Published: Friday, 5th June, 2009 12:07pm

Manna from heaven

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THROUGHOUT the war years, the Dutch people would instinctively run for cover whenever they heard planes in the skies overhead – however, one day in April 1945 all this changed.

The bomb doors of several RAF Lancaster bombers opened but what poured out wasn"t death and destruction but sustenance and salvation.

This was Operation Manna and in the course of the next month, 11,000 tonnes of food and provisions were dropped by the RAF and US airforce in the Den Haag and Rotterdam areas of the Netherlands, an area which had been cut off by the German invasion and was now ravaged by famine.

One airman who took part in this mission of goodwill was David Bremner, of West Linton.

Now 86, David recently received a Liberator"s medal from representatives of the Dutch Royal family for his part in the life-saving operation.

Originally from Saughton Hall in Edinburgh, David joined the RAF in July 1942 at the age of 19.

After completing his training in September 1944, David was assigned as a navigator with 166 Squadron, flying Lancaster bombers out of RAF Kirmington in Lincolnshire.

The war may indeed have been coming to a close but David nevertheless saw his fair share of action in the next few years years.

From Kirmington, David"s squadron fly twenty-five night operations and five day operations over Germany taking part in the bombing of cities such as Bremen, Dresden, Berchtesgaden and Chemnitz.

He said: 'On our second operation over Lutzendorf we began taking flak from anti-aircraft guns. Our engineer got hit and was blown on top of me. I gave him a morphine shot but the poor guy died from his injuries.

'I was hit on the side of my head which resulted in deafness in my left ear for life. One of the lads had to hold a towel to my head so I could navigate our way home.

'Another time over Bremen our port engine was hit at 16,000ft and the skipper had to put us into a steep dive down to 8,000 feet in an effort to put the flames out. I thought my eyes would leave their sockets – we still continued our bombing run though!'

After completing his first tour of 30 flights, David next signed up for a second tour of 25 and Operation Manna.

During the operation, the British Bomber Command delivered 6,680 tons of food. These bombers were used to dropping bombs from 15,000ft, but this time they had to do their dropping from a height of just 100 feet from the ground.

He said: 'At this stage most of the Dutch people were starving and as we dropped our cargo you could see them celebrating and waving flags. It made a nice difference in contrast to what we were usually dropping.'

It was only last month that David was contacted by the Bomber Command Association who told him he was in line for a Liberator"s medal from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

And last week the medal dropped through his letterbox, along with a certificate thanking him for his contribution to the liberation of the Netherlands.

However, this wasn"t the first wave of thanks that David has received from the Dutch people.

He said: 'I was in Biggar one day waiting for my wife Rosalind to finish work when a Dutch lady approached me asking for directions. We got chatting and she asked if I"d ever been to the Netherlands and I said no but I had flown over it at 100 feet as part of Operation Manna.

'She then began kissing and hugging me. It turned out that her husband had starved to death in the weeks before the airdrop and that she and the rest of her family only survived by eating bulbs. It was a little humbling to hear that.'

After Operation Manna, however, it was once more back to a deadlier cargo for David and his squadron: a bombing run on Hitler"s Bavarian mountain retreat Berchesgaden.

He said: 'We were part of the third wave and when we came over it at 12,000 feet all we could see was dust, there had been that much dropped on it. I"ve got to say it was a great feeling to bomb Hitler"s back garden.'

This bombing run wasn"t the only encounter David was to have with Hitler during the war – and his next one would be a lot closer than 12,000 feet.

He said: 'In May 1945 we were ordered to fly senior British officers to Berlin for the peace talks.

'The place was a shell, with not one building standing over 10 feet, which was surprising as Berlin was last bombed in 1943.

'We had some time off so we went to Hitler"s bunker in the Reichstag, which was guarded by Russian soldiers. Hitler"s body was still in the bunker wrapped in swaddling.

'I paid a guard two cigarettes to touch his leg and another two for an Iron Cross belonging to a senior German officer. I just wanted to touch him to let him know, in some way, my part in his downfall.'

Following this, David began transporting POWs back to England from Belgium and Italy. 'Tears would fill every one of their eyes when they saw the White Cliffs of Dover,' he says.

After the war David rose swiftly through the ranks, eventually becoming Squadron Leader at RAF Montrose before being released from the services in July 1947.

He later married his wife Rosalind in 1955 and they had a child, Anne.

Amazingly, David has never flown a plane or even entered a cockpit since his war heroics. He said: 'I had enough luck flying all those missions; luck that I could never see any point in pushing any further."