Air crew of No. 460 Squadron RAAF at an operations briefing, RAF Binbrook, Lincolnshire, England, in November 1943. Clarrie Gardner, who flew with No. 460 Squadron in 1943, recalled that navigators were the first to be briefed on a target early on the day of an operation as they had to work out their route to the target, but they were then sworn to secrecy. Later, aircrew would be briefed together in the operations room: 'so we actually didn't know until we got into the briefing room and there would be a curtain over the target area and the curtain would be pulled back and there would be a big red ribbon from base to the target area say Berlin it might be'. The target revealed, crews would then be briefed by other officers with information about location of anti-aircraft batteries and night fighters, hints about what to do if they were shot down and survived, and, most importantly, a forecast of the weather. [Interview, Clarrie Gardner, Australians at War Film Archive; AWM 069822]
Copyright expired - public domain