I have often wondered how on earth the pilots of Lysanders and Hudsons whose task was to collect and deliver agents from and to occupied France during World War II coped with navigation.
I too also wondered similarly. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia that just boggles the mind...:
'The special duties squadrons had to recruit and train pilots for their command. Being a secret organization, recruitment was a problem. Some pilots were drawn to the SD squadrons by personal contacts, others by the pilot's own experience in escaping from the continent. All of them had an "Above Average" pilot rating. Many had also qualified as navigators. Self-reliance in navigation was an important quality for the SD pilots. Many judged it a more essential skill for a successful SD pilot than piloting the aircraft itself.[19] A pilot had to fly in the dark of night over enemy occupied territory, frequently in weather that grounded other squadrons, and navigate by himself to a small dark field in the middle of France.[19] Pilots had to be self-reliant, capable of thinking and acting on their own.[20] Hugh Verity wrote a set of instructions for the Lysander pilots in A Flight of 161 Squadron.[21] These were guides offered from an experienced Lysander pilot to the novitiate, but were more helpful tips rather than a set of hard fast rules.[22] 161 Squadron did not have rigid rules they followed, as conditions and obstacles such as bad weather, low cloud and fog, boggy landing fields, or possible enemy action were too variable. As 161 Squadron commander Charles Pickard often remarked: "There's always bloody something!"[23]
It took about a month for a pilot to complete the training and for the commanding officer to determine if the pilot would be able to do the job.[24] Training required the pilot to be extremely comfortable with the layout of the aircraft's controls. He had to learn how to work out a course to his target and back. The course set was made up of a string of pinpoints, navigational terrain features which were identifiable and whose location was sure. The course was a 50 mile wide corridor designed to avoid German flak emplacements. On his trip the pilot flew from pinpoint to pinpoint, staying in the corridor defined till he reached the target area. He would practice this by flying by navigation alone over England by day, without making use of the radio to ask for a homing bearing, flying from navigation point to navigation point. The flights would be repeated at night. Next they practiced night time landings and take offs from a grass field. This training was done at "RAF Somersham", a "dummy" airfield near RAF Tempsford initially used as a decoy during the Blitz. It was later put to use by the RAF and the SOE for training of agent operators and Lysander pilots, as the rough field approximated a typical landing ground in occupied France.[25]
The final test for a Lysander pilot was to navigate over the continent through a corridor free of flak to a pinpoint target in France south of Saumur. The target was described to the pilot as a light. When the pilot arrived over the target he found a brilliantly lit rectangle.[26] It was in fact a prison camp, whose bright lighting of the fence wire made it a "pinpoint" of uniquely brilliant quality. When the pilot returned and reported on this astonishing target he confirmed he had made it there and was made operational