Stuttgart
15 March 1944 — Stuttgart
- Date
- 15 March 1944
- Target
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 863 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 4
Narrative
This was the largest force Bomber Command ever sent against Stuttgart — 863 aircraft, the bulk of them Lancasters, with Halifaxes and Pathfinder Mosquitoes. Such a weight of aircraft might have been expected to overwhelm the city, but the old problem reasserted itself: the bombing fell heavily on the south-western suburbs of Vaihingen and Möhringen rather than on the centre, the valleys once more breaking up the attack, and only around 86 people were killed in proportion to the enormous effort. Just four aircraft were lost. The night is a striking illustration of the Stuttgart paradox — that even the heaviest and best-organised raids could be defeated as much by the lie of the land as by the defences, the city’s hills scattering nearly nine hundred bombers’ loads across its outskirts.
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
352 airmen in this archive died on 15 March 1944 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.
- Pilot Officer Mervyn Adder (21)
- Aircraftman 1st Class Alfred Tudor Addicott (42)
- Sergeant Alfred William Aiston (35)
- Sergeant Norman Sinclair Allan
- Sergeant John Neville Andrew (22)
- Flight Sergeant Phillip Heriot Armstrong
- Sergeant Sydney John Arnold
- Flight Sergeant Cecil Glen Arthur (20)
- Flight Lieutenant Denys Alban Ashton (23)
- Aircraftman 1st Class Hugh Asken (47)
- Pilot Officer Samuel Cunningham Atcheson (24)
- Flying Officer Charles Ernest Austin (25)
- Sergeant George Bagnall
- Sergeant Charles Henry Baker (20)
- Flight Sergeant Kenneth Herbert Ball (23)
- Flight Sergeant William Arthur Ballard (30)
- Pilot Officer Lloyd Roger Barker (22)
- Sergeant Reginald Dennis Barlow
- Sergeant Roy Stanley Barratt (19)
- Pilot Officer Archibald Macarthur Barrowman
- Leading Aircraftman Herbert Arthur Bartley (29)
- Sergeant Henry Alfred Baxter (22)
- Sergeant David Arthur Bean (19)
- Sergeant Ernest Egerton Bebington (20)