Kassel
22 October 1943 — Kassel
- Date
- 22 October 1943
- Target
- Kassel, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 569 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 43
Narrative
This was one of the most destructive raids of the entire bombing offensive, and the clearest firestorm Bomber Command raised outside Hamburg. A force of 569 bombers attacked Kassel with exceptional concentration, dropping more than 1,800 tons of bombs — including some 460,000 small magnesium incendiary sticks — into a tight pattern over the centre of the city. The separate fires merged into a single conflagration that generated its own wind, and the firestorm consumed the old town; fires burned for seven days. At least 6,000 people were killed and around 150,000 bombed out of their homes. But the long, deep route was savagely contested, and forty-three bombers failed to return — a punishing 7.6 per cent. The night showed both the terrible efficiency that concentrated incendiary attack had reached and the price the crews still paid to deliver it deep inside Germany.
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
343 airmen in this archive died on 22 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.
- Flight Lieutenant Cyril Howard Abbott (34)
- Flight Sergeant Dene Adams (20)
- Flight Sergeant Stanley Bean Adams (23)
- Flight Sergeant John Charles Adey (21)
- Flight Sergeant Gordon Edward Aitken (20)
- Pilot Officer Basil Eric Edward Allden (22)
- Sergeant Geoffrey Frank Allison (21)
- Flying Officer Peter Anderson (31)
- Pilot Officer Peter Ronald Andrews (22)
- Flying Officer Roy Elkington Ault (22)
- Flight Lieutenant Thomas David Baker (24)
- Flying Officer Robert Lionel Harman Ball (20)
- Flying Officer James Hamilton Balloch
- Sergeant George Charles Bangs (20)
- Flying Officer John Stuart Barber (22)
- Pilot Officer Alfred Vernon Cecil Barden (18)
- Sergeant Victor Joseph Barnes
- Flight Sergeant Melville Collinson Baynes (26)
- Sergeant George Herbert Bennett (20)
- Flying Officer Alexander Edward Beyak
- Sergeant Charles Clifford Bishop (20)
- Warrant Officer Ian Harold Blackburn (25)
- Aircraftman 2nd Class James William Cowan Blake (28)
- Sergeant George Blake-hales (21)