The white and fresh concrete of a three-runway layout was also visible from distance at night, possibly drawing attention of Luftwaffe bombers. The concrete was treated following the op of the utmost priority, because of which all the leaves were cancelled and all the airmen as well as groundcrew were placed on full alert on June 24. So till twenty four hours the crews were nearly complete except for the crewmen who were beyond. The Wellington bombers were inspected due to ferrying to the advanced air base of Bircham, Norfolk.
All the RAF squadrons were ordered to send as many bombers and crews as possible. The greatest bomb raid using the highest number of aircraft to date had been in pipeline. Despite finishing his tour of duty, the W/OP Jiri Osolsobe volunteered for the raid on one of the fourteen No 311 Sqn´s Wellington bombers.
Normally two Sqns operated from Bircham Newton with their thirty aircraft only, but due to this mass raid 150 bomber planes were cramped there. The briefing was not held in a ops room as usual, but because of seven hundred airmen from eight squadrons in a station´s cinema. The target was Bremen and a necessity to drop the bombload between 0200 and 0245 hrs ie within mere fourty five minutes for the better effect was novelty,if compared with a time space of one and half hours over Cologne on May 30/31. If not able to reach the primary target till 02.45, the bombload was to be dropped on the secondary one.
The bombers took off in an interval of a minute and No 311 Sqn´s turn was as the last one after eleven p.m. Due to three humps on a runway the Wellington captained by Sgt Vratislav Zezulka became airborne on the second of them and rammed into the third one with such a force, that a wheel of one main gear strut came loose. The wheel fell on the ground after a while but Z 1090 kept going.
There were so many planes in the skies that the Germans tracing the aircraft on approach prompted by listening to them were confused by noise made by other bombers nearby. The defense was disoriented and fired at random. The primary target was reached by eleven Wellington aircraft of No 311 Sqn and each of them dropped six bombs of 500 lb on the city of Bremen. A return leg had been pre-scheduled over the North Sea so that collisions with other approaching aircraft could be nullified. All fourteen No 311 Sqn´s Wellington bombers returned to the base except Z 1090 that crashed on the Branchaster Beach, Norfolk. All its crewmen unhurt.
Back at Talbenny the Wellington aircraft still wearing a dark Bomber Command camouflage were repainted by a Coastal Command´s light one. It made the ships younger. Their tyres were wearing off too quickly on the sharp surface of new runways. So hired Welsh coolies weretasked to apply a mixture of tar and bits of rubber on the concrete. Doing so, the tyres started exploding on the runways !! It was caused by the work sabotaged by the Welsh who blended bits of rubber with nails and bolts. Both air- and grouncrew of No 311 Sqn combed the runways and made a try to remove the nails and bolts from the rubber. In vain. The solution to the problem was simple – the surfaces were poured with petrol, fire was lit and the nails were swept together with the rubber. The concrete lost its bright colour for ever.
Bibliography : Miloslav Vild The fate was my friend Nase Vojsko Publ 1985
Jiri Osolsobe Nine of us left Nase vojsko Publ 1989