The RAF bombing raid against the Schneider Works at Le Creusot, known as Operation Robinson, was undertaken during the daylight hours of 17 October 1942.

It was largely viewed as the French equivalent of Germany's Krupp Works, and was located in Le Creusot in south central France.

[4] These targets presented a problem, as bombing them at night would necessarily result in significant casualties among civilians, whose desire to resist the occupiers was being cultivated by Britain.

The RAF ran heavy fighter sweeps and bombing attacks on coastal targets to distract German defenses.

The aircraft would leave in the afternoon, make their attack as light faded, and then fly a direct return under the cover of darkness.

It was hoped that the new aircraft would be fast enough to avoid German defenses and would carry a large enough bomb load to cause significant damage to the target.

Harris needed clear weather over Le Creusot to give his crews the best chance of hitting the plant while avoiding French civilian casualties.

88 of the aircraft were committed to the main target, while 6 were to fly on to nearby Montchanin to knock out the coal fueled transformer station located there, which supplied electrical power to the plant.

[10] The Group flew over the island of Île d'Yeu, some 48 miles south of St. Nazaire, potentially alerting the Germans to their approach.

Four aircraft suffered minor damage from bird strikes and two men were injured, but the low level flying resulted in no serious accidents going in.

The Group quickly passed overhead, with the bulk of the formation dropping its bombs over a 7-minute period while six Lancasters continued on with their loads to Montchanin.

[10] Returning crews reported a successful attack [11] and Guy Gibson's official report next day, and his subsequent account of 'one of the greatest low-level daylight raids of the war', were celebratory,[12] as wartime morale required, but one of Gibson's flight commanders, Squadron Leader John Searby, later wrote that 'Le Creusot was a profound disappointment and he said as much on his return.

The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Tony Hill, famed in intelligence circles for his low-level pictures of German radar installations, was pulled alive from the wreckage, but soon died of his injuries.

Bomber Command's Operational Research Section 'thought this was partly attributable to the failing light and the smoke which soon began to drift across the target, but they also thought that the tactics adopted had been inappropriate and that the bomb sights had not been properly used.

They suggested that the outcome was the penalty of employing night crews in complex daylight operations without giving them more than a few days' training.

'[17] Crews had been ordered to climb and accelerate immediately before target, which made it impossible to set the Mark IX Course Setting Bomb Sight correctly, since this sight required a long, straight and level run-up to target in order to calculate the drift and could not adjust for the aircraft's attitude.

Even at fairly low height, the bombs had to be released more than a mile short of target, to allow for forward travel on the drop, and the calculations were complex.

The much more advanced, computerised and gyro-stabilised Mark XIV bomb sight, with automatic input from the aircraft's flight instruments, only entered squadron service some months later.