Vitry-le-François bombing 1944-6-27; search for information

[Jeantiloup77]

I make this post just to remind you that I am still in search of any additional information about the Vitry-le-François bombing of the 27-6-1944.
Just let me summarize the story. Vitry, in the East of France, has a railway station were traffic is passing to and from Germany and therefore was eligible to be bombed to prevent reinforcement of German troops in Normandy. The town center plan is perfectly square and the station is in the South suburbs, 800 meters off the town. People living in this area were aware of the risk of bombing and were leaving every evening to sleep by relatives the other side of the town, in the North suburbs. On the night of the 27th to the 28th, the railway station was bombed by a raid of the RAF (Groups 1 and 5 ) ‘Lancasters and Mosquitos. It was a disaster leaving 250 casualties (my mother and her family was below) and the town was destroyed. The Resistance draw a map of the bombs’ impacts that clearly shows one first group of bomb of the North side suburbs, a second group of bombs on the railways station on the South side and, in between in the town, many bombs impacts paths oriented SW to N-E which was the direction of the attack. Making such a slaughter was not in the current practice of the RAF. So there must have been something going wrong. >From testimony of ground witnesses and from the ORBs, the weather was ideal for a bombing. My researches in the ORBS show that the raid has never been disturbed by the Luftwaffe. The few lost bombers were apparently the ones that chose a direct flight back to UK instead of the path South of Paris as prescribed by the orders.
The 627 sqn Mosquito’s reports do not show any specific remarks and I am sure from my grandfather’s testimony that they flew at low altitude to mark the targets. From ground testimony too, it seems that a first set of red TIs were first dropped down on the North suburb (the opposite of the railway station) then, a few moment later on the South side (the railway station). Several Lanc report missions highlight red spot fire North of the town. To my mind, when the 1st wave of Lancasters came, they either chose one set of TIs or the other or they bombed in between. In the middle of the 2nd wave, the Lancs were instructed to stop bombing and circle over the target by the master bomber. Then the bombing was aborted ( the master bomber realized that something was turning wrong) and the order was given to fly back to UK (according to the order the same way they came over ie south of Paris and over Normandy, far away from German homeland defense airfields). Before leaving, according to the procedure, some Lancs jettisoned their bombs in the country side, which explains some impacts outside of the town.
Some particularities of this mission: one Wing Commander was part of one crew, but was apparently not the master bomber. The radio traffic with UK was recorded with one of the 2 first wire magnetic recorders coming from USA.
Lancaster 9th and 106 sqn were part of this raid, Mosquito 627 sqn as well. I could not identify any other squadrons and especially the master bomber’s one. His report is expectedly the key to understand the reason of the apparent double marking.
My expectation is that I will get enough information from you to identify every squadron bombing that night to build a new search plan, I will then to come back to Kew to complete the story and find out the root cause of this mistake.
One more word: from people of this generation, I have never heard a word or a complaint against the allies concerning this issue and collateral damages.

[MW Giles]

Cannot comment about some of what you ask but I can list the squadrons

Lancasters
54 Base 1/1 bombed (Master of Ceremonies)
9 Sqn 6/12 bombed 5 ordered not to bomb by MC
50 Sqn 11/15 bombed 4 ordered not to bomb by MC
61 Sqn 16/19 bombed 2 ordered not to bomb by MC
83 Sqn 7/9 bombed
101 Sqn 7/9 bombed
106 Sqn 11/16 bombed 3 ordered not to bomb by MC, 2 did not return
463 Sqn 14/15 bombed
467 Sqn 11/16 bombed 4 ordered not to bomb by MC

Mosquitos
627 Sqn 4/4 bombed

Regards

Martin

[jeanba]

Originally Posted by Jeantiloup77

I
One more word: from people of this generation, I have never heard a word or a complaint against the allies concerning this issue and collateral damages.

Juts to add that I read the same thing about neighbours of Trappes railway station (mentionnent in Closterman's big show), which was heavily bombed as part of the "Transportation Plan"

[Jeantiloup77]

Originally Posted by MW Giles

Cannot comment about some of what you ask but I can list the squadrons

Lancasters
54 Base 1/1 bombed (Master of Ceremonies)
9 Sqn 6/12 bombed 5 ordered not to bomb by MC
50 Sqn 11/15 bombed 4 ordered not to bomb by MC
61 Sqn 16/19 bombed 2 ordered not to bomb by MC
83 Sqn 7/9 bombed
101 Sqn 7/9 bombed
106 Sqn 11/16 bombed 3 ordered not to bomb by MC, 2 did not return
463 Sqn 14/15 bombed
467 Sqn 11/16 bombed 4 ordered not to bomb by MC

Mosquitos
627 Sqn 4/4 bombed

Regards

Martin

Excellent Martin,
The full list of the attacking squadron was exactly what I was searching for.
One more question if you don't mind: I the list, the MC's A/C is affected to a base and not to a squadron, was it the rule at that time ? How to identify the serial of this A/C?

Many thanks