On January 4th , 617 Sqn returned to the V1 site in the Pas de Calaise, but having dropped his marker flares from 5,000 ft, Cheshire called an abort as thick cloud and drifting smoke made bombing impossible. With Cheshire on this flight was Grp Cpt ‘Tiny’ Evans, Station Commander at Coningsby, this was his last chance to ride with No 617 Sqn as they had received orders to move to RAF Woodhall Spa, a few miles down the road. The move was completed by the January 9th . On January 10th and 14th operations were cancelled due to bad weather over France. The squadron continued practicing their flare drops over The Wash, a large floating raft serving as a target ‘roof ’. Despite reasonable results Cheshire was still not happy with the 5,000 ft ceiling imposed by Cochrane, flares were not burning for long enough once dropped. With only Mick Martin left , Cheshire called him in to drop so they could head home for tea. Mick Martin was born in Australia and at the outbreak of war he attempted to join the RAAF, but was rejected as unfit to fly due to asthma. Undeterred he worked his passage to England and joined the RAF. Even today he is rated as possibly the greatest exponent of low level bombing in the RAF during WWII. All pilots were given a basic grounding in mechanics and aircraft construction, but Martin took a far greater interest in the how’s and why’s. With the aid of Barnes Wallis he ‘acquired’ a lot of reading material not generally available and he knew his Lancaster inside out. It was now he decided to test a redundant feature of the aircraft, and unintentionally give Cheshire a near heart attack. Cheshire watched in dread as Martin’s bomb bay doors began to open and the aircraft began to nose down. Martin gave his crew a full briefing of his intentions with two words “brace yourselves”. Throttling back the engines he pushed forward on the yoke, the 39 ton bomber dropped like a stone with the nose 65 degrees below the horizon. At 1000 ft Martin released his flairs, jamming the throttles to the firewall he eased back on the yoke and the Lancaster pulled up to level and began to climb with 250 ft of clear air below it. The Lancaster really was a capable dive bomber. Cheshire informed Martin he should be grounded, as he was obviously ‘mad as a March hare’. However he couldn’t argue with the results, all the flares had landed on the raft, in fact the resulting fire left them needing a new one. The following day Cheshire gave it a try, when he reported this to Cochrane he was stunned, but in light of the results, agreed they could try it on their next raid. This was to be the Gnome-Rhone aero engine factory at Limoges, the following night. The target presented a further problem as it was staffed by French civilian labourers, and 617 Sqn did not want to be seen as wantonly bombing innocent civilians. On the 8th February 12 aircraft left Woodhall Spa for Limoges. Cheshire dived on the factory 3 times to warn the civilians to get to the shelters, he then dived again and released his marker flares. Immediately all the lights in the complex and the nearby town went out, Mick Martin flew in and dropped incendiary bombs to enhance the marking, with the rest of the group ordered to bomb as soon as he was clear. The results were spectacular, aircraft were dropping bombs in craters made by the bombs of the preceding plane. Of the 48 workshops in the complex, 21 were completely levelled and the remainder were severely damaged. When the report and reccon photos of the raid circulated in high places, Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal requested AVM Harris to “convey my warmest congratulations to No 617 Squadron on the extreme accuracy of their bombing” On February 12th , the Squadron was detailed to return to the ‘lightly defended’ Antheor Viaduct…..