| An open letter from the son of the pilot to the people of Morlaix tells of his anguish at the civilian losses: "To the Ladies and Gentlemen of Morlaix: Please forgive me writing in English but my ability to do so in French is very limited. More than 20 years ago I sent a letter to a school teacher in Morlaix, Mlle le Clech, about this air raid. I had studied it in detail, for my father was one of those who lost his life on 29 January 1943. While I suspect that some of the article above has been based on that letter it tells only a fraction of the story, and your readers may be interested in a little more detail. In January 1943 the war situation was deeply worrying, although there were encouraging signs that German forces were in trouble at Stalingrad and in the Mediterranean. That was not the case in the Atlantic, however, where the U-boats were causing huge losses, and threatening our ability to survive, let alone our ability to mount an invasion of Europe from our shores. At their Casablanca Conference in mid-January, the Allied leaders decided that the first priority for our naval and air forces for the time being must be defeat of the U-boat menace. We know to-day that that was substantially achieved in May 1943. But in January our backs were to the wall and the outcome of the war was far from certain. At sea this policy included improved radar, coordination of our forces protecting the convoys and techniques. From the air long range aircraft also protected the convoys, our Coastal Command attacked U-boats as they left and returned to their bases at Brest, Lorient, St Nazaire, and at La Pallice and those same bases were attacked by heavy bombers of Bomber Command at night. Also from the air, the lighter day bombers of Bomber Command were to attack the rail links to the U-boat bases—and this is why the rail viaduct at Morlaix came to be bombed on 29 January 1943: it carried supplies from the German naval stores at Rennes to Brest. Well, the forces selected for this task were 12 Boston bombers of 226 Squadron and they were to be escorted by the Spitfires of 310 (Czech) Squadron (close escort), 312 (Czech) Squadron (mid-cover), 313 (Czech) Squadron (top cover) and, providing target support, were 19 and 130 Squadrons. The Typhoons of 157 Squadron provided rear cover. The people of Morlaix would have seen only the 226 Squadron Bostons and the Spitfires of 310 Squadron. The Bostons left their base at Swanton Morley at mid-day and flew down to Exeter where they rendezvous with all three Czech squadrons at 1330. They immediately continued on to Start Point, settling down into their battle formations. Meanwhile the Spitfires of 19 and 130 Squadrons would be separately approaching the target area from the direction of The Lizard in Cornwall. All aircraft remained low over the sea as they set off from Start Point, in order to avoid enemy radar on the French coast, but when about 10 minutes north of Ile de Batz started to climb rapidly to the heights required to cross in over the island: the Bostons and close escort at 10,000 feet but top cover at 15,000. Bostons and close escort started a gradual descent to 8,000 feet as they kept just west of the River Penze before turning towards Morlaix and the viaduct. It should be explained that the Bostons were in two « boxes » of six, the first led by Flight Lieutenant D.T. Smith and the second by Flying Officer L.G. Little. My father, Flying Officer Clifford Thomas, was piloting one of the Bostons in the second « box ». The two « boxes » were at 8,000 feet and almost a minute apart when they dropped their 500 pound bombs, four per aircraft. Having done so they turned north for the coast, dropping height steadily to be low over the sea for the homeward flight. It was as they were passing out over the coast north of Lanmeur, and still losing height, that FW190 fighters were seen to be rapidly approaching from the south west. The Germans had been expecting a raid in the Morlaix area since 26 January when a similar operation had had to be aborted when only just short of Ile de Batz—-but this was unknown to the participants on the 29th. The Fw190 formation was handled with great skill and managed to set Flying Officer Thomas’ aircraft on fire which crashed into the sea mid-Channel. He and his crew of Flying Officer Richard Bowyer, Sergeant Robert Morton and Sergeant George Curragh were killed. Additionally, two of the Spitfire pilots lost their lives also: Warrant Officer Jaroslav Sala and Warrant Officer Miroslav Petr, both of 310 Squadron. The air battle had lasted 10 minutes and, following it, the Bostons and Czechs returned to Exeter and all other formations to their bases. The devastation left at Morlaix was unknown to the participating crews but some casualties amongst the population must have been expected when they saw the proximity of houses to their viaduct target. Also, those who planned the raid must have expected some French civilian casualties. But these were desperate days, as explained in my early paragraphs. Until 1942 extreme care had been taken to avoid casualties amongst the French population, and as a result the Germans had managed to build their massive concrete U-boat pens almost unhindered. When we did try to destroy them later our bombs left them almost untouched. There is little one can say to alleviate the pain that the people of Morlaix endured that day and over the following years. That one of the bombs fell on a class of very young children is horrifying (I, myself, was only four years old at the time). Not a single man of the attacking force would have slept easily had they known they had caused such a catastrophe. But this was war against a cruel enemy, and it had to be conducted with a degree of ruthlessness that people in to-day’s world find hard to understand. I remember Mlle le Clech asking me why the viaduct at Morlaix was chosen rather than some target more distant from a dense population. I am not privy to the thinking of our planners but they would have identified a target that was clearly identifiable, which was easy enough to reach avoiding most known defences and which, if destroyed, would have taken a great deal of time to repair or replace. As we know, it was damaged, along with approach embankments and rails, and was incapable of taking fully laden trains for three months. That was the Morlaix contribution to defeat of the U-boats—but the town had to pay a horrible price. While I share your pain of the events of 29 January 1943, I am also very proud of the contribution my family made to the defeat of Hitler’s evil regime. Yours Sincerely, Derek Thomas" |