On the night raids, the fighter defense was strong and well organized. While the Luftwaffe had fewer fighters left, their radar directed "sector defense" was very effective at picking up individual incoming, (or returning) night bombers. Sobering's crew had a number of these attacks. The .303 machine guns, on the Lancasters and Halifaxes, were as useless as pea-shooters against the four 20mm machine guns on the attacking ME-110's or Fock-Wulf 190's.

The secret of the bomber's survival lay in the evasive action, "corkscrewing", that had been developed by the RAF, and which was practiced over England with cameras instead of guns in the Lancaster and Halifax bombers. The gunners had to be alert to spot the faster moving dark shapes flying above the bomber stream, and to give the alert "fighter attack". At 600 yards, (the point at which the fighter would open fire) the command would be given to the pilot to corkscrew port or starboard. The pilot would then apply violent port rudder, violent port aileron and violent diving elevators which effectively and instantly, removed the bomber from the gun sights of the surprised German night-fighter pilot. This evasive maneuver could be carried out with a Lancaster or Halifax without damage to the aircraft, even with a full bomb load. After diving 800 ft, the pilot would recover from the descent by climbing in the opposite direction to proceed to the target. This life saving technique did save Sobering and his crew on several occasions.

With his second crew, on a late afternoon raid on Rhyet, in the Ruhr, on December 27th, 1944, Sobering lost an engine on the way into the target but continued on. A Lancaster can maintain height on three engines, but only after losing its bomb load. As his altitude decreased, he also lost his intercom. Arriving late on the target, because of reduced airspeed on three engines, all the other bombers had completed their run and left the target. The barrage flak was set at 20,000 ft, so he was safely below this. After the first run, the bomb aimer reported that all bombs were hung up. The procedure then is to remove the floor covers over the release mechanism and send four crew members to manually release the bombs. On the second and third run most of the bombs were released. On the fourth run no more bombs went down, but there were still a number of them hung up, electrically and manually free, but frozen because of the severe icing conditions. The flak had increased, but no direct hits were scored. Now the problem was what to do with frozen bombs that were fused and live. The navigator knew of a bomb jettison area in the North Sea. On arrival in this area, well off the return route, Sobering flung the aircraft around as violently as possible. Finally after fuel warnings issued by the flight engineer, and with one bomb still hung up, the crew returned home.