E-boat

But in actual fact...

What Coastal Command was, especially Coastal Command squadrons that were based here at the time, were dutied with was hunting of the E-boats, the Schnellboots, the fast torpedo boats that the Germans had.

Towards the end of November 1943, we had 415 Royal Canadian Air Force Swordfish Squadron, that was what they were known as, were equipped with the Vickers Wellingtons, and they went out on what was known as Operation Gilby, and then Operation Deadly was what they called them later on, which was specifically to hunt German e-boats operating from Dutch, Belgian ports, all these areas, because there was a worry that when the invasion was launched, there will be this huge amount of traffic in the English Channel.

And at nighttime, the Germans could muster several of these small vessels, go to maximum torpedo range, fire off a spread, not necessarily with any accuracy, but because of the amount of shipping in the channel, you were likely to hit something.