Bomber Command's Forgotten Weapon

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**James Holland** (0:51)
Acton, Acton, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, James Holland. And today I'm joined by Jane Gulliford Lowes, who is a member of the Independent Company, a brilliant historian in her own right. And Jane, you've been doing all sorts of things, haven't you? Because you're doing fascinating stuff on the commando raids in the Lafoto Islands at the moment.
You're also working on LMF, lacking moral fiber within the RAF Bomber Command. But today we're talking about mine laying operations, aerial mine laying operations.
And I just think that's such a fascinating subject and something that we've never tackled. Generally speaking, I think we just, I mean, I know it's Bomber Command are doing mine laying as well, but never really done much on Coastal Command. Why is it that Coastal Command gets so little attention when it's riddled with mosquitoes and bow fighters and attacking German convoys of Norway and doing really, really fascinating stuff? I mean, why don't we know more about it? It's bizarre, isn't it?

**Jane Gulliford Lowes** (1:55)
Coastal Command is a massively exciting topic, I think, but yes, you're right. It's been very much overlooked as has mine laying. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to study it because there's just a complete dearth of literature out there about the topic.
And yet it's a really important part of what Bomber Command were doing and quite a big part of what they were doing throughout the war. So we're talking about a campaign which began in April, 1940 and continued right up until May, 45 and nobody talks about it.

**James Holland** (2:28)
Are they part of the kind of mining of the Leeds of Norway? Is that aerial operations or is that naval operations?

**Jane Gulliford Lowes** (2:36)
Basically from Biscay, from outside the German submarine bases in Biscay on the Atlantic coast of France, right up around the Frisian Islands, right around Denmark, off the coast of Norway and right into the Baltic. So it covers a really, really vast area.

**James Holland** (2:53)
And I suppose mines are really, really useful, aren't they? Because all these places, there's lots of narrow channels, aren't there? Perhaps less so in the Biscay.
Well, no, there is because you've got the Gironde, haven't you? There's sort of long rivers and wide rivers from inland ports. I mean, you think of sort of places like Rotterdam and stuff and all around the Dutch coast, you've got all those islands, haven't you? And again, you've got these little narrow shipping channels and then you've got the fjords in Norway. So it absolutely, lobbying a whole load of mines at the entrance of these places are presumably exactly what they're trying to do, isn't it?

**Jane Gulliford Lowes** (3:29)
Exactly. And it's got to be pinpoint operations. It's not just the question of turning up and bombing within four or five square miles like Bomber Command would do on their bombing ops.
It's got to be absolute pinpoint because you are looking to target harbors, you are looking to target shipping lanes, you are looking to target estuaries, canals, et cetera. It's not just a random sort of area. You've got to do it absolutely pinpoint to target ships coming through or submarines or barges, whatever. And the mines have to be laid with pinpoint accuracy. And that means in the early days in particular that they are laid from extremely low altitude. So we're talking two or three, four, maybe 500 feet at first. So it's incredibly dangerous.
And if you can't pinpoint your location to drop your mines, you don't just randomly drop them in the sea and head home again. You have to bring them home again with you because these are very, very expensive, very technical pieces of kit and they will be used again.

**James Holland** (4:31)
Okay, well, let's talk about these mines. So what are the, because when I think mines and bobbing around the sea, I think of a big sphere that looks like a sort of coronavirus with sort of pointy bits on and you're hoping that someone's going to bang into it.