The episode in which Wing Commander Hughie Edwards won his VC, by Ray Honisett, 1982. On 4 July 1941, as commanding officer of No. 105 Squadron RAF, Wing Commander Hughie Edwards led fifteen Blenheim bombers on a raid on Bremen harbour, Germany. A remarkable feature of the attack was the low-level approach to the target for 80 kilometres at an altitude of only 15 metres, literally ‘hedge-hopping'. Edwards had experience of this technique, having been punished when a student in Australia for hedge-hopping a passenger train. Dense anti-aircraft fire met the bombers at Bremen; all were hit and four were shot down. These lightning raids have been described as more a ‘commando' style operation by comparison with the huge formations of heavy bombers which Bomber Command began to send against Germany from 1942 onwards. [AWM ART28455, oil on canvas, 60.8 x 106.6 cm]
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