Düren
16 November 1944 — Düren
- Date
- 16 November 1944
- Target
- Düren, Germany
Narrative
On 16 November 1944 the Rhineland town of Düren, in the path of the American advance towards the Roer, was attacked in daylight in support of the ground offensive Operation Queen. The bombing was concentrated and overwhelming: the town was almost completely destroyed and thousands of its inhabitants killed, one of the most thorough single destructions of any town of its size. The shattered ruins, however, did as much to obstruct as to help the troops who had to fight through them.
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
39 airmen in this archive died on 16 November 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 Lloyd John Adams (22)
- Flying Officer John Graham Anderson (32)
- Flight Sergeant Ernest Robert Armstrong (20)
- Flight Sergeant Colin James Ashworth (22)
- Flight Sergeant Reginald Bellhouse (22)
- Lieutenant Bosch
- Air Sergeant Bowman (28)
- Flight Sergeant Ralph William Carroll
- Flying Officer Joseph Norman Clark (24)
- Flying Officer Edward Thomas Coles (21)
- Flying Officer James Ross Copland (24)
- Leading Aircraftman Leonard John Cunningham (19)
- Flying Officer Peter Thomas Curtis (21)
- Warrant Officer Class I William Harold Cyples (25)
- Wing Commander Hilson Christopher Newton Daly (36)
- Flying Officer Kenneth Douglas Farrow
- Warrant Officer Ian Griffiths Hardy (21)
- Flight Sergeant William Francis Marcus Harty (22)
- Lieutenant Israel (22)
- Lieutenant Kriel (24)
- Flight Sergeant Joseph Edmund Leaman
- Corporal Edward Leckey (26)
- Flying Officer Archibald Havill Leitch (21)
- Flight Sergeant Terence Francis McCormack (24)
See all 39 who died on 16 November →
Source: Wikipedia — Operation Queen →