Nuremberg
25 February 1943 — Nuremberg
- Date
- 25 February 1943
- Target
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 337 aircraft
Narrative
By early 1943 Bomber Command could send four-engined heavies in strength to Nuremberg, and 337 of them attacked on this February night. But the city lay far beyond the reliable range of Oboe, so the marking depended on H2S radar and visual methods that were far less precise, and poor visibility compounded the difficulty: much of the bombing fell on the Knoblauchsland, the market-garden country north of the city, rather than on Nuremberg itself. German records noted 27 people killed and a scatter of fires. The raid was typical of the deep southern penetrations of the period — a heavy force dispatched at long range, but the destruction far short of what the same effort achieved against the Ruhr cities under Oboe. Nuremberg’s distance from England remained its best defence.
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
208 airmen in this archive died on 25 February 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 Sergeant Richard Ashdown (21)
- Flight Sergeant James Banks (22)
- Sergeant Thomas Bertram Barfoot (19)
- Sergeant Donald Stuart Bates (21)
- Flying Officer Robert Lowell Benson (23)
- Warrant Officer Class II Lloyd Adolf Bernick
- Sergeant William Hughes Bevan (21)
- Sergeant George Beverley (26)
- Leading Aircraftman Hugh Watson Biddulph (30)
- Sergeant Arthur Clarence Blaber (31)
- Sergeant Stanley Boden (20)
- Pilot Officer John Basil Bond (21)
- Warrant Officer Class II William Boon (22)
- Sergeant Thomas Bows (31)
- Sergeant Henry Easton Bradshaw (21)
- Flight Sergeant Charles Henry Bray
- Pilot Officer Edwin Gordon Kingsley Bullen (22)
- Pilot Officer Reginald Silvester Burgher (29)
- Sergeant George Caldwell (21)
- Flight Sergeant William Wilson Cameron (27)
- Sergeant Vivian Max Caplin
- Leading Aircraftman James Scott Cavill (23)
- Flight Sergeant Burnet Montieth Chamney (23)
- Flying Officer Albert Dudley Chivers (30)