British Forces

The Squadron of the Operation Most III

Imperial War Museum

Douglas Dakota Mark IIIs of No. 267 Squadron RAF lined up at Bari-Palese Macchie Airfield, Apulia, Southern Italy, 1944 (today Bari International Civil Airport “Karol Wojtyła”). The aircraft nearest the camera is KG496 “AI”. The No. 267 Squadron RAF moved to Italy from Middle East in November 1943 also for supply-dropping missions to resistance fighters in Italy and the Balkans. A 267 Squadron’s Dakota was the plane of Operation Most III (Polish for Bridge III) or Operation Wildhorn III (in British documents), a mission for salvage of parts of the German V-2 rocket. Parts of V-2s crashed during test in the vicinity of the Bug River was secured by Armia Krajowa, the Polish resistance movement in German-occupied Poland. Most III operation was carried out on the night 25/26 July 1944 by a 267’s Squadron’s Dakota which took off from Brindisi and landed at an Armia Krajowa outpost codenamed Motyl (butterfly), a village near Jadowniki Mokre, despite a substantial German presence in nearby villages. The Dakota had problems taking off as its landing gear sank in the marshy meadows, but the crew, instead destroy the airplane, with the help of the partisans managed to take off at the third attempt and returned to Brindisi with the parts which after few days delivered to London. Victor Sierra