He and his companion RAF officer decided to take a short trip to New York while things were sorted out.After his return Cheshire resumed flying the Halifax in missions over Germany. Within recent months he has participated in many attacks on targets of vital importance to the enemy and the successes obtained are an excellent tribute to his outstanding tactical ability, great courage and iron determination. Eventually when he set course for base the task of disengaging himself from the defences proved even more hazardous than the approach. Berlin, Bremen, Cologne, Duisberg, Essen and Kiel were among the heavily defended targets which he attacked. He told Dykes the real position and invited him to stay at Le Court. Martin tried using a dive bomb technique, approaching at 5,000 feet and then dropping into a 30-degree dive, releasing the marker at 100 feet before pulling the big Lancaster up. Citation reads: This officer has commanded the squadron with notable success. The target would be the On the night of 8/9 February 1944 the Lancasters of 617 Squadron approached Limoges at 16,000 feet. From the outset Long tested Cheshire on every aspect of the aircraft. Approaching at 16,000 feet, the rest of 617 came in one at a time, each aircraft dropping its bomb load directly on the marker. I had to sit in the cockpit blindfold and go through the different drills, sit in the rear turret, in the navigator's and the wireless operator's seat, and try and see life from their point of view. He immediately set to work as the pioneer of a new method of marking enemy targets involving very low flying. About this time he carried out a number of convoy patrols, in addition to his bombing missions. This gave each Cheshire Home a local structure closely knit to the community they were serving, while being affiliated with an international organization. The target area was well lit, though there was intense flak over the target. Over 200 other Cheshire homes and organisations around the world exist, run independently but affiliated to a Leonard Cheshire Global Alliance.The UK charity is headquartered in London and its main stated objectives are "to provide effective and efficient community-based services to disabled people that respond to their preferences" and to "campaign in partnership with disabled people, allies and supporters for a society that provides equality to disabled people. It was announced in 2017 that the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia will promote Leonard Cheshire's cause for canonisation as a saint.Photographs, private and service letters, intelligence reports, crew lists and official documents about Leonard Cheshire’s service in Bomber Command have been digitised and are currently available onlineMartin was at the end of his tour with 617 Squadron, and would not return. Although Le Court had no financial support, and his situation was financially perilous most of the time, money somehow always seemed to arrive in the nick of time to stave off disaster.
A return trip to England was out of the question, and his aircraft limped south to an airfield on Sardinia.Cheshire's low level technique came together in his mind following his failure at the Anthéor viaduct.Following this failure 617 made a series of attacks with astonishing accuracy, destroying an aircraft factory at With the string of successes in low level marking Cochrane took Cheshire to see Harris to discuss their marking technique, request the use of Though delighted with the opportunity, Harris had selected about the most difficult target for Cheshire to reach. Cheshire obtained a posting to the Atlantic Ferry Organisation to fly a Cheshire finally arrived in Canada to find the authorities there did not know who he was or what he was there for. What he did in the Munich operation was typical of the careful planning, brilliant execution and contempt for danger which has established for Wing Commander Cheshire a reputation second to none in Bomber Command.Awarded for humanitarian work in providing residential services for patients with complex needs, illnesses and impairments. With the target marked with one accurate target indicator flare the main force would come in, aim for the flare and destroy the target. He would always fly on the most dangerous operations, and never took the less dangerous ops to France. Cheshire and Martin approached to make a low level marking of the line, but it was soon discovered that since the last attempt the Germans had placed a large number of flak guns on the hills overlooking the viaduct. He was amongst the first to notice that it was very rare for a Halifax to return on three engines. During his fourth tour which ended in July 1944, Wing Commander Cheshire led his squadron personally on every occasion, always undertaking the most dangerous and difficult task of marking the target alone from a low level in the face of strong defences. With more experienced crews he would take the pilot's seat, and move the crew's regular pilot to the second pilot spot. Dykes died in August 1948. In 2013–14 it had income of over £162 million, placing it in the top 40 of UK charities.Cheshire started the charity in 1948 with a residential home for disabled ex-servicemen at Le Court, a large country house near Each of these "Cheshire Homes", as they came to be called, were similarly set up: local communities came forward, assembled a group of volunteers, found whatever suitable accommodation they could, set up administrative committees and began raising funds for development.