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Operation Bellicose
Operation Bellicose was an attack by Avro Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force on a German radar factory housed in the former Zeppelin Works at Friedrichshafen and the Italian naval base at La Spezia. It was the first shuttle bombing raid in the Second World War and the second use of a Master Bomber. In early June 1943, Central Interpretation Unit photo interpreter, Claude Wavell, identified a stack of ribbed baskets at the Zeppelin Works as Würzburg radar reflectors. After Winston Churchill viewed the photos at RAF Medmenham on 14 June, No. 5 Group RAF received the surprise orders on 16 June to attack Friedrichshafen during the next full moon. On approach to the target, Wing Commander Gomm ( 467 Squadron RAAF) assumed control of the operation when the aircraft of Group Captain Slee, the master bomber, developed trouble. The main force was ordered to bomb from rather than the planned due to heavy flak. In the first phase, the Pathfinder Force (PFF) and Wing Commander G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combined Bomber Offensive
The Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) was an Allied offensive of strategic bombing during World War II in Europe. The primary portion of the CBO was directed against Luftwaffe targets which were the highest priority from June 1943 to 1 April 1944. The subsequent highest priority campaigns were against V-weapon installations (June 1944) and petroleum, oil, and lubrication (POL) plants (September 1944). Additional CBO targets included railyards and other transportation targets, particularly prior to the invasion of Normandy and, along with army equipment, in the final stages of the war in Europe. The British bombing campaign was chiefly waged by night by large numbers of heavy bombers until the latter stages of the war when German fighter defences were so reduced that daylight bombing was possible without risking large losses. The US effort was by day – massed formations of bombers with escorting fighters. Together they made up a round-the-clock bombing effort except where wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War) and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire into the wealthy, aristocratic Spencer family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Spezia Naval Base
La Spezia Naval Base is one of the Italian Navy's most important and historic bases. The base lies in the central-western zone of the Gulf of Spezia, close to the historic centre of La Spezia. History Construction It was Napoleon Bonaparte who first conceived the idea of building a great arsenal in the Gulf of Spezia. Napoleon's idea was revived in 1857 by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, then Chairman of the Board and Secretary of the Navy, who arranged funding and entrusted Domenico Chiodo, an official of the Military Engineers, with the construction of the new naval base. Work began in 1862 and ended on August 28, 1869, when General Domenico Chiodo formally inaugurated the plant by flooding the newly built docks. World War II During the Second World War, because of its strategic importance, the base was heavily bombed and was almost completely destroyed, but was quickly renovated to full operation in the postwar period. On April 6 1945, American forces in Italy captured ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houari Boumediene Airport
Houari Boumediene International Airport () , also known as Algiers Airport or Algiers International Airport, is the main international airport serving Algiers, the capital of Algeria. It is located east southeast of the city. The airport is named after Houari Boumediene (1932–1978), a former president of Algeria. Dar El Beïda, the area where the airport is located, was known as ''Maison Blanche'' ('White House'), and the airport is called Maison Blanche Airport in much of the literature about the Algerian War of Independence. The SGSIA (), more commonly known as 'Airport of Algiers', is a public company established on 1 November 2006 to manage and operate the airport. The SGSIA has 2,100 employees. History The airport was created in 1924 and named Maison Blanche Airport. During World War II, Maison Blanche was a primary objective of the Allied Operation Torch Eastern Task Force on 8 November 1942, and was seized by a combination of United States Army units, British Commando ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1947). It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force, today one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which on 2 March 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
V-weapons
V-weapons, known in original German as (, German: "retaliatory weapons", "reprisal weapons"), were a particular set of long-range artillery weapons designed for strategic bombing during World War II, particularly strategic bombing and Aerial bombing of cities#European theatre , aerial bombing of cities. They were the V-1 flying bomb, V-1, a pulsejet-powered cruise missile; the V-2 rocket, V-2, a Liquid-propellant rocket, liquid-fueled ballistic missile; and the V-3 cannon. Nazi Germany , Germany intended to use all of these weapons in a military campaign against United Kingdom, Britain, though only the V-1 and V-2 were so used in a campaign conducted 1944–45. After the invasion of western Europe by the Allies of World War II , Allies, these weapons were also employed against targets on the mainland of Europe, mainly in France and Belgium. Strategic bombing with V-weapons killed approximately 18,000 people, mostly civilians. The cities of London, Antwerp and Liège were the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
V-2 Rocket
