Stuttgart
7 October 1943 — Stuttgart
- Date
- 7 October 1943
- Target
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 343 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 4
Narrative
On this October night 343 Lancasters attacked Stuttgart, and for once the raid went well at small cost. Diversionary operations and radio-jamming drew the German night-fighters away from the bomber stream, and the defenders’ response was muted; only four Lancasters were lost. The bombing killed around 104 people and started fires in the city. The light loss owed more to the success of the diversion and jamming than to any sudden mastery of the Stuttgart terrain, but it showed how much the growing sophistication of Bomber Command’s tactics — feints, spoof raids and electronic countermeasures — could cut the cost of a deep penetration into southern Germany. It was a reminder that by late 1943 the battle was as much about deceiving the night-fighter control system as about finding the target.
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
141 airmen in this archive died on 7 October 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 Leslie John Abbott (28)
- Sergeant Derrick John Edwin Adams (19)
- Corporal Ivan Alderson
- Sergeant George Edward Aldous (22)
- Leading Aircraftman Sidney William Allan (33)
- Flight Sergeant Evan Macdonald Anderson (25)
- Flying Officer Frank George Arliss (27)
- Sergeant Derek Ellis Ashton
- Leading Aircraftman Eric William Astell (20)
- Sergeant Arthur Bailey (23)
- Sergeant Robert Allan Barr
- Flight Lieutenant Ole Bechgaard (31)
- Flying Officer James Hope Begg (35)
- Aircraftman 1st Class Francis George Bell (22)
- Pilot Officer Stanley Philip Benge (39)
- Flying Officer Frank Vincent Breen
- Sergeant Archibald Halliday Brownlie
- Sergeant John Edward Brumwell (19)
- Flying Officer Edmund Holmes Bullis (19)
- Flying Officer Donald Terence Burrows (22)
- Sergeant Ronald Francis Butler (20)
- Aircraftman 1st Class Arthur Buttery (29)
- Warrant Officer Class II John Thomas Carter
- Flight Sergeant Edward Eugene Chalk (21)