Hamburg
2 August 1943 — Hamburg
- Date
- 2 August 1943
- Target
- Hamburg, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 740 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 30
Narrative
The last of the great Operation Gomorrah raids, on the night of 2/3 August 1943, was undone not by the enemy but by the weather. Some 740 aircraft set out for Hamburg, but on the way they flew into a towering belt of thunderstorms over Germany. Crews met violent turbulence, severe icing and electrical discharges that played about their aircraft; many bombers iced up, several were lost to the storm itself, and the force became hopelessly scattered. The Pathfinders could not mark accurately through the towering cloud, and the bombing was spread across Hamburg and a wide spread of surrounding towns with little of the concentration that had made the earlier raids so destructive. Thirty aircraft were lost. The storm brought the ten-day battle to an inconclusive close, but the damage was already done: Operation Gomorrah had killed some 40,000 people, gutted vast areas of the city and shown the world the destructive power that concentrated area bombing had reached.
Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.
The fallen
246 airmen in this archive died on 2 August 1943 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.
- Leading Aircraftman Henry Allcorn (30)
- Sergeant William Kenneth Ambrose (31)
- Sergeant William George Anderson (22)
- Flying Officer Edward Joseph Andrews (23)
- Sergeant Donald William McGlashan Archer (27)
- Sergeant Walter Frederick Ardron (23)
- Sergeant John Douglas Ashley (22)
- Sergeant Alan Ashworth (21)
- Warrant Officer Rhubert Mellor Austin (23)
- Flying Officer Albert Victor Aylott
- Warrant Officer Ronald Jack Badger
- Pilot Officer Cyril Philip Bailie (21)
- Sergeant John Herbert Baily (24)
- Flying Officer Marshall Edwin Balkam
- Sergeant John William Barrett (20)
- Flight Sergeant Alexander Kirk Baxter (34)
- Sergeant Ronald Cecil Victor Beck (34)
- Flight Sergeant Alfred Arthur Charles Bedward (28)
- Sergeant Eric James Bell
- Flight Sergeant James Bell (56)
- Flight Sergeant Dudley William Bellamy
- Sergeant Robert William Bennett (20)
- Pilot Officer Charles Henry Best
- Sergeant Albert Samuel Biffin (21)