The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "V-weapons, vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allies of World War II, Allied cities as retaliation for the Strategic bombing during World War II#The British later in the war, Allied bombings of German cities. The rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line (edge of space) with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. Research of military use of long-range rockets began when the graduate studies of Wernher von Braun were noticed by the German Army. A series of prototypes culminated in the A4, which went to war as the . Beginning in September 1944, more than 3,000 were launched by the Wehrmacht against Allied targets, first London and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Constance
Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These waterbodies lie within the Lake Constance Basin () in the Alpine Foreland through which the Rhine flows. The nearby '' Mindelsee'' is not considered part of Lake Constance. The lake is situated where Germany, Switzerland, and Austria meet. Its shorelines lie in the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria; the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen, Thurgau, and Schaffhausen; and the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. The actual locations of the country borders within the lake are disputed. The Alpine Rhine forms, in its original course ( Alter Rhein), the Austro-Swiss border and flows into the lake from the south. The High Rhine flows westbound out of the lake and forms (with the exception of the Canton of Schaffhausen, Rafzerfeld and Bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Target Indicator
Target indicators, also known as target markers or TI's for short, were flares used by the RAF's Bomber Command during World War II. TIs were normally dropped by Pathfinders onto the target, providing an easily seen visual aiming point for the following "main force" of bombers to aim at. After their introduction, the use of TIs expanded to include en-route markers to gather up lost aircraft, additional TI drops to keep the target lit over long periods, and various changes in technique to address German defences. The use of TIs allowed the RAF to concentrate its advanced navigational systems in the Pathfinder units. Most widely used were the H2S ground scanning radar and Oboe navigation system, the former requiring considerable training to be useful, the latter able to guide only a single aircraft at a time. The limited number of navigational units meant that spreading them through the force would have limited effects. By concentrating these in a single Group ( No. 8 Group RAF) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pathfinder Force
The Pathfinders were target-marking squadrons in RAF Bomber Command during World War II. They located and marked targets with flares, at which a main bomber force could aim, increasing the accuracy of their bombing. The Pathfinders were normally the first to receive new blind-bombing aids such as Gee, Oboe and the H2S radar. The early Pathfinder Force (PFF) squadrons were expanded to become a group, No. 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group, in January 1943. The initial Pathfinder Force was five squadrons, whilst No 8 Group ultimately grew to a strength of 19 squadrons. Whereas the majority of Pathfinder squadrons and personnel were from the Royal Air Force, the group also included No 405 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as many individual airmen from the air forces of other Commonwealth countries. History Background At the start of the Second World War in September 1939 the doctrine of RAF Bomber Command was based on tight formations of heavily armed bombers attack ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
88 Mm Gun
The 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41 is a German 88mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun, developed in the 1930s. It was widely used by Germany throughout World War II and is one of the most recognized German weapons of the conflict. The gun was universally known as the ''Acht-acht'' ("eight-eight") by the Germans and the "eighty-eight" by the Allies. Due to its lethality, especially as a tank killer, the eighty-eight was greatly feared by Allied soldiers. Development of the original model led to a wide variety of guns. The name of the gun applies to a series of related guns, the first one officially called the ''8.8 cm Flak 18'', the improved ''8.8 cm Flak 36'', and later the ''8.8cm Flak 37''. Flak is a contraction of German ''Flugabwehrkanone'' (also referred to as ''Fliegerabwehrkanone'') meaning "aircraft-defense cannon", the original purpose of the weapon. In English, "flak" became a generic term for ground anti-aircraft fire. Air defense units were usually d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Master Bomber
The Pathfinders were target-marking squadrons in RAF Bomber Command during World War II. They located and marked targets with flares, at which a main bomber force could aim, increasing the accuracy of their bombing. The Pathfinders were normally the first to receive new blind-bombing aids such as Gee, Oboe and the H2S radar. The early Pathfinder Force (PFF) squadrons were expanded to become a group, No. 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group, in January 1943. The initial Pathfinder Force was five squadrons, whilst No 8 Group ultimately grew to a strength of 19 squadrons. Whereas the majority of Pathfinder squadrons and personnel were from the Royal Air Force, the group also included No 405 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as many individual airmen from the air forces of other Commonwealth countries. History Background At the start of the Second World War in September 1939 the doctrine of RAF Bomber Command was based on tight formations of heavily armed bombers attack ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
