Operation Tractable
14 August 1944 — Falaise
- Date
- 14 August 1944
- Target
- Falaise, France
- Force dispatched
- 800 aircraft
Narrative
Operation Tractable, the final push to close the Falaise pocket, opened at midday on 14 August 1944 when some 800 Lancasters and Halifaxes bombed the German positions ahead of the Canadian and Polish advance. Marking errors and drifting smoke led a number of crews to bomb short, onto their own troops, killing around 400 Canadian and Polish soldiers — a tragic instance of the friendly-fire risks of using heavy bombers as close support.
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
95 airmen in this archive died on 14 August 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 Douglas Andrew Adams
- Lieutenant Peter Herbert Andrews (20)
- Pilot Officer Eric Ball (24)
- Flying Officer Bruce Richard Banfield (23)
- Warrant Officer Murray Alexander Baxter (23)
- Flight Sergeant Marcus Bensley (21)
- Warrant Officer Class I Bezuidenhout
- Pilot Officer Donald McFarlane Bowe (20)
- Lieutenant Branch-clark (18)
- Flying Officer Douglas Walter Brown (34)
- Lieutenant Caro (27)
- Warrant Officer Class I Victor Carroll (26)
- Pilot Officer John Barry Cleaver
- Lieutenant Cedrick Arthur Cooke (30)
- Lieutenant Percy Gordon Coutts
- Lieutenant De Goede
- Flight Sergeant Arthur Di Pesa (29)
- Flight Sergeant Nathan Dlusy (23)
- Flight Sergeant Robert James Douglas (22)
- Warrant Officer Class I Dreyer
- Lieutenant Edmonstone (22)
- Pilot Officer Alan Rowat Elliott
- Lieutenant Keith Fairweather
- Pilot Officer Lawrence Edward Faithorn (20)