Operation Manna

Operation Manna was organised 1944/45, the purpose of this operation was to drop food to the starving population of Holland. RAF / RCAF Lancasters and USAAF B-17s were loaded with food which were contained in sealed bags, such as powdered milk, eggs and chocolate. With little low-level training the pilots of these aircraft had to fly in and return at 200 feet . The reason for this was that the germans had agreed to a truce provided that the allies flew at 200 feet with guns elevated and along pre-determed corridors.

Just post-war, the Dutch company Delft, produced a ceramic plaque to commemorate this event. The picture below is of one that will be bequeathed to the archives and will take pride of place in our memorial room:

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My wife bought the plaque in an antique shop in Scotland. I previously had quickly looked around the shop, saw nothing of interest and sneaked off to the pub. Meanwhile said wife went to the same shop and bought the plaque, I imerged from pub a bit lubricated and she proudly presented me with the plaque 'look what I found'. It was not until a few hours later, that I realised the significance of the plaque. I now claim ownership. That in a nutshell is its providence. Well you did ask!

Peter, its called 'teamwork'!

I have been trawling though aircrew logbooks available online for additional range information and dates and I found a number of references to "SUPPLY DROPPING PRACTICE" around the second week of April 1945, two examples being 75 squadron at Mepal and 218 squadron at Chedburgh. One particularly interesting entry was on 12 April 1945 for a Lancaster of 218 squadron where the entry was LLB with 12 sandbags on base at 500 feet. This seems to imply that sandbags were used for this training, which makes sense, and that the drop zone was the home airfield itself.

I wonder if this was copied by all the units involved and was the airfield used so the sandbags could be recovered for another crew to use? Would they have survived the drop? Next question is would the sandbags have been thrown out the bomb bay or could the bomb bay doors support the load until opened?