Wartime foes unite in tears for pals who flew to deaths

THIS is the historic moment one time sworn enemies linked arms in a picture of reconciliation.

Second World War Bomber Command heroes Jack Cook and Tom Rogers embraced Luftwaffe flying ace Walter Rehling yesterday at a moving remembrance service.

Seventy five years after the airmen diced with death over the skies of Europe they united in a bid to ensure their brothers-in-arms are never forgotten.

Jack, 94, Tom, 93, and Walter, 96, were guests of honour at a service at the Monument of Tolerance in St Elisabeth’s Hof on the DutchGerman border. A ceremony commemorated 750 servicemen from 11 nationalities who fell in the region during the conflict.

The men reminisced about the pivotal roles they played in the war as friends who can never forget, but have found forgiveness.

Although Tom and Jack were both part of the elite bombing unit, of which the Dambusters is the best known squadron, each played a very different role.

Daring

Tom pretended he was older in order to sign up as a 17-year-old rear gunner and flew daring bombing missions over Nazi Germany, including raids over Munich, Dresden and Bergen.

Jack was an 18-year-old wireless operator who took part in Operation Manna, which saw the RAF make thousands of humanitarian aid drops to millions of starving Dutch civilians.

Walter, from Dortmund, was a navigator in a night fighter squadron patrolling the skies in search of Lancaster bombers to target.

Yesterday, the men who were once enemies became firm friends as they shed tears over comrades who never came home. Walter said: “It was like a miracle that something like this could happen. British people were the first to reach out to me and I have been accepted with a warm heart.

“The whole meaning of tolerance is that we can be friends because friends will never shoot each other. I am now among friends.” Tom, from

Jack now and, below, in service

‘OUR FOOD DROPS SAVED THOUSANDS’

JACK Cook, who signed up on his 18th birthday in August 1943, remembers his role in Operation Manna with pride.

Jack, 94, said: “We managed to drop our cargo of aid which contained everything you could think of, like tea, coffee, dried eggs and chocolates, at a racecourse outside Rotterdam.

“Three thousand Dutch civilians were dying every day and we knew we had to do something and the Lancaster was the perfect plane.

“Even now people come up to me and say, ‘If it wasn’t for you, my mother and father would not have lived – and I wouldn’t have been born’. I know we saved many thousands of people. “Every five years I come to Holland and they make an awful fuss of us.

“I just wonder what those who were killed and who never came back would make of it all.”

Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, said: “Being at the Memorial of Tolerance means a lot. I bear no animosity towards German airmen. They were just doing a job like I was.”

Jack, from Melton Mowbray, Leics, said: “Looking back I realise how important it was. Instead of dropping bombs we helped people survive.”

In 1945 much of Holland was cut off and food supplies were running critically low. Lancaster Bombers were adapted to carry life-saving supplies and from April 29, 1945, a