He flew with a Bristol Blenheim (type IV, serial V6421, code RH-Y).
October
The month did not start promisingly with only small-scale operations possible by day or night and then, between the 5th and 10th, no operations at all because of poor weather. It wasn't until the night of the 12/13th that any real activity was recorded. That night, 373 aircraft (a new highest total) were involved in operations - 152 to Nuremberg, 99 to Bremen, 90 to Hüls with 32 on minor operations such as minelaying. The Nuremberg raid highlights the problems of navigating by dead reckoning with a changeable wind as bombs were reported from Stuttgart, 95 miles west of the target and Lauingen 65 miles away. The crews sent to the other main targets were only marginally more successful. Two nights later, 80 aircraft returned to Nuremberg but again encountered very bad weather and only 14 aircraft claimed to have hit the intended target. The weather continued to interfere with Bomber Command's activities and it wasn't until the night of the 20th/21st, when 284 aircraft were in action, that any sizeable number of missions was flown. On that night, Bremen was raided by 153 aircraft, Wilhelmshaven by 47 aircraft, Emden by 36 and Antwerp by 35 (none of which attacked because of complete cloud cover). The remaining sorties were Gardening and Nickelling. The daylight Channel Stop operations involving the Blenheims were becoming less productive and losses were increasing and these missions finally ended in early November. The operations, it was believed, had accounted for 101 ships sunk or seriously damaged (it was, in fact, only 29) with 139 aircraft lost.
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