FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1941
1941 - 2366.PDF
FLIGHT OCTOBER BOMBER COMMAND Air Ministry Record of Britain's Mam Air Striking Force: A Story of Courage and Efficiency the Drama of which is Enhanced by the Simple Manner of its Telling •' yt? t4,t*m > iff* T -> Apjxmdi* OPERATIONS RECORD BOOK. R.A.F. KOR« . hn> - DETAIL OF WORK CARRIED OUT. By \'O'\ ->-•>,- - ... No. of p»g« umi for day Ainxaft ' Tvpc»od No. Oew. I>utv. Time Tims Up. | Down. Kemariffl. k.;o. THE FIRST RECORD A facsimile of the first operation of the war. A reconnaissance flight over Wilhelmshaven by a Mk. IVBlenheim of No. 139 Squadron. ON the R.A.F. aerodrome at Wyton, on the morningof Sunday, Sept. 3rd, 1939, a Blenheim of BomberCommand was waiting to take off. Three men were standing by—the pilot, F/O. McPherson, the observer, Cdr. Thompson, who was a naval officer, and Cpl. Arrow- smith, air-gunner. They had been waiting since Sept. 1st, the day on which the Germans launched their attack on Poland. A minute after noon the Blenheim was air-borne, and two hours later its crew were photographing units of the German Fleet, then on its way out of Wilhelmshaven. Weather was such that, flying at 24,000ft., the Blenheim's wireless set froze, so it was not until 4.50 in the afternoon, when the aircraft re- turned, that Bomber Command and the Admiralty became aware of the nature and position of the war's first target. That evening an entry appeared in the log-book of No. 139 Squadron: "Duty successful. 75 photos taken of German Fleet. The first R.A.F. aircraft to cross the German frontier." The next day, after a further reconnaissance, 29 Blen- heims and Wellingtons carried out the now famous first attack on Brunsbiittel and Kiel—the war had begun! It is in such simple, straightforward language as this that Bomber Command, the Air Ministry's account of the activi- ties of our main aerial striking force, is written. It covers, in 128 pages, which include some admirable photographs, the offensive of Bomber Command against the Axis from the first day of the war until July of this year and, in doing so, it goes much farther than its excellent predecessor, The Buttle of Britain, which dealt with one phase only—albeit a supremely glorious one—of Fighter Command's share in the present conflict. Anonymous Author No author's name appears on the cover of Bomber Com- mand, either, but the magnificent simplicity of the writing is significantly similar to that of The Battle 0 Britain, from which one is invited-to make the obvious assumption. It begins its story with the declaration of war and that first Blenheim's flight, goes on to give an instructive resume of the general policy underlying the constitution of Bomber Command, and to describe something of the training and duties of the men composing it, their life in the Service, and a word or two about the machines they fly. "This record," it says, "is, for the i~>ost part, the story of the Battles, the Blenheims and the Hampdens, the Wel- lingtons and the Whitleys. Our larger and more modern aircraft, the Stirlings, the Manchesters, the Halifaxes, tie Flying Fortresses and the rest, enter it only at the end. Tt has been the aircraft constructed before the war that have up till now been the chief instruments of the attack 6ft Germany. In these aircraft the men of Bomber Command have flown some 24,000,000 miles during the period under BROKEN BRIDGES : An air view of the Meuse bridges atMaastricht. The first two air V.C.s of this war were awarded to the crew of a Fairey Battle who bombed a vital bridgeover the Albert Canal to the west of the Meuse.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
