Ed Murrow reports from over Berlin

3rd December 1943: 'Orchestrated Hell' as the legendary CBS correspondent records his impressions of a trip on an RAF Bomber

Lancaster B Mark III, LM449 ‘PG-H’, of No. 619 Squadron RAF based at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, in flight.

RAF Bomber Command's sustained attack on Berlin continued. However, the fortunes between the two sides were changing. The early raids in December did not achieve the clear sky marking that had led to the devastating raids on 18th November and 22nd November. The bombing was much more scattered and did not produce the level of destruction, or the firestorms, seen earlier.

… there was a tremendous whoomph, an unintelligible shout from the tail gunner, and D-Dog shivered and lost altitude.

The German night fighter organisation was gaining experience and improving its effectiveness. They were getting better at locating the bomber stream and deducing its ultimate target. The result on the night of the 2nd/3rd December was total losses of 40 bombers out of 458 aircraft on the raid - an unsustainable 8.7%.

Remarkably given these statistics there were civilians newspaper reporters who were prepared to volunteer to go on these raids. Two reporters, Captain Grieg of the Daily Mail and Norman Stockton of the Sydney Sun, were lost when their 460 (Australian) Squadron Lancaster was shot down.

Ed Murrow was based in London from 1938 to 1946. He had already created a sensation by broadcasting ‘live’ from the rooftops whilst the bombs dropped on London during the Blitz. He gave his personal impressions of events whilst other reporters were sticking rigidly to their scripts.

There would seem to be even less of a call for an American journalist to be on an RAF operation, but the renowned Ed Murrow was also on this raid. He survived and produced a celebrated radio broadcast about the raid.