Berlin

25 August 1940 — Berlin

Date
25 August 1940
Target
Berlin, Germany
Force dispatched
95 aircraft

Narrative

The first RAF raid on Berlin came on the night of 25/26 August 1940, in reprisal for the accidental bombing of London. Ninety-five aircraft were sent against Tempelhof aerodrome and the Siemensstadt works; cloud scattered the attack and only about eighty crews bombed in or around the city, doing slight material damage. Its importance was psychological and strategic: stung that the capital could be hit at all, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to switch its assault from the RAF’s airfields to London — a shift that helped Fighter Command win the Battle of Britain.

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 25 August 1940 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 58 who died on 25 August →

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