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Operation Millenium

Not only six Wellington bombers of No 1429 COTF manned by Cz personnel taking off from the Honnington air base, Suffolk, but  also W/O Tom Jambor and P/O Metodej Sebela  took part in the first 1,000-bomber raid with No 75 Sqn on the night of May 30, 1942. Every serviceable bomber from every available unit as operational as training one was sent to retaliate Coventry  levelled much by Luftwaffe on Nov 14, 1940. Till this night only up to 230 RAF bombers had participated in a single raid.

The target should have been Hamburg or Cologne.  Due to weather conditions over the former, the latter was prioritized. Bombers took off for their aim in three  vawes. Eighty eight ships on diversionary and intruder ops had preceded the bunch to confuse the German defences, followed by slow Wellington aircraft, Stirling heavies, faster twin-engined Manchesters and finally 125 Hallifaxes and 73 new Lancasters.

At least 910 bombers reached the target. The tactics of a stream of the bombers  following the same route and dropping their HEs and incendiaries in a time frame of only 103 minutes  was inaugurated. The German defence system proved to be confused  by a steady stream of the bombers approaching the target  and the lost rate of 3.9 per cent ie fourty one missing was surprisngly low, though so many training units in use were.

Tom Jambor was between his tours of duty late May and he should not have taken part in this sortie at all. The Cz Inspectorate had not been informed of P/O Metodej Sebela´s and Tom Jambor´s transfer to No 75 Sqn and the intention of the British Command to send them over Cologne!!

W/O Jambor flew an twin-engined Wellington Mk IA bomber of a 2894 serial number  having been in use with Central Gunnery School as a co-pilot to P/O David Malcolm Johnson who had never practiced evasive actions if attacked by a night fighter. The No 75 Sqn´s crew consisted of an OTU´s both students and  instructors. Time for preparation work of the training bomber with 403 flying hours for the bomb raid was inadequate. The 2894 Wellington aircraft crashed on her return leg near Klarenbeek, Holland and five crewmen were laid to rest in Ugchelen-Heidehof nr. Appeldorn. His grave is seen HERE on the Not Forgotten – Holland  page – the twenty ninth from the top.

Another Czechoslovak pilot – P/O Metodej Sebela  survived this sortie.

 Only Tom Jambor perished on this May 30/31 raid. All six crews of No 1429 Czechoslovak Operational Training Flight succeeded in returning to Honington, Suffolk.

Meanwhile, Czechoslovak No 311 Sqn practiced low level flying and bombing of non fixed targets, skills needed with Coastal Command, stationed at the RAF Aldergrove station, N. Ireland in May 1942.