Cologne

13 February 1942 — Cologne

Date
13 February 1942
Target
Cologne, Germany
Force dispatched
39 aircraft

Narrative

This was a small and frustrated effort against Cologne, flown in the lean winter weeks before Sir Arthur Harris took over Bomber Command and before the new Gee navigation aid had proved itself. Only 39 aircraft were sent, and the night defeated them: heavy cloud and severe icing built up over the route, scattering the force and freezing controls and airframes alike. The crews that pressed on bombed blind through the murk, and the results reported were poor — little of the load fell on the city. Raids like this one, costly in effort for almost no return, were exactly the kind of failure that drove the Command in 1942 towards radar navigation aids and concentrated bomber streams. Cologne, close to the Dutch frontier and within Gee’s coming range, would soon become one of the most-attacked cities in Germany; on this night it had little to fear.

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

198 airmen in this archive died on 13 February 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 198 who died on 13 February →

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