned the gun \u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is true that we cannot know a man by his words alone, only by his actions. In analysing his words, we may read too much into Ray, or reveal too much which he would prefer to keep hidden. Songwriter Rowland S. Howard once said that; ‘if something has been written in an oblique way, it’s oblique for a reason\u2019. Perhaps this is one reason 101 Nights<\/em> is presented as a novel.<\/p>\n

What part of Ray\u2019s death was caused by his illness and what part by his experiences in Bomber Command, we will never know. It’s not about the number of dead and maimed, unrolled like a dreadful scoreboard, it\u2019s not about statistics, but the loss of individuals who did their best against forces they could not always successfully combat.<\/p>\n

There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determination in the face of danger over so prolonged a period, of danger which at times was so great that scarcely one man in three could expect to survive his tour of thirty operations … (Sir Arthur Harris, \u2018Bomber Offensive\u2019 – Collins, 1947)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, Margaret remembers Ray as a handsome, fair man of slim build, talented, charismatic, walking around the room humming and beating time with a sheet of music, or playing the piano beautifully, his talent sparkling throughout the house. She remembers the determined writer of articles, songs, musicals and plays, a book on the Mau-Mau uprising (in Swahili!) and a memorable Bomber Command novel, so heavily soaked in fact.<\/p>\n

We should remember a man who could have been anything and gone anywhere.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Want to know more? Why not grab yourself a copy of 101 Nights<\/em><\/a>?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music writer, bookseller and history buff Robert Brokenmouth paints a picture of the man and the circumstance behind the classic war novel, 101 Nights by Ray Ollis. The night [was] whirling about them, tossing them easily on its powerful way\u2026 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,331],"tags":[413,417,418,419,416,414,415,412],"class_list":["post-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-fun","category-reading","tag-101-nights","tag-bomber-command","tag-lancaster","tag-navigator","tag-ptsd","tag-ray-ollis","tag-robert-brokenmouth","tag-wwii"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-p6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}