29 April 1945

Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster Princess Patricia of No. 514 Squadron at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, UK, being loaded with food for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945, (Pilot Officer Penfold, Royal Air Force official photographer)
Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster “Princess Patricia” of No. 514 Squadron at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, England, being loaded with food for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945. (Pilot Officer Penfold, Royal Air Force Official Photographer/Imperial War Museum)
A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster heavy bomber drops food packages over The Netherlands.
A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster heavy bomber drops food packages over The Netherlands.

29 April 1945: With the defeat of Nazi Germany imminent, millions of Dutch citizens were still under the control of the occupying German army. Food was very scarce. The Allies tried to negotiate a cease fire so that American and British airplanes could fly into The Netherlands and drop food to the people.

The truce had not yet been agreed to by Germany, but on 29 April, Operations Manna and Chowhound began.

The first night, to test the feasibility of the project, two Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster four-engine long range heavy bombers of No. 101 Squadron—Bad Penny, crewed by Canadians, and a second ship flown by an Australian crew—were loaded with food at RAF Ludford Magna and flew into The Netherlands at barely 50 feet (15 meters) above the ground.

To drop the food they simply opened the bomb bay doors and the bags and packages fell to the starving people below.

A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops bundles of food in The Netherlands during Operation Manna, 1945. (International Bomber Command Center)

With Flight Sergeant Robert Fairful Upcott, D.F.M., Royal Canadian Air Force, [service number R187858] leading with Bad Penny, the two Lancasters ¹ dropped their food on the Racetrack Duindigt at Wassernaar, near The Hague, then returned along the same corridor they had flown on the way in. At 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, another 200 Lancasters followed.

Flight crew of Avro Lancaster, “Bad Penny.” Standing, left to right: Wireless Operator Stan Jones; Flight Engineer John Corner, D.F.M.; Aircraft Commander, Flight Sergeant Robert F. Upcott, D.F.M.; and Navigator Bill Walton. Kneeling, Aerial Gunner Bill Demo; Mid-Upper Gunner Ossie Blower; and Bomb Aimer Bill Gray. (Canadian Historical Aircraft Association)

Over the next ten days, approximately 11,000 tons (9,979 Metric tons) of food were dropped by Royal Air Force Lancasters and U.S. Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.

A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops food packages from its bomb bay while flying at very low level over The Netherlands during Operation Manna.
A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops food packages from its bomb bay while flying at very low level over The Netherlands during Operation Manna.

¹ The second Lancaster was commanded by Flight Officer P. G. L. Collett, Royal Australian Air Force (A424149).

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

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4 thoughts on “29 April 1945

  1. Firstly Bryan, thank you for sharing all your amazing work.

    Clicking on This Day in Aviation History first thing in the morning has become a cherished ritual for me. And, as a life long student of all history, I appreciate that you spend as much effort relating the human story as you do the technological history. As you obviously well know, It’s people that design, build and fly aircraft.

    Having traveled through Holland, and been thanked in the most heartfelt way, for the liberation of Holland (despite me being born 22 years after the end of WW2), I was especially touched by your 29 April 1945 piece on Operations Manna and Chowhound. I’ve since done a little poking around on the internet and came up with this…

    Although it’s a children’s book, the research behind it goes far beyond it’s 32 pages, and tells, in detail, about the famine, the operations and, very importantly, the crews that risked their lives flying bomb bays full of food, through enemy skies.

    Thank you again.

    Rob

    http://www.badpennybook.com/about.html

  2. Hey Bryan, as another who is interested in this story i would like to remind everyone that Flight Engineer John Corner should also have D.F.M. beside his name. Both he and Flight Sergeant Bob Upcott won their D.F.M. on the same mission over Cologne on March 2nd 1945.

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