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“258 of the 700 prisoners escaped, including half of those awaiting execution” Wartime fighter pilot famed for leading low-level precision bombing raids “Eighteen Mosquito-VI fighter-bombers, six each from 487, 464 and 21 squadrons, all carrying two 500lb bombs with 11-second delay detonators, were to breach the 20ft-walls surrounding the prison…
Caspers used her bike to transport everything from hand grenades to transmitters for calling in allied bombing raids and microfilm revealing details of German troop positions… “It’s very important not forget…You fight for the same principles, don’t you? Freedom of opinion and freedom of speech, freedom of religion, against dictatorship…”…
…Commander for the B-29 SUPERFORTRESS Bombing RAIDS on TOKYO and Japan from TINIAN and his fellow crew members Chester Marshall, pilot, Jim O’Donnel, navigator, Herbert Feldman, bombardier, and John Huckins, flight engineer, who in turn pay great tribute to the US Marines and their epic struggle to take Saipan and…
…1942 diary – which not even I had ever seen. 1942 is, in fact, a very interesting year in the air war over northern Europe, what with the FW190’s superiority over the Spitfire Mk V, the ‘Channel Dash’, the disastrous Dieppe landings and the Americans making their first daylight raids…
…some of the most audacious targeted raids of the war and which helped to build Sismore’s later reputation as one of the Air Forces’ finest low-level navigators. ‘On January 30, 1943, the pair led the first of two daylight Mosquito raids on Berlin which aimed to embarrass Hermann Goering and…
…the ground crew is briefly summarised by the Imperial War Museums on their website: As well as carrying out their regular duties, members of the ground crew would be called upon during German raids on their airfields. They towed damaged aircraft away from runways to make room for others to…
…great fighting DANE, former merchant seaman, later to be posthumous VC 8/9Apr45 at LAKE COMACCHIO N.E. Italy, Major Anders LASSEN VC MC** SBS & No.1 SAS (whose cousin fought for Germany!); these raids stretched the German resources, forcing them to reinforce outlying island garrisons; few, if any, SBS island raids…
…DCM & 3 MiDs of SCOTS GUARDS 8 GUARDS COMMANDO, original L Detachmant SPECIAL AIR SERVICE (later 1 SAS, 21 SAS, 22 SAS & GREEN HOWARDS), as desert driver/navigator with Lt to Lt Col David STIRLING on first SMALL SCALE raids, parallel with Paddy MAYNE’S 15 minute destruction of 20…
…MA CEng FICE CORPS of ROYAL ENGINEERS: served in 1 Section 23 FIELD COMPANY R.E., in 1 TROOP 6 COMMANDO, and took part in the early, successful COMBINED OPERATIONS RAID on VAAGSO & Maaloy in NORWAY 27 Dec 1941 (after Blenheims bombed the nearby German airfield at Herdla) wrecking oil…
…ROYAL AIR FORCE’s MARINE CRAFT and AIR SEA RESCUE SERVICE which saved many Allied lives during its wartime service including D-Day, the morale effect of SAVING DITCHED AIRCREW returning from raids was considerable; to quote two of Geoffrey’s many sea rescues:- he saved Co-Pilot, 2nd Lt T H DAVIS &…
…Reserve US Naval operations in the Pacific, in particular for the key raids on RABAUL which had become the biggest Japanese base in New Guinea. The Australians tried to restrict its development because of its closeness to the important Imperial Japanes Navy base taken and developed at Truk, where the…
…fellow pilots took off from Argus and landed at Vaenga. Additional Hurricanes were shipped in crates and assembled on arrival in Russia. The primary role of the Hurricane pilots was to escort Soviet bombers on raids over Finnmark in north-eastern Norway and also to defend the Russian airfields. On October…
…Britain by the Regia Aeronautica Italiana. Many Italians were inspired by their very distinctive genre of “aeropittura”. In January of 1941 he was promoted to Flight Commander and transferred to 41 Squadron, where he took place in sorties and bomber escort over France. During one of these bomber raids on…
…Squadron, flying out of Tangmere. On October 10 he probably shot down a Bf 109 before heading to Gravesend to join a reconnaissance flight whose job was to fly over the English Channel looking for incoming German raids. Flying a Spitfire, he shared in the destruction of a bomber and…
…with GLENGYLE full of explosives 18/19Dec 1941 at nearby ALEXANDRIA jetty, the QUEEN ELIZABETH and VALIANT being sunk onto the mud after Italian 2 man torpedo attacks; on to re-supply and unload at MALTA into the caves in incessant raids and another near escape; back to Spithead without real leave,…
…PACIFIC. Representing the role of SEAFIRES in the PACIFIC FLEET on RAMRODS, COMBAT AIR PATROLS above the fleet, and on those FINAL STRIKES on JAPAN, off IMPLACABLE, such as his own. Strafing CHOSHI and the RAIDS on TOKUSHIMA, MINATO, SUSUKA and MATSUSHIMA (Bar to DSC) . Mike recalls also the…
…of Honour. “Above Us the Waves is a 1955 British war film about human torpedo and midget submarine attacks in Norwegian fjords against the German battleship Tirpitz. Directed by Ralph Thomas. A Royal Navy commander sets out to win his admiral’s confidence by launching secret midget submarine raids on the…
…with No 83 Group. First he led the Spitfire wing at Harrowbeer in Devon and then a Mustang wing at Bentwater in Suffolk. He shot down his last enemy aircraft (a much-advanced model of the Me 109 which had set his Hurricane on fire in 1940) while escorting daylight raids…
…wing for the city. As enemy raids increased Carey turned the Red Road, the main thoroughfare across the city, into a fighter runway. “One advantage,” he recalled, “was that it was quite possible to sit in Firpo’s, the city’s fashionable restaurant, and take off within three to four minutes. I…
…Battle of Britain, 1940: convoy patrols; German tactics and increasing intensity of air raids; importance of preservation of RAF reserve and radar; German Air Force raid on RAF Hornchurch, 31/7/1940; shortage of and inexperienced pilots; tactics employed by squadron; sight of large German Air Force formations; estimates of Messerschmitt Me…
…rocket development work going on there. Her collection and forwarding of this intelligence under very difficult circumstances led, through Jones’ analysis and persuasive abilities in London, to British raids on Peenemünde…as RV Jones put it: “AMNIARIX’s reports stand brilliantly in the history of intelligence, and three concentration camps — Ravensbruck,…
…from their farm raids, and took a fortnightly bath at the camp’s bathhouse. It was a long way from the comfortable middle-class upbringing he had enjoyed, with his parents and a sister in the eastern Polish – now Byelorussian – town of Novogrudek. His father and uncle ran a successful…
…five JU88s, which were bombing St Ival airfield, and after a series of operations and lucky escapes Peter was eventually posted to 7 Squadron of Stirlings based at RAF Oakington in March 1941. There were raids on targets including Essen and Bremen until he was then posted to 26 flight…
…gilded the lily once too often and Churchill good-naturedly returned the paper with the comment “No trench raids please!” Throughout the war he retained contact with his firm and had copies of their cables sent to him. However during the time he was away there were many changes and in…