july 1943, Lancasters over north italy

[Laurent Rizzotti]

According to the "Bomber Command war Diaries" by Midddlebrook, the second raid was not on the night of 17-18th, but on the night of 16-17th:

Quote:
"18 Lancasters of 5 Group attempted raids on two more trnasformer stations in Northern Italy. 7 aircraft bombed the Cislago station accurately but the second target was not located and an alternative target was bombed instead. 1 Lancaster lost.

On the night of 17-18, BC only flew four OTU sorties over France.

Now the losses:
On 15-16th: 3 losses/24 bombers
Lancaster III JA679 of 9 Sqn lost over Italy (1 KIA, 6 POW)
Lancaster III DV167 of 50 Sqn lost over Italy (7 KIA)
Lancaster III EE190 of 61 Sqn wrecked while trying to land in Blida, ALgeria (crew OK)

On 16-17th: 2 losses/18 bombers
Lancaster III DV183 of 207 Sqn lost over Italy (6 KIA, 1 POW)
Lancaster III ED538 of 467 Sqn crashed and burned on a North African base (crew unhurt)

Note: losses are higher than the figures of the BC War Diaries, because the latter only considered missing aircraft, not the one wrecked in friendly tereitory.

The interesting part being that these bombers apparently also landed in North Africa.

And then the return, on the night of 24th-25th:
Quote from BC War Diaries: "33 Lancaster of 5 Group returning from North Africa bombed Leghorn docks but the target was covered by haze and bombing was scattered. No aircraft lost"

To have 33 bombers for returning, you have to combine both raids (well, actually according to the above, 37 Lancaster should have been in North Africa).

Hope this helps