Wesseling
21 June 1944 — Wesseling
- Date
- 21 June 1944
- Target
- Wesseling, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 133 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 37
Narrative
The attack on the Wesseling oil refinery near Cologne on the night of 21/22 June 1944 was one of the costliest single operations No. 5 Group ever flew. Of 133 Lancasters dispatched, 37 were shot down — close to one in three — with Nos. 44, 49 and 619 Squadrons each losing six aircraft to the night-fighters in a clear, moonlit sky. The refinery was damaged, but the price made it a byword for the dangers of the deep oil-target raids.
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
107 airmen in this archive died on 21 June 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.
- Pilot Officer Gladstone Arthur A'Court (23)
- Pilot Officer Donald William Adams (22)
- Flight Sergeant Harold Lawrence Barron (24)
- Flight Lieutenant Alan Frederick Bayley
- Warrant Officer Thomas Francis Beecher (30)
- Pilot Officer John Robert Bigham (24)
- Flying Officer Angus John Black
- Pilot Officer John Ernest Ralph Bowering (19)
- Flying Officer Lyle Edward Bowes (21)
- Flying Officer Nelson Ellis Bowman (27)
- Pilot Officer Charles David Boyce (20)
- Flight Lieutenant Lindsay Russell Brine (22)
- Pilot Officer Edwin Albert Canty (29)
- Flight Sergeant Ronald John Carlill (23)
- Pilot Officer William Austin Cauthers (21)
- Lieutenant Chisholm (33)
- Flight Sergeant Maurice Arthur Clark (28)
- Squadron Leader John Greville Clouston (25)
- Flying Officer Kenneth McRoberts Collins (24)
- Flying Officer Spencer Waddy Cook (34)
- Flying Officer Alvin Van Dyke Corless
- Flight Sergeant Dion Graeme Cranston (19)
- Pilot Officer Kent Elliott Crawford (27)
- Pilot Officer Allan David Creighton (26)