Turin
12 July 1943 — Turin
- Date
- 12 July 1943
- Target
- Turin, Italy
- Force dispatched
- 295 aircraft
Narrative
On the night of 12/13 July 1943, with the Allies ashore in Sicily, 295 bombers attacked Turin and dropped some 763 tons of bombs, killing around 790 people in one of the heaviest raids of the Italian campaign. The mounting weight of attack on the northern cities, coming as the Fascist regime crumbled, was part of the pressure that brought Italy’s surrender within weeks.
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
223 airmen in this archive died on 12 July 1943 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 Charles Norman Adcock (28)
- Flying Officer Peter Ernest Adkins (21)
- Flight Lieutenant Harold Leslie John Aitchison (25)
- Flying Officer John Gouinlock Anderson (24)
- Sergeant John Archibald (21)
- Flight Sergeant Richard Clyde Armstrong (31)
- Leading Aircraftman Arthur Thomas Gordon Atkins (19)
- Flying Officer Nelson Avery
- Pilot Officer Horace Badge (20)
- Sergeant Robert William Ball (22)
- Sergeant Desmond John Banks
- Sergeant Frederick Barnes
- Sergeant George Batey (23)
- Flying Officer John Anthony Belecky
- Flight Sergeant Sydney Hyman Benjamin (20)
- Sergeant Donald William Bettinson
- Flight Sergeant Hugh Burke Bolger (20)
- Leading Aircraftman Eric William Bower
- Warrant Officer Class II Howard Eldon Bradley (22)
- Sergeant William Thomas Brain (20)
- Flight Sergeant Ronald Oswald Charles Brett (27)
- Flight Sergeant William Bruce (22)
- Sergeant William Stewart Buchanan (20)
- Flying Officer Leonard Henry Burn