Cologne

13 March 1942 — Cologne

Date
13 March 1942
Target
Cologne, Germany
Force dispatched
135 aircraft
Aircraft lost
1

Narrative

This raid is remembered as the first real success of Gee, the radio-pulse navigation aid that was beginning to lift Bomber Command out of the blind groping of the early war. A force of 135 aircraft set out for Cologne, and with Gee fixes to bring them over the city the bombing fell with new accuracy: some 237 separate fires were counted, around 62 people were killed and 84 injured, and for the first time a sizeable German city had been hit hard at night by a force navigating on instruments rather than on dead reckoning and luck. Only one aircraft was lost. After two years in which most bombs aimed at Germany had fallen on open country, the Cologne raid of mid-March 1942 was an early sign that the technical means to find and concentrate on a target were at last arriving — the foundation on which the whole later offensive would be built.

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

89 airmen in this archive died on 13 March 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 89 who died on 13 March →

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