Stuttgart
19 October 1944 — Stuttgart
- Date
- 19 October 1944
- Target
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 583 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 6
Narrative
A force of 583 aircraft — 565 Lancasters with marker Mosquitoes — attacked Stuttgart on this October night, part of one of two raids the city endured around this date. The bombing reached the industrial districts, and among the targets hit were the Bosch works whose electrical products had made Stuttgart an objective from the very first raid of 1942. Around 338 people were killed. Only six Lancasters were lost. By the autumn of 1944, with the German night-fighter arm increasingly starved of fuel and worn down by the long battle, even deep penetrations to southern Germany were costing Bomber Command far less than they had a year before, and large accurate attacks like this one could be pressed home with relatively few empty places at the dispersals next morning.
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
46 airmen in this archive died on 19 October 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.
- Warrant Officer Reginald Charles Bolland
- Flying Officer Robert William Brown (23)
- Flight Sergeant William Edward Brunton (24)
- Flight Sergeant Neil Conway Burgess (21)
- Flight Sergeant William James Carpenter (21)
- Pilot Officer Frederick Robert Charnock (21)
- Sergeant George Child (31)
- Sergeant Almer Ebart Churcher (20)
- Leading Aircraftman Ronald Leslie Cox (26)
- Sergeant Joseph John Cunningham (31)
- Flying Officer Ronald William Doidge
- Captain Quinton Rowland Dummett (24)
- Pilot Officer James Earl (23)
- Flight Sergeant Eric Clifford Fagg (27)
- Lieutenant Fisher (20)
- Pilot Officer Peter Fontaine (23)
- Flying Officer John Robert Frees (26)
- Flying Officer Gunnar Freese (36)
- Flight Sergeant Rex Patrick Furey (21)
- Flying Officer Ronald Alastair Gaskin
- Flying Officer Ian Dundee Graham (30)
- Flight Lieutenant Douglas Boyd Hamilton (21)
- Corporal Michael George Heap
- Flying Officer Keith Frederick Hynes (24)