We didn;t worry too much about not hitting the military targets we were after. Really, I suppose one thought we were at war with Germany and so long as we dropped our bombs we were doing damage somewhere, although the ruling was that if we couldn't see our target we were to bring our bombs back, but nobody did this.

If the target was covered in cloud but you knew you were over a town somewhere, you dropped your bombs, and when you got back at the de-briefing, you said there was a hole in the clouds and you bombed through the hole.

The next raid after Coventry we were briefed not to bring our bombs back. That was the first time we were briefed to do that, after Coventry.

--Rupert Oakley, RAF BNomber Command pilot (73 missions)

--War, by Gwynne Dyer, Crown Publishers, p.92