A very long shot: Vernon on 12 June 1940

[Laurent Rizzotti]

On 12 June 1940, the German Pioner Abteilung 88 was in Vernon, building pontoons over the Seine, but suffered in two Allied air attacks.

My (German) source says:

"On afternoon one lonely french plane knocked the bridge with one direct impact, four pontoons were sunk and 25 meters of bridge were destroyed, also six pioniers were killed. The bridge was repaired in four hours. During the night another isolated hostile plane dropped several bombs over one engineer platoon killling 5 and wounded 30 pioniers."

So my question is: can anybody identify Allied aircraft operating in the area, especially a crew/unit claiming the destruction of a bridge ? Despite what the German said, it could fairly well be a RAF bomber rather than a French one.

Thanks in advance

Laurent

[Peter Cornwell]

Hello Laurent,

The RAF Narrative of the Campaign in France confirms that at dawn on 12 June 1940 'nine AASF Battles were despatched against a reported pontoon bridge at Verzillon(sic), just south of Les Andelys'. They failed to find the target. Later, around '1515 hours 12 AASF Battles attacked ...' (Franks identifies the units involved as Nos. 88 and 103 Squadrons) '... Le Manoir railway bridge ... found to be under repair; it was hit, the working party was scattered ... Shortly afterwards (1550 hours) 12 more Battles were supposed to attack a pontoon bridge again reported at Vezillon' but five aircraft failed to locate the target due to poor visibility.

These may be among the attacks described by your source. Hope it helps.

Regards.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Thanks Peter

The source you wrote about seems to be interesting. I guess it is an official RAF document ?

[Peter Cornwell]

Hello Laurent,

Yes it is, but there should be a copy available for reference here in the NA(PRO) at Kew. Both Brian Cull and Norman Franks made use of it in their respective works.

Regards.