At 21:20 hrs on the evening of 26^th July 1944, 178 Lancaster Bombers left various airfields in the east of England, their mission was to destroy the marshalling yard at Givors. They were accompanied by 9 Mosquitos from 627 Squadron who left RAF Woodhall Spa, taking off between 23:08 and 23:18 en route to Givors, just south of Lyon. Their mission was to deploy markers across the marshalling yard at Givors to assist in the accurate placement of the payload from the heavy bombers. Givors had been the target of numerous bombing raids during World War II, targeted by the Luftwaffe (or maybe the Italians – there is some suspicion that this is the case) in June 1940 and then a further 5 times during 1944 by both the RAF and USAF. Marshalling yards across France became the focus of intense bombing raids post D-Day in an effort to thwart the movement of reserves and military cargo across Europe by the German Army.