‘This map here is based on the one supplied by Agent Laertes and also on our own reconnaissance. It shows the various targets within the Peenemünde site. The plan is for the first wave to be over Peenemünde at midnight; their role will be primarily as pathfinders, to drop the markers in the correct positions to enable the second and third waves to hit their allocated targets with more accuracy. That first wave will mainly comprise Halifax and Stirling bombers. The second wave is due over the site at twenty minutes past midnight, by which time the first wave will have cleared the area. The second wave will mainly be Lancasters, and their targets will hopefully have been nicely lit up for them by the pathfinders. Twenty minutes later, at twenty to one, the third wave comes in: more Lancasters and Halifaxes. They should be out of there before one o’clock.

‘If we turn to this chart, gentlemen, you can see their route away from the site. They’ll all drop their bombs while heading south, and when they finish, they’ll turn west-north-west and head back towards the North Sea on a route just south of the one they flew in on – this is to ensure that each wave of aircraft avoids hitting an incoming wave. It’s a more perilous route because it takes them closer to Rostock, which is very well defended, and also of course because by then the Luftwaffe will know what we’re up to and will be out looking for the returning aircraft.’

‘Won’t they be all over us by the time the second wave passes over Denmark?’

‘Possibly, Sir Roland, but we are organising a series of decoy bombing raids to coincide with the one over Peenemünde. Specifically, here and here: Berlin and Hamburg. These raids will start at eleven thirty, so with some luck they’ll have drawn most of the German night fighters away from the Peenemünde area.’

‘When will the raid take place?’ It was a rare question from the normally silent Long from the Ministry.

‘Bomber Command say it should be on the night of a full moon, or as close to it as possible. The next full moon over that area is around the twentieth of February, and for various operational reasons they feel Thursday the eighteenth would be the best day.’

‘So two weeks today, eh?’

‘Indeed, Sir Roland.’

The young wing commander sat down as Air Vice Marshal Hamilton stood up again. ‘The objectives of this operation are threefold: to destroy as many of the identified structures as possible; to cause maximum loss of life in the areas where we believe the Germans are – most importantly their scientists; and to avoid hitting the slave labour accommodation at Trassenheide.’