Cologne

27 April 1942 — Cologne

Date
27 April 1942
Target
Cologne, Germany
Force dispatched
97 aircraft
Aircraft lost
7

Narrative

A force of 97 aircraft — mostly Wellingtons, with a handful of Stirlings and two of the new Halifaxes — returned to Cologne on this late-April night. The bombing was again spread rather than concentrated, the persistent failing of these spring 1942 raids, and the damage to the city was modest. Seven aircraft did not come back, a hard loss of more than seven per cent for so small a force, the night-fighters and flak of the western German defences taking their steady toll of the unescorted stream. The repeated visits to Cologne through March and April that year were less about the destruction each one caused than about the relentless pressure they kept up and the lessons the Command drew from them; the city’s ordeal proper would come a month later, on the night of the first thousand-bomber raid.

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

163 airmen in this archive died on 27 April 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 163 who died on 27 April →

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