Mare Nostrum Extract July 1945

For over a year, it can now be disclosed, pathfinder technique was used by 205 Group of RAF heavy night bombers to lead attacks on special targets in southern Europe.   Much of the brilliant success achieved by the Group - operating from airfields in the Foggia area, was due to 614 PFF Squadron, the only pathfinder squadron in the Mediterranean war zone.
     From small beginnings in the spring of 1944, when the nucleus of the force was sent to Italy after training in Pathfinder technique in England, it steadily increased its efficiency in target finding until navigational errors at the end of the war reduced to nil, even though targets were sometimes small and difficult to locate.
    When the pathfinder force first began its operations from Italy the losses were considerable, owing in part to weather conditions over the   mountainous   regions   and to the strong   defences covering the strategic targets selected.

APPALLING WEATHER
It flew its first mission on March 15, 1944, to the marshalling yards at Sofia, capital of Bulgaria.Five aircraft did not return,one being shot down near the target and the other four were lost in appalling weather conditions on the return journey.

July 1945

In a normal raid, over 300 white-flares on parachutes illuminated the area, followed by the coloured ground target indicators. The position of these markers was then checked ready for final instructions to be given to the bomb aimers by the master bomber.

SIX MINUTES
    All illuminating and target-marking had to be carried out in six minutes, for the bomber formations were timed to arrive at the end of that period, ready for the attack lasting exactly three minutes. For pathfinders to be thirty seconds late in completing their task was considered a poor effort.
     When early raids using pathfinder technique failed to come up to expectations, the force persevered. By the end of the war, main bomber force operational losses, due to forced landings or crashes as result of navigational errors, had dropped to negligible figures.
    In a raid on the Ploesti oilfields, the most strongly defended target in Southern Europe, on the night of August 9th, two pathfinder aircraft were shot down and a third so damaged that the captain ordered his crew to bale out. Four aircrew left the Halifax, but the bomb aimer was injured and unable to use his parachute. The captain decided to try and regain control of his /p2