Quote:
Originally Posted by Leendert
Andreas,
As far as I could find, then 90 Squadron sent four Fortresses to Egypt.
A fifth one had engine problems and stayed in England (AN527).
Of the four Fortresses two were lost: AN529 on 8 Nov 41 (forced landing)and AN521 on 10 Jan 1942 (engine fire).
The other two (AN518 and AN532) survived their Mideast adventure.
Regards,
Leendert
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Coming back to this after a while. Further looks into various papers have confirmed that there were four sent (via Malta, in groups of 3 and 1), and that they were used for high-level daylight raids on Tripoli. Apparently there was strong counsel against this, but Tedder wanted to have them in any case. In the end the effort was probably not worth it. There's a bit in Tedder's papers on it.
The forced landing in the desert on 8 November ended well for the crew, they were rescued. They burned the plane to prevent it from falling in Axis hands. Does anyone know how the other Fortress was lost?
All the best
Andreas