Stuttgart
14 April 1943 — Stuttgart
- Date
- 14 April 1943
- Target
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 462 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 15
Narrative
This was a larger and costlier failure. A force of 462 aircraft was sent to Stuttgart, and though the Pathfinders claimed accurate marking the main weight of the bombing fell to the north-east of the city, missing both the centre and the factories. The deep-valley terrain and the long flight deep into southern Germany combined to defeat the attack, and fifteen bombers were lost — a hard price for so little damage. Raids like this one captured the central frustration of the Stuttgart campaign in 1943: the Command could now send hundreds of aircraft far into Germany and bring them roughly over the target, but turning that effort into concentrated destruction of a city set among hills remained beyond its means. Stuttgart would not be seriously hurt until the much heavier and better-marked attacks of 1944.
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
207 airmen in this archive died on 14 April 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.
- Sergeant James Green Adam (30)
- Flight Sergeant Ernest Arthur Applegate (20)
- Flight Sergeant James Francis Austin (20)
- Sergeant Albert John Bailey (22)
- Flight Sergeant Edward Henry Bakeman
- Squadron Leader Donald George Elmore Ball (21)
- Flight Lieutenant James Greenwood Banford (27)
- Warrant Officer Class II Lloyd Wallace Bartman (21)
- Sergeant Harry Norman Bateman
- Sergeant Jack Beatson (21)
- Warrant Officer Class II Richard Barnett Blake (27)
- Warrant Officer Class II William Gerald Blight
- Flight Sergeant Michael Albert Edward Bradford (27)
- Flight Sergeant Ansell Edward Britten-jones (21)
- Flight Sergeant Frederick James Britton
- Sergeant Robert Brough (29)
- Flight Sergeant Arthur Brown
- Flying Officer Sydney Brown (25)
- Leading Aircraftman James Gilliam Buchanan (19)
- Warrant Officer Class II Henry Ellwood Budd
- Sergeant Harold Buxton (31)
- Sergeant James Richard Callan (23)
- Sergeant John Reginald Gallimore Calvert (20)
- Flight Sergeant Robert Richard Campbell (26)