1 July 1943

To commence the month of July, eleven of our aircraft were detailed to attack the marshalling yards and military installations at Palermo in Sicily, the pilots were:

S/Ldr Garrod
F/Lt Langlois
P/O Kalberer
F/O Jones
Sgt Tinsley
Sgt Sullivan
Sgt K Smith
Sgt Whitehouse
Sgt Hales
Sgt Mortimer
Sgt Alazrachi

All of the aircraft took off between 2055 and 2127 hours. On the outward and return journeys there were patches of cloud at 8000-9000 ft and over the target area there were patches of cloud at 10 000 ft with some ground haze, the darkness was intense.

One aircraft developed engine trouble on the outward journey and was forced to jettison its bomb load. Three crews were able to say definitely that they found and bombed the target but the remainder had difficulty in pin-pointing and could not say with certainty where their bombs fell. A fairly large red fire was reported in the southern part of town and another in the centre. there was moderate to intense heavy flak and a small quantity of scattered light flak. All crews returned by 0155 hours."