World War Two’s mission from Scotland to disrupt atomic bomb bid

But disaster struck over Norway when the gliders’ tow ropes iced up in freezing temperatures. This badly affected the operation of the aircraft.

Halifax B and its glider crashed into a mountainside.

Tom Conacher, from Plains, near Airdrie, was a rear gunner in Halifax A and saw the explosion.

He watched as the rope to the glider attached to his bomber iced up and the aircraft drifted out of control.

Mr Conacher told a 1973 BBC documentary: “He went away starboard and then it just snapped and I saw him peeling away and he disappeared.”

Halifax A and its seven crew made it back to Scotland low on fuel.

The crew of the other bomber were killed in the crash, while survivors from the gliders were captured.

Some were killed by Nazi secret police, the Gestapo. Others were imprisoned and later shot.

Mr Conacher’s daughter, Christine Macdonald, told BBC Scotland News: “Dad never really spoke to us about it (the operation).

“I think that was because of the terrible loss of life.”