Essen

1 June 1942 — Essen

Date
1 June 1942
Target
Essen, Germany
Force dispatched
956 aircraft
Aircraft lost
31

Narrative

On the night of 1/2 June 1942, two nights after the first thousand-bomber raid on Cologne, Arthur Harris flung his hastily assembled maximum-effort force at Essen, heart of the Ruhr and home of the Krupp armament works. Some 956 aircraft were dispatched in the second of the “Millennium” raids, a force again swollen by pulling in crews and instructors from the operational training units to break the thousand barrier. Essen, however, was a far harder target than Cologne. It lay under the permanent industrial haze of the Ruhr, and on this night low cloud and ground mist swallowed the aiming point. The bombing scattered widely across the valley; Krupp was barely touched and the damage was spread thinly over many towns rather than concentrated on the city. Thirty-one aircraft were lost. The raid showed that mass alone could not overcome the Ruhr’s haze and defences — the accuracy that Essen demanded would not come until target-marking and electronic navigation aids matured a year later in the Battle of the Ruhr.

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

208 airmen in this archive died on 1 June 1942 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.

See all 208 who died on 1 June →

Source: Wikipedia — Thousand-bomber raids →