Bomber Command. Assigning letters to turning points.

[Terry]

Jim, Your father would have been part of the first night raid. H Hour for that raid was the time assigned to a squadron between 0122 and 0150. Bombing altitude for 75 Sqn was 20000 ft and my man was assigned an H Hr of 0129 + 3. He was chastised by the sqn nav ldr for bombing 3 mins early. Regards, Terry

[JDCAVE]

I have found more information on this and it turns out, "it depends". For the most part, routes are not recorded in the 419 Squadron briefing documents, but I found two examples where the routes were recorded, together with associated assigned letters to the turning points:

Route to Nuremburg January 2, 1945
Base (Middleton St. George)
A 5330N 0115W
B Reading
C English Coast
D 5000N 0120E
X 0400E on track
E 4840N 0700E
F 4835N 0915E
Target
G 4928N 1112E
H 4900N 1100E
J 4810N 0850E
E 4840N 0700E
S 4930N 0533E
V 0400E on track
K 5100N 0240E
L Orfordness
A 5330N 0115W
Base


Route to Hannover, January 5, 1945
Base
K Flamboro Head
L 0300E on track
M 5315N 0500E
D 5250N 0910E
Target
R 5205N 0928 E
S 5148N 0740 E
Z 5210N 0620E
V 5240N 0435E
W Cromer
J 5330N 0115W
Base

So you can see that you cannot assume some chronological assignment of letters to turning points. You cannot really assign letters to turning points and be certain that they will match those that might be recorded on navigators charts. I will continue to use my own designations, with the caveat that I explicitly indicate that they are my own designations. Too bad really because I really wanted to identify the routes with what would have been the assigned letters by navigators. I would certainly be interested if anyone else has insight into how this was determined.

Note: Dad was on sick-leave (pneumonia) for the whole of January and as a consequence was not on either one of these operations.

Jim

[Terry]

Jim, Interesting. I have not seen that manner of letter sequencing before. Regards, Terry

[Jérémie Tarpon]

Hi,
Just a clue: on 14/15 April 1943 (Stuttgart raid), Bomber Command HQ defined Points A & B where PFF were to drop yellow TIs; 5 Group then designated the other turning points as Points X, Y and Z, but just for its own aircraft.
Regards,
Jérémie

[JDCAVE]

Jim, Interesting. I have not seen that manner of letter sequencing before. Regards, Terry

I looked into this a bit further Terry and it seems that 6-Group provided a/c for two separate attacks on Hannover on the night of January 5/6 1945.
https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/o...20/776?r=0&s=3

First, an all-Halifax attack was made approximately 1920-1940 hrs.
For example: https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/o...75/927?r=0&s=1

Then 57 Lancasters from 419, 428, 431 and 434 Squadrons attacked about 2.5 hours later at 2150+ hrs.
For example: https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/o...2/1031?r=0&s=3

It is likely that "Group" or "BC" used different turning points for the two raids and assigned different letters as appropriate. It is possible that the raids "shared" the same letters in cases where identical turning points were used. Just speculation.

Edit: Yes, the night raid reports indicate different routes, with the second raid crossing the Dutch coast 2.5 hours later than the first raid. 6-Group lost 10 a/c on the first raid, presumably mostly to night fighters and none on the second attack. The raids do not appear to "share" any turning points over the continent.

Jim