page_title: RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II
section_title: Briefings
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II / Typical operational sortie / Briefings
caption_attribution_description: English: Armourers 'bombing up' a Handley Page Halifax Mk II of No. 405 Squadron RCAF at Pocklington in Yorkshire, August 1942. Armourers wheel a trolley of 1,000-lb MC bombs into position for hoisting into Handley Page Halifax Mark II, 'LQ-Q' of No. 405 Squadron RCAF, at Pocklington, Yorkshire. On the right, another armourer is fitting the release gear to Small Bomb Containers (SBCs) filled with 30-lb incendiary bombs.
context_page_description: The aircrews of RAF Bomber Command during World War II operated a fleet of bomber aircraft carried strategic bombing operations from September 1939 to May 1945, on behalf of the Allied powers. The crews were men from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries, and occupied Europe, especially Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and Norway, as well as other foreign volunteers. While the majority of Bomber Command personnel were members of the RAF, many belonged to other air forces – especially the Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force. Under Article XV of the 1939 Air Training Agreement, squadrons belonging officially to the RCAF, RAAF, and RNZAF were formed, equipped and financed by the RAF, for service in Europe. While it was intended that RCAF, RAAF, and RNZAF personnel would serve only with their respective "Article XV squadrons", in practice many were posted to units of the RAF or other air forces. Likewise many RAF personnel served in Article XV squadrons.
  A total of 126 squadrons served with Bomber Command.
context_section_description: Briefings usually commenced during the afternoons, and for reasons of security the bomber base would be closed down to all but the most necessary traffic in or out to reduce to a minimum any leakage of intelligence which might help to forewarn the enemy, even public telephones were padlocked. With RAF Police guarding the doors, briefings commenced in large rooms with the airmen sitting in rows of seats/benches with trestle tables facing a low stage, behind which were large curtains similar to a cinema. 
   Typically the primary briefing was provided by the "C.O." (commanding officer) accompanied by his flight commanders, met officer (meteorologist), "spy" (intelligence officer) and attended by pilots and navigators. The curtain would be drawn back to reveal a huge map of Europe with a line of coloured tape running from the position the bomber base in England out across the English Channel to a point from which a "dog leg" tape ran to the target and then back to base.  The dog leg was introduced to give the impression that a different target was the destination in the hope that the Luftwaffe night fighter controllers would concentrate their forces in the wrong location.  
  Memoirs frequently describe the groans from the assembled airmen if the tapes arrived at a point in Happy Valley, (the industrial Ruhr Valley) or "the Big City" Berlin, where anti-aircraft defences, search light batteries and night-fighters would usually cause substantial casualties. Navigators took many notes on flight times, positions for course changes and with their pilots and bomb aimers would mark up their charts and maps adding notations for wind speeds and directions, the time the attack was expected to commence and locations of known heavy anti-aircraft batteries and other pertinent information.  Cross hatched areas of red celluloid covered sections of the map indicating known flak positions and green celluloid indicating searchlight batteries.
  Often it was practice for other aircrew trades such as bomb aimers, wireless operators, flight engineers and air gunners would join the assembled airmen later for the general briefing after completion of the Navigation briefing.  The format of the briefing would be similar to the main briefing but with less navigational detail. After briefings had been completed aircrew would be permitted free time to prepare themselves, to write "just in case I don't get back" letters to parents, wives and children and to relax or sleep if they were able before their meal which was often referred to as "last supper".
caption: Halifax bomber being bombed up.
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