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After The Battle, Issue 79

The first article in this issue is titled The Bielefeld Viaduct and describes the efforts of the RAF to destroy this important part of the German railway network.  The final successful raid involved the use of the heaviest bomb dropped up to that time – the Barnes Wallis Grand Slam weighing 22,000lbs.  This was carried by a modified Lancaster which had an enlarged bomb bay.  Illustrated throughout in the “Then and Now” format the photographs include a photo of a Grand Slam bomb being dropped by a Lancaster, which gives a good indication of the enormous size of the bomb, and a series of photos illustrating the rebuilding of the viaduct in the 1960’s.

The following well researched and detailed article explores the production of poison gas in the UK at various locations since World War I, through World War 2 and beyond.  Titled Poison Gas Manufacture in the UK this article also describes the measures to destroy the stocks of these in more recent times.

Related to the above article “Mustard Disaster at Bari” is an account of the destruction of an American ship loaded 100 tonnes of Mustard Gas bombs during a German air raid on the docks at Bari on the Italian Adriatic coast.  More than 1,000 military personnel and an unknown number of Italian civilians were killed as a result.  This is a well detailed account, not only of the raid, but the events leading to it – an incident that was kept secret for many years after the war and only became widely known by the publication of the book Disaster at Bari by American author Glenn B Infield in 1971

The final article in this issue “Incident at Mosty” is an account of a German “commando” raid into Poland six days before the war started.  In effect this constituted the first shots fired in the Second World War.

This issue contains 54 pages of well researched Second World War military history much of which is presented in the familiar “Then and Now” format for which this publication is famous.