#1 Jet of World War II

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 11:40:46 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

[Lanc bombing height]

The most common bombing heights (excluding exceptions like the
Peenemunde raid) seem to have been around 18,000 feet.

Odd that you should mention that, as Middlebrook ("The Nuremberg Raid") says
that a/c of all the Groups on the mission (with the exception of No. 1 GP;
see below), whether Lanc or Halifax, were evenly assigned to one of four
cruise heights -- 20, 21, 22, or 23 thousand feet.

This was common practice: although I was suprised to see 3 Group
getting the lower height bands even as they started to re-equip with
Lancasters in early 1944. The raids I researched may not be
representative, however, and I think those might have included some
late Stirling raids, which would explain it, although they were
normally banded by Group and by type within that, just like the wave
timings for TOT.

The other cause may be that 3 Group had a couple of Lanc Mk. II squadrons in
roughly that period, 115 and 514. Come to think of it, 61 Squadron had a single
Lanc Mk. II flight early in the a/c's career, but I don't know if the crew you
were studying was flying Merlin or Hercules-engined a/c. The latter seem to have
had a service ceiling a two or three thousand feet lower than the Merlin-engined
a/c, so possibly that explains it.

Guy