Operation Tigerfish
27 November 1944 — Freiburg
- Date
- 27 November 1944
- Target
- Freiburg, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 292 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 1
Narrative
Freiburg, a university city in the south-west near the Swiss border, had been little troubled by the war until the night of 27 November 1944, when 292 Lancasters of No. 1 Group attacked it in Operation Tigerfish. In about twenty minutes some 1,700 tons of bombs, heavy on incendiaries, destroyed the medieval centre and killed around 2,800 people. Only one Lancaster was lost. The cathedral survived almost alone amid the ruins.
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
34 airmen in this archive died on 27 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.
- Squadron Leader The Rev. James Gordon Brown
- Flight Lieutenant Sydney Leslie Cary (35)
- Flying Officer Lionel James Colgan (26)
- Sergeant William Roy Courage (21)
- Pilot Officer John Dickie (26)
- Corporal Alan Sydney Durose
- Flying Officer Walter Henry Egan
- Flight Sergeant William Stanley Evans (21)
- Flying Officer Jack Glen Millan Fisher (21)
- Flying Officer William Alexander Greenshields (27)
- Aircraftman 1st Class James Reginald Groves (28)
- Flight Sergeant Keith Harris (33)
- Sergeant Stanley Jack Hattersley (19)
- Squadron Leader Kenneth Victor Ingham (26)
- Flight Lieutenant Alfred Ernest Marshall (29)
- Flight Lieutenant Thomas McAleese (27)
- Corporal Thomas Hugh McGlade (38)
- Flying Officer Thomas Patrick McHale (24)
- Captain Munro (22)
- Leading Aircraftman Walter Nazarko (21)
- Flying Officer Edward Harry Norman (23)
- