Slitherine

This is the story of the only French pilot to bomb Berlin in 1940 : https://www.msn.com/fr-fr/video/actuali ... i-AA15JZQT

L'aéronavale requisitioned 1939 3 civil transport F.223 (from Air France) and modified them for long range bombing (baptized Camille Flammarion, Jules Verne and Le Verrier).

The Berlin bombing wasn't the only long range action in which Jules Verne participated; industrial targets were bombed at Aachen, Anvers, Walcheren, Flessingue, Rostock, Venezia, Livorno. In the Berlin bombing there were also strictly economic zones targeted. The plane made more passages, and the crew had desincronized the engines to give the impression there were more planes (French announced the next day that a squad bombed Berlin...).

Its commander was Henri-Laurent Daillière, died in 1942 in North-Africa.

The Jules Verne was disarmed after the armistice and a bit later arsoned for not being taken by Germans (it's said it was cmdr. Daillière's wish).

Neat. I like this type of little known but highly interesting historical tidbits. Merci.

So, now that I knew about this incident, and with a bit of searching, I was able to find the story in English:

Target Berlin: The First Air-Raid on the German Capital

P.S. - If you read that article all the way down, you learn that the Jules Verne was apparently a lucky airship. It not only survived the raid on Berlin, but it carried out a few more successful bombing runs before it was grounded after the Armistice on 22 June 1940. In fact, it was destroyed only by the action of the French Resistance once Vichy was occupied by the Germans in reaction to the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. The Boche were not to get their grimy hands on the Jules Verne!

(I see that terminator edited his post with this detail.)

Crazy stuff! Entirely alone on that missions through hostile airspace every time.

StuccoFresco wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 2:57 pm Crazy stuff! Entirely alone on that missions through hostile airspace every time.

Speaking of stuff, I often wonder, as I am playing war games, whether I would have the right sort in order to do what these men did. Then again, my country has not been invaded by a foreign power for over 200 years. I would like to think, in a similar situation, I would.