Operation Astonia
5 September 1944 — Le Havre
- Date
- 5 September 1944
- Target
- Le Havre, France
- Force dispatched
- 1,863 aircraft
Narrative
The German garrison holding the port of Le Havre refused to surrender, and before the ground assault — Operation Astonia — Bomber Command subjected the town and its defences to a week of heavy attack from 5 to 11 September 1944, flying some 1,863 Lancaster and Halifax sorties and dropping more than 9,500 tons of bombs in what was then its largest daylight effort of the war. The garrison fell quickly afterwards, for fewer than 500 Allied casualties and over 11,000 German prisoners — but the cost to the town was terrible. Around 2,000 French civilians were killed and much of Le Havre destroyed, a toll that has made the operation one of the more controversial of the campaign in liberated France.
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
34 airmen in this archive died on 5 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.
- Flying Officer Clifton Llewellyn Andrew (34)
- Corporal Fred Boulton (24)
- Wing Commander Neil Ballingal Reid Bromley (29)
- Pilot Officer Reginald Elwyn Byrne (23)
- Flight Lieutenant George Francis Cornwell (25)
- Flight Sergeant Alan Livingstone Currie (20)
- Leading Aircraftman Edwin Orville Cuthill (20)
- Flight Sergeant Christopher Joseph Deutscher (20)
- Leading Aircraftman Thomas Henry Dixon (24)
- Warrant Officer Class I Joseph Alphonse Raymond Dore
- Pilot Officer William John Doughty (19)
- Squadron Leader James Grant Fleming
- Warrant Officer Ernest Ronald Gadsden (25)
- Flying Officer Frederick William Greenwood (28)
- Flight Sergeant Reginald Arthur Groves (19)
- Warrant Officer John Henry Hedger (23)
- Sergeant Beverley Gordon Kitchen (20)
- Corporal David Mailis Marr (39)
- Flying Officer Edwin Earl McCann
- Pilot Officer Roy McVicar McIlveen (21)
- Flying Officer John Russell Pound
- Flying Officer William Bruce Richardson (22)
- Flying Officer Herbert Stanley Seibold
- Leading Aircraftman William Garnet Matthew Strong (19)
See all 34 who died on 5 September →
Source: Wikipedia — Operation Astonia →