Table on the third one has to do with the sea-state, can’t make hide nor hair of the others at that resolution though.

Some info here:

http://www.lancaster-archive.com/bc_bombsmineincendiaries.htm

It would be interesting to see the loss rates plotted on the same chart (please!)

Ask, and it shall be given you.

As for the Mossies, you’ll find no greater Mosquito fan than myself, however I think Don Bennett was incorrect (Hubris!) when he said the Mosquito could carry as much to Berlin as the B-17s. When the Forts had a lot of incendiaries aboard, their load to Berlin was in fact less than 4,000 lbs. However when loaded only with HE they seem to have been around 5,000 lbs per aircraft.

Have a look at some of the Berlin mission reports here:

http://www.303rdbg.com/missions.html

Try here:

http://www.303rdbg.com/missionreports/197.pdf

I also don’t recall a reference to Amsterdam, though I do know Mossies hit the Gestapo in The Hague. The classic “Soldaat van Oranje” (sorry if the spelling is wrong) tells the tale of a Dutch military man who ended up on Mosquitos, though he doesn’t describe any raids on Dutch territory.

Edit – There was also this one: “26 Nov 44 Raid by 24 RAF Typhoons on the Sicherheitsdienst HQ (closely affiliated to the Gestapo) in Amsterdam, destroying records on the Dutch resistance movement.”

Agree with other posters that the white streaks are not shooting past the camera craft, rather the camera craft is coming up on marker trails from bombs dropped by one or two aircraft just ahead. Also agree that the black puffies are flak bursts.

One of the “related clips” lists the target as Ludwigshafen, and Google Earth confirms this. Ludwigshafen itself is on the “near” side of the river. There’s enough white stuff there to suggest another bomb group had passed over previously. Anything that goes into the land in the bend of the river, the river itself or the far bank (garden allotments!) has overshot.

The marshalling yards in Ludwigshafen are below the camera craft very early in the piece and run perpendicular to the line of flight.

“Coulda beena contenda,” so they say.