VETERAN serviceman and Sale resident Frank Tolley flies out to Holland today, Thursday, to commemorate an operation that saved thousands of lives there shortly before the end of World War II.

On April 29, 1945, Frank was on board a Lancaster bomber. He had flown several wartime missions before, but this one was different because this time round he was dropping food rather than bombs.

Though the war was coming to an end, the German army still occupied large parts of Holland. The effects of military occupation and a particularly cold winter meant that civilians were starving. To deal with this emergency, the RAF launched Operation Manna, dropping supplies of food in areas of Holland still occupied by Germany. Shortly afterwards the United States Air Force joined in with their own relief effort, Operation Chow Hound.

Frank, now aged 94, flew on April 29 and 30 and he remembers the flights well. “Dutch civilians who had come out in their hundreds stood cheering to us on the way. Instead of being met by flak and searchlight beams we had all these people waving up at us. Of course we waved back.”

He is keen to draw attention to how different it was from his previous wartime missions. “The intention was so far removed from all our earlier flights over occupied Europe. Now we were being told to drop food not bombs. That was absolutely superb.”

Between them the British and American operations brought over 11,000 tons of food, providing vital relief in the days before Germany finally surrendered. Operation Manna would act as a precedent for later actions such as the Berlin Airlift.

Frank works as a volunteer at the Imperial War North Museum. He was 23-years-old when he flew his first wartime mission.