Just Jane. A great project.

[ebikeerwidnes]

My Dad was an armourer for the RAF during the war - mostly on Stirlings then Halifaxs
He was based in Linconshire for a while. Apparently under some circumstances the planes would come back with bombs on board and have to jettison them - I'm not sure of the exact condition for this.
Anyway - they were told never to jettison bombs over occupied territory in case of hitting a town or village - so they were told they HAD to wait and jettison them over the North Sea
Same applied to US and RAF crews


so the crews aimed to hit the North Sea - the air base often got calls to come and collect jettisoned bombs over Linconshire that US crews had jettisoned -

aiming for the North Sea -

and they missed


He claimed this never happened with RAF bombs - it was always US ones -

so he was never surprised when there was a News article saying the US Air Force had missed a target - he was just surprised they hit the right country!!!!

 

[MichaelW2]

Amazing story and an amazing aeroplane. If we hadn’t of had it the war would have gone on for many more years. Full respect to the lads that flew them knowing their chances of survival were slim.

The main effect of the allied strategic bombing campaign was to tie up huge quantaties of German military resources in defence of the fatherland inc 10,000 heavy AA guns. Romel wreaked havoc on British tanks with just 24 guns. Without the need to point up, those 10,000 guns could have been pointing East. Germany may have had far more success on the Eastern Front, far more quickly.

 

[MichaelW2]

My Dad was an armourer for the RAF during the war - mostly on Stirlings then Halifaxs
He was based in Linconshire for a while. Apparently under some circumstances the planes would come back with bombs on board and have to jettison them - I'm not sure of the exact condition for this.
Anyway - they were told never to jettison bombs over occupied territory in case of hitting a town or village - so they were told they HAD to wait and jettison them over the North Sea
Same applied to US and RAF crews


so the crews aimed to hit the North Sea - the air base often got calls to come and collect jettisoned bombs over Linconshire that US crews had jettisoned -

aiming for the North Sea -

and they missed


He claimed this never happened with RAF bombs - it was always US ones -

so he was never surprised when there was a News article saying the US Air Force had missed a target - he was just surprised they hit the right country!!!!

RAF: Area bombing of precision targets.
US Army Air Force: Precision bombing of area targets.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

One of the spookiest things I've done was seeing the submarine pens at L'Orient. I was on a boat so could go right up to the entrances and look in (the whole site was blocked off at the time, but I think it may have been opened since). The RAF hammered the pens often, using Tallboys I think, but they were many many feet thick and were undamaged. Looking in to the bays from where the U boats set off was sobering, but a great experience.