Expanded Notes on Pages 45&46

16 Ops to Hamburg
Middlebrook : "this attack was intended for the shipyard areas but partial cloud caused the raid to become dispersed. Some damage was probably caused to the shipyards but, as an American raid on the yards had taken place a few  hours earlier, the damage seen in photographs could not be allocated between the two forces. Other areas of Hamburg, particularly the Altona district, were badly damaged ...
    3 Lancasters lost out of 160 =2%
    bomb load  1 x 4000 HC
                       9 x  500 MC
                       6 x  250 GP
    total              10000
   
    "Bags of Lights" Hamburg was the largest and one of the best defended cities Joe ever attacked. Spotlights were     plentiful and several fighter bases were nearby.

Search lights (Peden , p390) "...about twenty minutes from the target
we began to approach an outlying belt of searchlights which stood before us on either side of our intended track in two great cones. I hated and feared these baleful blinding lights more than anything else the Germans used against us. While in themselves they seldom caused death - although there were reported cases of pilots, particularly at low level, apparently becoming completely disoriented by their glaring beams, and diving into the earth - they were all to often the harbinger of death. A pilot trapped in a large cone had little chance of escape. For long seconds on end the dazzling glare would render him helpless, spotlighting him as the target and making it almost impossible to see his instruments and maintain any sense of equilibrium. Meanwhile the searchlights' accomplices, the heavy guns, would hurl up shells in streams, and all too frequently the aircraft would explode or begin a crazy, smoking dive to the ground.

    "Fighter Flares" were flares on small parachutes dropped by German fighter to illuminate the sky and make it easier to spot the bombers
       When German fighters were known to be in the air over a target city, the Anti-Aircraft gunners would hold their fire to avoid hitting their own airplanes. This might explain why there were "Bags of Lights" but only "Mod Flak".

    -diverted again
Group 6 Daily Operations Report

 17th Ops to Schwandorf  "Longest trip yet" 9 hours and 5 minutes round trip
    "1228E" probably indicates 12 degrees 28 minutes East Longitude. In the Times Atlas, Schwandorf is listed as E 12 degrees 9 minutes but this is probably the town  itself rather than the railway marshalling yards at which the raid was directed.
    Dunmore&Carter , p360:"On the sixeenth, Group 6 (RCAF) bombers made up the majority of the 167 aircraft attacking the marshalling yards at Schwandorf. Conditions were excellent and the bombing accurate, virtually demolishing the yards, effectively disrupting German military traffic through this major junction north of Regensburg."
    1 lancaster lost out of 167  =>1%
    bomb load  1 x 4000
                     11 x  500
    total                 9500  
Group 6 Daily Operations Report