Aircraft of the British No....

history · 12 February 1944 · 80 years ago

Aircraft of the British No. 617 Squadron made an attack on the Antheor Viaduct, a bottle-neck on the main railway line between Marseilles, France and Genoa, Italy. It had been attacked three times before without success and 100,000 tons of German supplies crossed it every week to keep Albert Kesselring's Italian armies in action. Cheshire in one Lancaster bomber and Martin in another, were to mark the target. They were met by a hail of flak and the night was completely black. The attack failed, although there were several near misses. This convinced Cheshire that they needed Mosquito aircraft instead of Lancaster bombers if low-level bombing was to achieve success. 

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