MINOR OPERATIONS
43 aircraft minelaying from Lorient to the Frisian Islands, 14 aircraft on leaflet flights to France. 1 Halifax lost on the leaflet operation.
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TURIN
77 aircraft dispatched. Many fires were started in the city-centre area. Hits were also achieved on the Fiat motor factory. Turin records show that 42 people were killed and 72 injured.
No aircraft were lost but the 35 Squadron Halifax of Squadron Leader B. V. Robinson returned with only the pilot aboard. The load of flares in the aircraft had ignited and it appeared that the aircraft would crash. Robinson ordered his crew to bale out but, after they had done so, the rush of air from an escape hatch blew the fire out and the pilot was able to reach an airfield in England safely. The parachuting crew members would account for the claim of 1 aircraft shot down in the Turin records. (Later in the war, as Group Captain Robinson, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, A.F.C., this officer was killed when his Halifax was shot down during a raid on Berlin on the
