As the Lancaster thread seems to be going off course a bit I thought I'd start one for 'Pathfinders'. I came across the following which lets us into some of the technicalities of raid planning, in this case for ESSEN, 5/6 March, 1943. MOST SECRET - NIGHT RAID REPORT No 284 (.....) 3. Zero Hour .......... 2100 hours. Route briefed : Egmond - Dorsten - ESSEN - Haltern - Egmond. This attack was to be led by 8 Mosquitoes, fitted with Oboe, and 22 other Pathfinders to act as backers-up. All PFF aircraft were to drop yellow TIs on track 15 miles short of target to guide the main force. The Mosquitoes, using their special equipment, were to mark the aiming point with salvoes of red TIs at the following times :- 1 at zero 1 at zero + 3 1 at zero + 10 1 at zero + 13 1 at zero + 20 1 at zero + 23 1 at zero + 30 1 at zero + 33 The backers-up were to attack at intervals of 1 to 2 minutes between zero + 20 and zero + 38, aiming green TIs and HE in salvoes at the red TIs, with a delay of 1 second before releasing the incendiaries. The Main Force, consisting of approximately 6 Pathfinders and 417 aircraft of other Groups, was to attack in 3 sections, viz: Section 1 . Halifaxes.......( zero +2 ) to ( zero + 20 ) Section 2 . Wellingtons and Stirlings..... ( zero + 15 ) to ( zero + 25 ) Section 3 . Lancasters....... ( zero + 20 ) to ( zero + 40 ) All Main Force crews were warned that the method of placing red TI markers was a new and very accurate one, and were instructed to aim at these with maximum precision. If these could not be seen, they were to bomb on the green TI markers. No Main Force aircraft were to bomb anything but TIs before zero + 15. (.....) Defences. (.....) No of aircraft missing .... 14 ( 3.2 percent ) Although fighters are known to have been operating en route, no aircraft were seen to be shot down before reaching the Ruhr. In the target area, 7 aircraft were probably destroyed, 4 at least of which may be credited to heavy flak, co-operating with searchlight cones. During the return journey, there were numerous observations which would account for the remaining 7 losses. 5 of these were probably destroyed by fighters, near Bocholt, Zutphen, Soesterberg, Zwolle and Den Helder. It therefore seems likely that 4 aircraft were lost to flak, 5 to fighters and 5 to 'causes unknown'. ' This facsimile copy of Bomber Command Report On Night Operations is reprinted in ' The Great Raids - Essen ' by Air Commodore John Searby, DSO DFC. Note for Erich Brown - the whole report makes engrossing reading ; I guess the whole set must be kept at the P.R.O. in London. Wish I could get at the one for your Chemnitz query...
Found something, maybe helpful: http://www.cantech.net.au/~scotlath/history.htm In a normal raid, over 300 white flares on parachutes illuminated the area, followed by the coloured ground target indicators.The position of these markers was then checked ready for the final instructions to be given to the bomb aimers by the master bomber. All illuminating and target-marking had to be carried out in six minutes, for the bomber formations were timed to arrive at the end of that period, ready for the attack lasting exactly three minutes.For the pathfinders to be thirty seconds late in their task was considered a poor effort. When the early raids using pathfinder technique failed tocome up to expectations, the force persevered. By the end of the war, main bomber force operational losses, due to forced landings or crashes as a result of navigational errors, dropped to negligible figures. What all kinds of planes did they use for pathfinding, actually?
Sorry, if this was somewhere earlier: http://home.freeuk.com/stigsccf/pathfinder.html In the beginning… On the night of 18/19 August 1942, 118 Bomber Command aircraft attacked Flensberg, in northern Germany. In the lead were 31 bombers - Sterlings, Halifaxes, Lancasters and Wellingtons - from No. 7, 35, 83 and 156 squadrons of the Pathfinder Force. For the first time the target was to be marked by Pathfinders, for these were then just four squadrons to operate with the newly formed force. The airfields from which they had come were Oakington, Gravely, Wyton and Warboys. The target marking was a dismal failure that night - to the delight the new force's many, and influential, enemies in high places in Bomber Command. Undaunted, its redoubtable young Australian commander, Group Captain (later Air Vice Marshal) Donald Bennett, was to mould the PFF into a force that led the way in bringing Bomber Command into the electronic age, and in developing target-marking techniques that enabled the PFF to literally light the way for Bomber Command to achieve the accuracy and concentration that had previously eluded it. By the end of 1941, the Air staff was confronting a chilling truth. After two years of devoted courage and bloody sacrifice, Bomber Command remained as it had been in 1939, when as the "Official History" bluntly states "[It] was not trained or equipped either to penetrate into enemy territory by day, or to find its target areas, let alone its targets, by night" Between January and June 1941, 31,500 tons of bombs had been dropped by night on Germany in pursuit of the RAF's claim that Germany could be knocked out of the war by a strategic bombing campaign. A report in August 1941 by D. M. Butt of the War Cabinet secretariat gave an alarming picture, not of accuracy and concentration, but of bombs scattered broadcast over the German countryside. His analysis of aiming point photographs from 100 raids showed that of crews claiming to have hit the target, only 1/3 had in reality reached the target area. As the target area was a radius of five miles this gives a land area of 75 square miles. And only the most experience crews carried cameras in 1941! Even Berlin could be missed: on 7/8 November 1941, 169 bombers attacked the City - and rendered a total of 398 Berliners homeless. 