OPERATION EXODUS
Bomber Command Lancasters now started flying to Brussels, and later to other airfields, to collect British prisoners of war recently liberated from their camps. 469 flights were made by aircraft of 1, 5, 6 and 8 Groups before the war ended and approximately 75,000 men were brought back to England by the fastest possible means (unlike the end of the First World War when some British ex-prisoners were still not home by Christmas, although the Armistice was signed on
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OPERATION MANNA
A large pocket in Western Holland was still in German hands and the population was approaching starvation; many old or sick people had already died. A truce was arranged with the local German commander and Lancasters of 1, 3 and 8 Groups started to drop food supplies for the civilian population. Pathfinder Mosquitoes 'marked' the dropping zones. 2,835 Lancaster and 124 Mosquito flights were made before the Germans surrendered at the end of the war and allowed ships and road transport to enter the area. Bomber Command delivered 6,672 tons of food during Operation Manna. (These flights are not included in statistical surveys.)
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(127 days/nights)
Number of nights with operations: 100
Number of days with operations: 81
Number of night sorties: 44,289, from which 611 aircraft (1.4 percent) were lost
Number of day sorties: 18,545, from which 100 aircraft (0.5 percent) were lost
Total sorties: 62,824, from which 711 aircraft (1.1 percent) were lost
Approximate bomb tonnage in period: 181,740 tons
Average per 24-hour period: 494.6 sorties, 5.6 aircraft lost, 1,431.0 tons of bombs dropped
Vol. III, pp. 81-94.
Acknowledgement is made to MM. Robert Colle, Curator of the Royan Museum, and Pierre Lis, Mayor of Royan in 1982, for their research.
Charles de Gaulle, Mmoires de Guerre, Plon Presse, 1959, Vol. III, p. 159.
Vol. IV, pp. 112-13.
Quoted from page 9 of a diary provided by the Pforzheim Stadtarchiv.
Official History, Vol. III, p. 264.
OPERATIONAL STATISTICS
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(2,074 days/nights)
(These statistics have been compiled by first totalling the operational statistics printed at the end of each period of the diaries and then adding 2,654 sorties and 73 aircraft lost on Resistance Operations between
