Beyond the Beach: The Allied War Against France (History of Military Aviation) by Stephen Alan Bourque

Author:Stephen Alan Bourque [Bourque, Stephen Alan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781612518749
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2018-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Lille

Lille certainly qualifies as one of the most bombed cities in Europe. Located on the Franco-Belgian border, it was a gateway to France and at the center of historic trade routes. Its location as a business center, especially for textile production dating from the early medieval era, contributed to its becoming a major transportation center. Its significance was not lost on the great nation builder, Louis XIV, who invested lots of energy and treasure for its capture from the Spanish in 1667. His famous engineer, Sébastien de Vauban, spent the next three years constructing one of the largest citadels in Europe to secure the northern boundary of the growing French state. The city’s location on the southern end of the Flanders plain provided a sound basis for further challenging the Habsburg domination of the productive lands to the north, now modern Belgium.

Except for the Paris region, the area around Lille had the densest railway system in France. Five main lines into France from Belgium and Germany passed through Lille and the nearby towns of Valenciennes, Tourcoing, and Roubaix. Lille itself had three large marshaling yards: near the industrial complex of Fives to the east, La Délivrance to the west, and La Madeleine to the north. Because of the nearby coal mines, the French constructed the track lines in this region to carry heavier loads, twenty tons per axle rather than the standard sixteen as was common in the remainder of the country. Given the proximity to other rail centers in Brussels, Mons, and Ghent, Lille had the characteristics of a railway tunnel, with massive traffic moving through a narrow corridor. Used heavily by the Germans in both world wars, this concentration of industry, raw materials, and rail made this region an obvious Allied target.85

Located four kilometers west of the ancient Vauban citadel, the suburb of Lomme had a population in 1936 of more than 21,000 citizens. The triage yard, called Lille-La Délivrance, contained a large coaling station, locomotive sheds and repair shops, carriage repair facilities, and a large marshaling area. A full moon illuminated Lille on a cloudless night shortly after midnight on April 10, 1944. Approaching from the northwest, 166 Halifaxes, 40 Lancasters, 22 Stirlings and 11 Mosquitoes—239 aircraft in all—approached the city in two waves at 16,000 feet. At 0130 the Mosquitoes began dropping their flares to mark the target. The official report indicated that they marked them accurately, and the bombers were able to see the bomb zone. At 0137, the lead planes began to drop their explosives. Within twenty minutes the crews dropped 3,335 500-pound bombs on the western side of Lille. The next day the after-action report indicated that “good timing and adequate marking led to a well-centered attack which achieved the required density of bombing in the target area.” Even this report, however, indicated that the raid had mostly missed the main buildings, destroying only half of four locomotive repair shops and only 10 percent of the main engine shed. Only 49 bombs had hit the target.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.