19 July 1944 9AF A-20 bomb mission to bridges SW Angers, France

[BABIN]

Hello SteveR,

I live close to Angers and... 20 years ago, I investigated about the bombings from which the La Possonnière bridge suffered. Unfortunately I'm not at home at the moment and I didn't take my papers archives files with me.

Nevertheless, here is what I remember :

- La Possonnière bridge was (it still is...) a very big and very strong railway bridge over the Loire river, located about 10 km SW of Angers
- it was bombed about 7 or 8 times by Allied Air Forces in spring and summer 1944
- the bombing dated 19th of July 1944 by 397 BG was the last : the "coup de grâce", making it permanently unusable.
- the bridge wasn't protected by Flak batteries

Concerning the bombing of the "Les Ponts de Cé bridge" dated 19th July 1944, I have much more information (I wrote a book about this bridge). If you are interested, I can e-mail you the page(s) about the 19th July bombing (I have the manuscript of the book on my computer).


Pierre