Operation Varsity
24 March 1945 — Wesel (rhine Crossing)
- Date
- 24 March 1945
- Command
- Transport / Airborne
- Target
- Wesel (rhine Crossing), Germany
- Aircraft lost
- 56
Narrative
Operation Varsity, on 24 March 1945, was the largest airborne operation ever mounted on a single day in one place — the airborne arm of the Allied crossing of the Rhine near Wesel. The British 6th Airborne Division was carried into action by RAF and USAAF transport aircraft and gliders: more than 750 Dakotas and over 400 Horsa and Hamilcar gliders lifted the British paratroops and glider infantry, part of an armada of several thousand aircraft that took the better part of an hour to pass overhead. Unlike Arnhem six months earlier, the troops were delivered in a single daylight lift directly onto their objectives, behind a massive artillery and air bombardment. The cost in the air was severe — dozens of transports and gliders were shot down or wrecked by intense flak over the landing zones, and many glider pilots and RAF aircrew were among the dead — but the operation succeeded and the Rhine barrier was broken. It was the last great airborne assault of the war.
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
81 airmen in this archive died on 24 March 1945 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.
- Flying Officer Lorne Raymond Aljoe (21)
- Flying Officer William Anderson (25)
- Flight Sergeant Norman Hanson Ashworth (28)
- Flight Lieutenant John Benjamin Barnes
- Pilot Officer William Keith Bennett (23)
- Pilot Officer Leonard Frank Branston (20)
- Pilot Officer Lawrence William Brennan (31)
- Flying Officer Kenneth Rupert Bruce (24)
- Warrant Officer Class II James Ewart Bunn
- Flight Lieutenant Arthur Henry Burr
- Flying Officer Bernard Arthur Burrows (21)
- Flight Sergeant Ambrose Arthur Chapman
- Warrant Officer James Alexander Chapman (26)
- Lieutenant Chegwyn
- Squadron Leader William Ritchie Christison (26)
- Pilot Officer Clarence Leonard Cofield
- Flight Lieutenant Cooper (25)
- Flight Lieutenant Gordon Couldrey (28)
- Flying Officer Ian Rees Cowan (22)
- Flying Officer Charles Ian Cox (22)
- Flight Lieutenant Leonard Francis Day (26)
- Captain De Jager
- Lieutenant De Klerk
- Second Lieutenant Doble (24)
See all 81 who died on 24 March →
Source: Operation Varsity — Wikipedia →