Losses German Bight 18.12.1939

[MW Giles]

Marius

You need to read Holmes' book, but a partial answer to your question is the route taken by the formation, it crossed the North Sea roughly on latitude 55 deg N and at 55N 08E it turned roughly south ending up W of Nordholz before turning west towards Wilhelmshaven. Off Wilhelmshaven it turned North (effectively doing a large U turn) and once clear of Wangerooge 37 Sqn went WSW along the chain of islands, 149 and 9 carried on roughly NW until the reached a point N of Heligoland where they too turned roughly SW for home.

Therefore a fair amount of time spent loitering off the NW coast of Germany. Still does not account for the bad time reporting but partially explains the situation

Still only one RAF attack

Regards

Martin