Operation Mailly-le-Camp raid
3 May 1944 — Mailly-le-camp
- Date
- 3 May 1944
- Target
- Mailly-le-camp, France
- Force dispatched
- 362 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 42
Narrative
On the night of 3/4 May 1944 Bomber Command attacked the German Panzer training depot at Mailly-le-Camp in France, part of the campaign to cripple the forces that would oppose the coming Normandy landings. Some 346 Lancasters and 16 Mosquitos of Nos. 1 and 5 Groups were sent against the barracks and tank park. The bombing, when it came, was accurate and devastating — barrack blocks, vehicles and tanks destroyed and over two hundred German soldiers killed — but a breakdown in radio control left the main force orbiting the assembly point far too long under a bright moon. German night-fighters fell on them, and 42 Lancasters were shot down, around an eighth of the force, with the loss of some 258 airmen. Mailly-le-Camp became a byword for how costly a supposedly ‘soft’ French target could prove.
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
350 airmen in this archive died on 3 May 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.
- Warrant Officer Henry James Addison (22)
- Flight Sergeant Sydney Wilson Ainsworth
- Pilot Officer Alexander Stewart Aird (21)
- Sergeant Richard Walter Andrews
- Sergeant Kenneth Applegarth (20)
- Flying Officer Theodore Edward Archard (32)
- Sergeant Ronald Frank Arnold
- Flying Officer Walter Gerard Asbell (23)
- Pilot Officer Cyril Atkinson (27)
- Flying Officer Thomas Guy Atkinson (21)
- Flight Sergeant Eric Bailey (23)
- Sergeant James Bailey (19)
- Pilot Officer Francis William Baker
- Flying Officer George Baker
- Flight Sergeant George Charles Barber (32)
- Sergeant Raymond Barker (22)
- Pilot Officer Percy James William Barkway
- Flight Sergeant Dennis Ronald Barr (20)
- Flight Sergeant Stanley James Barr (22)
- Lieutenant Barter (22)
- Pilot Officer Norman George Baskerville (24)
- Flying Officer Harold Weston Batt (32)
- Flying Officer Hugh William Vaughan Bearne (22)
- Flying Officer George David Beatty (24)