The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Na Nien, Thailand. 19 March 1945. A low level oblique view from one of the RAF attacking aircraft showing the whole of the target area burning fiercely. To disrupt Japanese supplies reaching the Burma front, over eighty heavy bombers of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command, flew across the Indian Ocean in the longest raid they have yet accomplished. When the crew returned from their mission, some of them had been in the air for seventeen and a half hours and had flown 2,500 miles. While US Army Air Force B-24 bomber aircraft attacked a series of targets south of Chumphon in the Gulf of Siam, RAF Liberator aircraft attacked the heavily used railway sidings, eight miles west of Chumphon. Some of the aircraft, which went into attack from as low as 400 feet, saw prisoners of war (POWs) waving to them as they passed over the Kra Isthmus. The whole sidings were covered by the attack and many railway buildings were left burning while one part of the sidings was completely burnt out. Trains were set on fire, and a large oil fire started. Not content with this devastating attack some of the crews flew another fifty miles further south and strafed locomotives on the Singapore rail route.
Na Nien, Thailand. 19 March 1945. A Japanese train transporting oil has been hit in the middle of the sidings, and great clouds of blacksmoke billow skywards. To disrupt Japanese supplies reaching the
Na Nien, Thailand. 19 March 1945. This vivid deck-level view shows a stick of bombs bursting on storage sheds at the railway sidings, while another RAF Liberator aircraft flies over the target area. T
Na Nien, Thailand. 19 March 1945. View through the beam hatch of one of the attacking aircraft shows an RAF Liberator aircraft flying over the target area, which is covered in smoke from the heavy att
Chumphon, Thailand. 1945-03-19. To disrupt Japanese supplies destined for the Burma front, more than eighty heavy bomber aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command, flew across the Indian Oc
Chumphon, Thailand. c. March 1945. RAF Liberator bomber aircraft in which flew many RAAF aircrews and US Army Air Force B-24 aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command carried out a long dis
Chumphon, Thailand. c. March 1945. RAF Liberator bomber aircraft in which flew many RAAF aircrews and US Army Air Force B-24 aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command, carried out a long di
