Stuttgart
24 July 1944 — Stuttgart
- Date
- 24 July 1944
- Target
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 614 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 21
Narrative
This raid opened a devastating sequence of three heavy attacks on Stuttgart inside five nights in late July 1944. A force of over 600 aircraft, led by the Pathfinders’ marker Mosquitoes, struck the city hard, doing immense damage to the centre that earlier raids had so often missed. Twenty-one aircraft were lost. After more than two years in which Stuttgart’s valleys had defeated attack after attack, the marking and concentration achieved in this period at last brought heavy destruction to the heart of the city. The three raids of 24–28 July together killed close to a thousand people and drove well over a hundred thousand from their homes — by far the worst the city suffered in the war, and proof that the long-frustrating target could finally be broken when the marking held.
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
113 airmen in this archive died on 24 July 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.
- Flying Officer Richard Gainford Askew (21)
- Pilot Officer Allan Daniel Aumell (21)
- Flight Sergeant Kenneth John Banfield (20)
- Flight Lieutenant Raymond Charles Banfield (24)
- Flight Sergeant Alan Osborne Beazley (19)
- Sergeant James Beech (22)
- Flying Officer Frederick Kenneth Beers (26)
- Flying Officer Douglas Gordon Bennett
- Flying Officer George Bishop (32)
- Flight Sergeant Norman Brand (25)
- Flight Sergeant Edward Maines Bryant (20)
- Flight Lieutenant Douglas Maxwell Bull (24)
- Flight Lieutenant Raymond Richard Burgess (27)
- Pilot Officer David Sinclair Campbell (31)
- Second Lieutenant Stanley Hall Elphinstone Capstick-dale (22)
- Flying Officer George Allan Cashion (23)
- Flight Sergeant Allen Leonard Cheatle (20)
- Flight Sergeant Richard Martyn Cole
- Flight Sergeant Patrick Joseph Conway (23)
- Warrant Officer Allan Alfred Cook (22)
- Pilot Officer William Denman Croft (20)
- Pilot Officer Nicholas Cushman
- Sergeant Roy Joseph Davies (21)
- Flight Sergeant Sydney Hartley Davies (23)