Villers-bocage
30 June 1944 — Villers-bocage
- Date
- 30 June 1944
- Target
- Villers-bocage, France
Narrative
On 30 June 1944, with a German armoured counter-attack forming up around Villers-Bocage south-west of Caen, Bomber Command was called in to break it. Around 250 heavy bombers struck the road junctions and the assembling panzer units in a concentrated daylight attack that scattered the German formation before it could strike — one of the clearer successes of heavy bombers used in direct support of the Normandy battle.
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
70 airmen in this archive died on 30 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.
- Flight Sergeant William Jeffery Adcock (25)
- Sergeant Albert Richard Albery (26)
- Sergeant Frank Norman Allen
- Sergeant Alfred Cyril Seymour Barker
- Flying Officer Walter Bennett Beatty (20)
- Flying Officer Ladimer Jacob Bernaski
- Flying Officer John Urban Billing (28)
- Sergeant Alexander Norman Bird (21)
- Squadron Leader John Crayley Blundell (25)
- Warrant Officer Class II Brice (20)
- Pilot Officer David Cornfoot Brown (20)
- Flying Officer Morley Luallan Cameron (22)
- Corporal Thomas Charles Chapman (24)
- Sergeant John Ronald Merwin Corman (24)
- Flight Lieutenant Neil Cornish (27)
- Flight Sergeant John Keith Cory (21)
- Flight Sergeant Albert Thomas Couch (19)
- Pilot Officer James Adrian Cunningham (29)
- Sergeant Arthur Ronald Earl (30)
- Flying Officer Terence Oliver Edwards (20)
- Lieutenant Elliot-wilson
- Pilot Officer John Edward Estell (20)
- Flight Sergeant Oswald Edward Ferguson (33)
- Pilot Officer Robert Louis Frankfurth (22)
See all 70 who died on 30 June →
Source: Wikipedia — Battle for Caen →