Operation Paravane
15 September 1944 — Kåfjord
- Date
- 15 September 1944
- Target
- Kåfjord, Norway
- Force dispatched
- 38 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 1
Narrative
Operation Paravane on 15 September 1944 was the first of the final series of attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz, which lay in the Norwegian fjords beyond the reach of British bases. To get at her, thirty-eight Lancasters of Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons flew first to Yagodnik in northern Russia, then struck the ship in Kaafjord carrying Barnes Wallis’s 12,000 lb Tallboy deep-penetration bombs and experimental ‘Johnny Walker’ mines. Through the smokescreens a single Tallboy struck the Tirpitz forward, flooding her bow and leaving her unfit to put to sea — a wound from which she never recovered. All the attacking aircraft came through the raid, though one was lost on the long flight home. Two further attacks, Obviate and Catechism, would finish her two months later.
Squadrons: No. 9 Squadron · No. 617 Squadron (Dambusters)
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
58 airmen in this archive died on 15 September 1944 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.
- Corporal Eric Victor Adams (25)
- Flight Sergeant David Bruce Ernst Bacon (27)
- Flying Officer Arthur Harold Banfield (31)
- Flight Sergeant John Cashel Barry (22)
- Flight Sergeant Albert Bullock (31)
- Pilot Officer James Duncan Campbell (22)
- Squadron Leader John Harry Mackellar Chisholm (26)
- Pilot Officer Joseph Fernand Oscar Cloutier (21)
- Flight Sergeant John James Collins
- Major James Wilfred Cross (33)
- Pilot Officer Charles David Crowe (22)
- Corporal Lorne Albert Cudmore (26)
- Corporal William Davey
- Lieutenant Ian Isaac De Klerk
- Pilot Officer Gordon Joshua Dennison (22)
- Lieutenant Dickson (24)
- Air Corporal Sydney Dixon (38)
- Flight Sergeant Keith Courtney Donald (21)
- Flying Officer John Bernard Fitzgerald (20)
- Pilot Officer James Cornelius Gallagher
- Leading Aircraftman John Thomas Gill (25)
- Flight Lieutenant Ernest Philip Jeffrey Gray (27)
- Air Corporal Ernest Arthur Green (59)
- Flight Lieutenant Nelson Maxwell Harding
See all 58 who died on 15 September →
Source: Wikipedia — Operation Paravane →