Nucourt, Edward King's 24th operation of his tour

Nucourt, Edward King's 24th operation of his tour

Six items, first a brief description by Edward again using the term P plane to describe the V-1. Second is Edward's navigation plot, third is the expected H2S return over the target. Fourth and fifth are press clippings reporting damage to Flying Bomb storage sites at Nucourt and St Leu D'Esserent. The first captioned 'Attacks on Flying Bomb storage dumps'. As the target is a series of caves damage not obvious, but lots of craters.
The second cutting is captioned 'They don't all reach England!' There is a series of photographs indicating V-1s having exploded just after launch and one that crashed but did not explode.
The sixth is part of an official report of the raid showing the aircraft and their squadrons and a summary of the raid. There is also a newspaper cutting reporting a raid on Nucourt.

1944-07-10

Two typewritten documents, an expected radar return, three press clippings

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SKingEJ182986v10113, SKingEJ182986v10114, SKingEJ182986v10115, SKingEJ182986v10116, SKingEJ182986v10117, SKingEJ182986v10118

[underlined]NUCOURT [/underlined]

[underlined] P-Plane Base [/underlined] [underlined] 10th July 1944£ [sic] [/underlined]

Airborne 0355
Landed 0745

Once again there was a cloud cover over target so bombed on instruments.

[Page Break]

[Route Map]

[underlined]NUCOURT [/underlined]

[Page Break]

[Map]

[Page Break]

ATTACKS ON FLYING BOMB STORAGE

Photographs on this page and opposite show the attention paid by allied aircraft to the limestone caves at NUCOURT and ST. LEU D’ESSERENT II which were underground storage dumps housing the war heads for the flying bombs: at NUCOURT (above), several areas of subsidence (A) reveals the vastness and the damage to these caves, at (B) can be seen the various entrances. ST. LEU D’ESSERENT II (opposite) large areas can be seen which have subsided (C) and the entrances (D) have been blocked by direct hits or near misses. The French in peace time uses these caves for mushroom growing. Inset: is an action picture of Bomber Command’s attack on yet another storage dump, this one is at BIENNAIS.

[Page Break]

THEY DON’T ALL REACH ENGLAND!

Apart from the large number of Flying Bombs which are shot down over the sea before they reach the country an increasing number appear to be crashing immediately on take-off. The launching sites on these two pages are four of the many sites where things have not gone to according to plan. In each case (A) represents the launching platform; (B) the craters and blast marks where “bombs” have exploded; and (C) in Fig. 2 are crashed “bombs” which have not exploded. Note also the skid marks across the fields and the characteristic difference between the bomb craters of allied bombing and the craters caused by exploding Flying Bombs.

[Page Break]

[Newspaper]

ANOTHER FLYING BOMB CAVE DEPOT HIT.

BOMMER COMMAND early yesterday struck an effective blow at the robot planes. Chief target of a force of Halifaxes and Lancasters was a depot at Nucourt, some 25 miles north-west of Paris, which had been attacked in daylight on Saturday.

Flying bombs are sent here from Germany for inspection sorting and partial assembly in caves under 30ft. of chalky soil.

In an 18-minute attack starting shortly after 1.30 a.m., the bombers scored direct hits on the depot.

Their aim was to complete a partial collapse of a hillside above the caves wrought by American bombers some weeks ago, and ta [sic] smash up roads and railways lading to the tunnels.

BIG EXPLOSION

Two big explosions followed the attack.

A SECOND DAYLIGHT OPERATION TOOK PLACE IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THE 10TH. THIS TIME A FULL SCALE [DELETED]0 [/DELTED] EFFORT – 130 LANCASTERS TAKING PART. THE TARGET WAS A F/B SUPPLY SITE THIS TIME AT NUCOURT AND THE FIGURES WERE MADE UP BY:-

15 SQUADRON 13 DETAILED 12 PRIMARY 1 ABORTIVE
[DELETED] 66 [/DELETED] [INSERTED] XXX [/INSERTED]
622 SQUADRON 13 DETAILED 13 PRIMARY
90 SQUADRON 24 DETAILED 12 [DELETED] indecipherable number][/DELETED] [INSERTED] 23[/INSERTED] PRIMARY 1 ABORTIVE
514 SQUADRON 27 DETAILED 26 PRIMARY 1 WITHDRAWN
115 SQUADRON 26 DETAILED 26 PRIMARY
75 SQUADRON 27 DETAILED 27 PRIMARY

ONCE AGAIN THE WEATHER WAS VERY UNFAVOURABLE, THE TARGET BEING OBSCURED BY 10/10 CLOUD [DELETED] [INDECIPHERABLE WORD ] [INSERTED] X [/INSERTED] SO QUICKLY THAT ONLY ONE OR TWO CREWS WERE ABLE TO BOMB ON THEM. THE REMAINDER BOMBED ON CEE AND IT IS [DELETED] [INDECIPHERABLE WORD ] [INSERTED] X [/INSERTED] FEARED THAT THIS ATTACK WILL ALSO PROVE VERY SCATTERES NO PHOTOS ARE YET TO HADXXX TO HAND, BUT THEY ARE REPORTED TO BE MOSTLY CLOUD STUDIES.

THERE WAS A LITTLE FLAK FROM TARGET BUT NO FIGTHERS WERE SEEN. AN A/C OF 622 SQUADRON ON ROUT [SIC] TO THE TRAGET REPORTED CONSIDERABLE MOVEMENT OF TRANSPORT AONG A ROAD INTO A WOOD AND THIS MAY PROVE VERY VALUABLE.