[R Gannon]

Steve

Operation Michael was a very big battle. I only quote the example for those four squadrons - upwards of 30 others did much the same both on Fifth Army Front & Third Army front - and they all repeated it on the 27th & 28th.

The situiation pretty well stabalised on Third Army front on 26 Mar and on Fifth Army on 28 Mar. A German attempt by their 17 Armee at Arras on 28 Mar was pretty well stopped in its tracks - no mist that day.

But it flared up again both sides of the Somme on 4 Apr with another big German attempt to carry Amiens. But this was pretty well stopped in its tracks also - plenty of British low bombing here 4 Apr - 6 Apr.

The centre of action then moved north when both German 6 Armee & 4 Armee went on offensive on Armentieres sector on I think 9 Apr - reasonable gains first couple of days ( a Portugese division collapsed and left a gapping hole in British line) but attacks fought to a standstill by 18 Apr - again a lot of activity by Schlastas and low bombing by RAF.

A renewed effort was made at Mt Kemmel on 25 Apr with a prodigious number of Schlasta's involved. The height defended by the French was captured and its loss necesitated the British evacuation of the Ypres salient - which had been gained at such cost July - Dec 17. On the bright side - the salient was retaken at end of Sep 18 with very little loss to British.

In late May German offensive attentions turned south to French sector - and again RAF squadrons on attachment to French flew a large number of low bomb missions there also.

As I've said before it is important to become conversant with the land battle if you want to understand the air war - to harp this point - the air war was not a separate theatre.

Good hunting.

Cheers Russ