[Carsten Petersen]

I bought Jane Gulliford Lowes book ‘The Invisible Campaign – Bomber Command Gardening Operaitons 1940-1945’ a few days ago. The foreword claims that Lowes did an extensive research that is overlooked by historians.


I wish that Lowes would have done a bit more research of her own. It looks as if the research consist of a few visits to National Archives in Kew. Most of the information comes from AIR 14, AIR 41 and Air 47 and contains conclusions made by British staff officers, that finished their research during the war. These officers did unfortunately not have access to the information, that we have today.


Lets look at a few ‘claims’. Lowes describes on page 231 a mine laying operation on the 14th of February 1945. She writes ‘on a minelaying operation over Kiel Bay, just of Stettin’. Well, that is like writing ‘Hull just off London’.


She uses information from Andy Andrews, who was shot down over Sjælland. There is nothing wrong with his part of the story, but Lowes gives no information why Andrews Halifax was shot down. She would be able to find this information within 10 seconds, if she wanted. Instead she makes a number of conclusions about what happened next, that is far from the truth. She also claims that Andrews ended up in a prison camp only a few miles from Dachau and that the smell from the chimneys was appalling. Well, Andrews was sent to Obersursel for questioning and from there to Stalag XIID, which was near Nürnberg. It would be very difficult to smell Dachau from Nürnberg. Andrews spent the last weeks of the war at Stalag VIIA Moosburg which is about 45 km from Dachau (and where the wind normally blows the opposite way).


Lowes tells on page 178 about a mine laying operation in the evening of 12/13 of May, 1944 where Mosquitoes were mining the Kiel Canal (Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal). One Mosquito did not return from the operation (Mosquito IV DZ638 from No. 692 Squadron). She claims that the Mosquito was shot down by a German night fighter and crashed near Eggstedt. It is very easy to find information about this incident and DZ638 was not shot down by a night fighter but by fire at 04.09 from Marine Flak Abt 274 (1., 4. And 5. Zug) and Marine Flak Abt 254 (1st and 2nd Zug).


Lowes claims that the Mosquito crew (P/O Burnett and P/O Hume) survived the crash and was executed afterwards by local nazi party officials. The truth is that P/O Burnett disappeared in the canal and is never found. P/O Hume was found dead floating in the canal with a head wound and a broken leg. He was buried in Neumünster and his grave was later moved to Hamburg. They were both killed during the crash and the Mosquito was completely broken up.


Lowes uses information from MEW that ‘the enemy losty three million cubic tons of citally important carto which had been stuck in a logjam on the canal and which then failed to arrive at its onward destination in time or at all’. This is a wild fantacy and it would have been nice if Lowes used some time to research the German naval KTB (Kriegstagebücher), which gives a very different picture.


Page 142 – 146 deals with a mining operations on the 28/29 April 1943 in the Baltic. Bomber Command lost 10.18% of the participating airplanes and Lowes uses de Mowbray’s report which Bomber Command ordered after the raid. De Mowbray did not have all the information about the mission (is was made shortly after the mission) and contains a lot of guessing and errors. It would have been nice if Lowes had used information from Theo Boitens Nachtjagd or Søren Flensteds Airwar over Denmark.


I hope that somebody some day will write the ‘real’ book about BC Gardening.