Kiel
4 April 1943 — Kiel
- Date
- 4 April 1943
- Target
- Kiel, Germany
Narrative
Kiel, on the Baltic, was a major naval base and U-boat building yard. On the night of 4/5 April 1943 Bomber Command made a large attack on its dockyards, starting a serious fire in the naval yard. Kiel would be returned to many times over the war; its shipyards and the warships and submarines built there made it one of the most-bombed of all German ports.
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
210 airmen in this archive died on 4 April 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 Sidney George Adams (17)
- Sergeant Harold Alford (23)
- Warrant Officer David Thomas Andrew (24)
- Sergeant Eric James Andrew (28)
- Flying Officer Edward Francis Appleton (25)
- Sergeant Frederick Hugh Austin
- Flight Sergeant Frederick William Bacon (26)
- Sergeant Albert Ronald Baker (18)
- Sergeant Christopher Francis (doogie) Ball (20)
- Sergeant Robert Walton Barker
- Flight Sergeant John Alexander Peach Bartlett (21)
- Squadron Leader Anthony Richard Henry Barton (29)
- Flight Sergeant Charles Norman Beaton (22)
- Warrant Officer Class II Walter Stanley Beatty (23)
- Pilot Officer Norman Bertram (32)
- Sergeant Reginald Percival Bilham (21)
- Corporal William Alfred Birch (38)
- Pilot Officer Charles Noola Black (22)
- Sergeant Harold Edwin Blundell (21)
- Corporal Edward John Botfield (26)
- Sergeant Frank Geoffrey Bower (20)
- Sergeant John Broderick
- Flying Officer John Burgess (21)
- Warrant Officer John Benjamin Burrows (21)