Kassel

27 August 1942 — Kassel

Date
27 August 1942
Target
Kassel, Germany
Force dispatched
306 aircraft

Narrative

Kassel was a target of real industrial weight — home to the Henschel works that built locomotives and, later, the Tiger tanks, and to a Fieseler aircraft plant — and on this late-August night 306 aircraft were sent against it. The raid came within weeks of the formation of the Pathfinder Force, whose marking was beginning to lift the accuracy of the Command’s attacks, and it did substantial damage: of some 317 buildings in the assessed area, 144 were destroyed or seriously damaged, and three of the Henschel facilities were among them. Around 43 people were killed and some 250 injured. It was a creditable result for 1942, and it marked Kassel out as a city that rewarded attack; the RAF would return to it with far heavier force in 1943, culminating in the firestorm raid that October.

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

284 airmen in this archive died on 27 August 1942 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.

See all 284 who died on 27 August →

Source: Wikipedia — Bombing of Kassel in World War II →