Operation
Thirty-eight Lancasters left Lossiemouth on 11 September 1944. One was forced to return to Britain. After 11 hours in the air, they arrived at Yagodnik to find it covered in 10/10ths cloud at 300 to 500 feet and driving rain, and thirteen Lancasters failed to find the airfield. However the Russians soon located them and all the crews were recovered, although two of 617's aircraft and four of 9 Squadron could not be retrieved from the marshes.
Rain set in and the crews were grounded. On the morning of the 15 September, the weather plane reported that the skies were clear over the Altafjord, and twenty-eight Lancasters set off over the White Sea. Twenty carried 5 ton Tallboy bombs, seven carried 400-500 lb "Johnny Walker" mines designed for use against ships in shallow water, and one was fitted for photo-reconnaissance.
However as the Altafjord came into sight, the smokescreen was turned on. Only Tait in the leading aircraft caught a glimpse of the masts as they disappeared under the smoke, and his bomb-aimer Danny Daniels had to release the bomb by guesswork. Howard, Freddie Watts and Sanders aimed at gun flashes in the smoke, Kell and Knilans bombed on the spot the Tirpitz was last seen; the others bombed by flying beneath the smoke screen and using the intense light flak from the ship as a guide. A number of aircraft did not bomb including two IX squadron aircraft whose Tallboy bombs 'hung up'. Of these P.O. Scott and his crew, veterans of twenty nine previous raids attempted no less than four runs on the target, before heading back to base. P.O. Scott's Tallboy later fell through the closed bomb doors of his aircraft shortly before landing. When the crews had landed, Woods, one of the bomb aimers, said that he had seen Daniels' bomb hit the ship, but no one believed him.
The crews that still had their bombs wanted to have another go, but the weather broke again and they returned home. Levy's aircraft never arrived at Lossiemouth; it is thought he flew into the mountains somewhere in Norway. Eleven men died, including four of Wyness' crew.
Read more about this topic: Operation Paravane
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)