A question about RAF mine-laying a/c

This thread is getting more interesting by the hour !

So can we assume a Stirling for the second kill because the Beu for the 1st claim has been credited. But on Minelaying it appears it was not.

As I have stated in previous posts the NF guys were not always correct in the identification of twin and 4 enigne a/c. Of course this was also the case of RAF claiming single enigne jobs in late 44 and 45 when they could of been Bf 110G's or Ju 88G's...........

~E

 

Looks like another blind alley, Erich...there were indeed 16 aircraft from No 6 Group out minelaying on the 29th - but none were lost.

No Stirlings were lost at all that evening/night ; the only Bomber Command aircraft lost were 4 Lancasters. Interestingly, one of these ( PB525 of 405 Squadron ) took off at 15:53 to bomb Scholven-Buer and vanished without trace.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmm could be ? this is all so frustrating but very common to get recollections to fit precise terms from actuality of the ops.

Will keep searching

~E

 

While looking for more information on mines it occured to me that the British were the only ones I have ever read about in WWII that laid aerial mines. I have not seen anything about the American navy planes dropping them in Europe or the Pacific and nothing of the Russians, Germans, French , Italians, of Japanese dropping them by aircraft. I have seen pictures of Ju-52 aircraft with big hoops built around them used to explode mines but not to lay them. ( It must have been exciting when the mine exploded underneath a Ju-52 !! )

Actually the only other time I have read of aerial mining was toward the end of the Viet Nam war in the harbors of North Viet Nam.

Am I wrong about this just being a British practice ?

I was reading about the Beaufighter and it said it could carry rockets and two 250 pound bombs, so I don't think a 1500 pound mine would work, and even if it did it would not be worth while to just carry one when a bomber could carry more on a single mission.

You opened up a dark area with this posting ! I never really gave it much thought before.

 

In the early part of the war nearly all of the new magnetic mines laid by the Germans around the British coast were air dropped, and the Luftwaffe continued the practice on a lesser scale until almost the end of the war.

There was very little use of mines in the Pacific theatre because of the depth of the water, mines are only useful in shallow water.

ps, mines laid by the RAF and RN are credited with sinking over 600 Axis ships in Northern Europe