British Forces

Recon over Rome

www.14sqn-association.org.uk

From the RAF 14 Squadron association’s web site: Memoirs From the Personnel of 14 Squadron, a story told by Gil Graham, at this time tail gunner of one of the Squadron 14’s Marauder, in this photo with his arm through one of the several holes collected when the aircraft got too close to two large barges carrying Italian troops to Italy. A story which I suppose interesting for the WW2incolor’s friends because also the “little stories” are part of the “Great History”. Cheers, Victor Sierra «This is the story of one of the more unusual operations carried out by Dick Maydwell as pilot with myself in the usual place: rear gunner. The policy was that vital military targets in Rome should be bombed by a combined force of RAF bombers and US bombers. The problem was that the Vatican and other most holy places in the city were NOT to be touched. A great deal of planning went into this operation, and as part of that planning it was determined that weather over the entire target area had to be perfect. In order to be absolutely certain of this, it was decided that a Marauder of 14 Squadron would fly to the target area on the morning of the raid, check the weather conditions in the immediate target area and radio the results back to base. Only if the weather was perfect would the raid take place. So on the 19th July, 1943, Marauder FK 142 ("R" Robert) and named "Dominion Triumph" with Dick Maydwell at the controls and Gil Graham looking after the rear end took off from our base at Protville in Tunisia at 0300 hours (well before dawn) and flying at our operational height of 50 feet headed across the Mediterranean for Rome hoping that we would not be picked up by enemy radar. The first big surprise came a few minutes after crossing the Italian coast near Anzio when we found ourselves streaking across an enemy field at deck level doing around 260 miles an hour. So surprised were we that I didn't have time to open up on a neat row of Heinkel 111 bombers all neatly lined up alongside the runway. Dick gave me hell when we got back for missing an excellent opportunity to damage or destroy a considerable number of enemy aircraft in one go. However he later apologised because it might have been a fatal mistake if I had opened fire without his permission. Had I done so we may well have alerted the Germans to our presence in the area and would possibly have had half the Luftwaffe fighters looking for us before we had completed the essential part of our mission. However we got to the target area where the weather was indeed perfect and even though this was around dawn, we were certain that cloud would not develop later in the day. The information was immediately radioed back to base. We flew over the target area and then continued to fly north and to our delight came to Lake Bracciano where we noticed a number of seaplanes anchored. By now we had completed' essential part of our mission, Dick decided we would try to knock out one or two of the seaplanes. We flew down right alongside them and I opened up on them a saw some strikes on several of them. Reconnaissance the next day showed at least 3 badly damaged and lying on their side in the water. A few minutes later we came across a goods train so we strafed it as well but couldn't assess our results. We now turned due west a headed for open sea, but as we crossed the coast I noticed considerable numbers of fighters at a higher altitude, but fortunately we ran into a bank of sea fog before they saw us. This provided -us with excellent cover until we were off the coast of Sardinia when we turned south and headed for home where we arrived at 0810 just in time for breakfast. This mission on the face of may seem extremely easy, but just consider that alone and unescorted we were in very hostile territory the moment we left the Tunisian Coastline. Consider that we had flown alone and then look the fighter escort needed when the raid took place - all told, something like 169 P-38s, and it's interesting to note that 107 B-26s took part in the raid. I think this was the biggest raid ever carried out in the Mediterranean Theatre and I felt pleased to have played small part in it. On reflection, life might not have been too pleasant had a dozen or so 109s caught sight of us..».