1942 brought little improvement. Between March and June bomber Command sought to wreck the heart of Germany's armaments industry in a sustained campaign against Essen. Result: no real damage to Krupps industrial complex - indeed over 90% of the attacking aircraft dropped their bombs between five and 100 miles of Essen. In sum, Bomber Command at night was mostly lost. Furthermore, the army and Navy were being presented with telling evidence to support their demands that resources of men and material should be diverted from wasteful heavy bomber production into anti-submarine operations and a tactical bombing campaign. At stake was not simply the survival of strategic bombing, but the continued existence of an independent Air Force. Fortunately for Bomber Command’s future, in November 1941 Group Captain S.O. Bufton was appointed Deputy Director of Bombing Operations. Not only had he considerable first hand experience of bombing operations, but he knew well and listened to operational squadron and station commanders. From his experience and the views of operating aircrews, he concluded that what was needed was a specialist Target Finding Force (something that the Germans had pioneered with Kampfgruppe 100 in 1940). He therefore proposed that a force of 6 squadrons be established, containing crews of the finest navigational abilities selected from all squadrons of Bomber Command to act as Target Finders for the main force. Bufton needed all his great courage and determination to see his ideas come to fruition, for his proposals were rejected out of hand in November 1941, and again in March 1942 by the then newly appointed C-in-C of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris. Harris and his Group Commanders were of one mind in resisting anything that smacked of creating an elite force. [There are very sound arguments from military history, Air Force tradition, and the impact on the morale of the existing Bomber Command squadrons, to support opposition to the idea of elite formations.] They did not argue that nothing needed to be done, but that it should be done by each group developing its own expert squadrons, which had already begun. Events were, however, on Bufton's side. Aware of the growing influence of the Army and Navy lobby in political circles, the Air Staff under the CAS, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, recognised that bomber command must be seen to be taking radical measures to deal with its crisis as a matter of urgency. They turned to Bufton's proposal to provide the remedy. In June 1942 Portal overruled Harris and his Group Commanders, and ordered the establishment of the Target of Finding Force. Once over-ruled, Harris did the new force the best possible turn by appointing Group Captain D. Bennett to its command. Bennett was an outstanding and gifted leader in a situation where the highest standards (he was himself a uniquely brilliant pilot and navigator) and a ruthless determination were required. Harris was not, however, completely cowed, he insisted that the new force be called Pathfinder Force, rather than Target Finding Force. Furthermore, Groups were instructed to send entire squadrons rather than the picked leaders that Bufton had envisaged. Bennett was to be equal to this; demanding excellence he was ruthless in weeding out any aircrew who failed to meet his exacting standards. Though it was born in controversy - and indeed was never to be loved by No. 5 Group - the force grew from the small beginning of four squadrons in August 1942, to a mature force as No. 8 Group, Bomber Command. By the wars end it operated from 11 stations with 19 squadrons, 8 equipped with four engine Lancasters, and 11 with Mosquitoes.
After the Luftwaffe first used a specially trained force (Kampfgruppe 100) to mark and illuminate Coventry with incendiary bombs, to help guide other German bombers on to the city, the British developed a similar method called the shaker technique to aid RAF Bomber Command during its Strategic air offensive against Germany. http://www.valourandhorror.com/BC/Tactics/Pthfnder.htm To keep the British bomber-stream compact and flying accurately Pathfinders were also used to mark the route, and a senior Pathfinder pilot, called a Master Bomber or Master of Ceremonies, would fly above the target to broadcast advice to the main force.
Just to correct a dead URL shown above for my Fathers information on his pathfinder ops. A pilot from Perth Western Australia details his World War II RAF pathfinder experiences in Italy and Australia; includes pictures and military aircraft photos. URL: http://www.writerspen.com.au/history.htm
A report commisioned by the Luftwaffe in 1944 and published in Mahaddies Book is probably the best description of Pathfinder methods that I have come across to date: 156 Squadron RAF On the other thread, bit puzzled about the claim of 614 RAAF being a Pathfinder squadron? To my knowledge the only units entitled to this name belonged to 8 Group. Robin 156 Squadron = Pathfinder Force
Just a wee correction, there were 5 Squadrons that started the PFF on the 15 August 1942, they were:- 7 Squadron, 35 Squadron, 83 Squadron, 109 Squadron and 156 Squadron flying the Lancaster, Stirling, Halifax, Wellington and Mosquito, correctly stated flying from Wyton, Warboys, Oakington and Gravely. This grew to 19 Squadrons and 1409 Met Flight, so 20 in all I guess. By the end of the war it was the mighty Lancaster and the awsome Mosquito that were left to do their onerous tasks.
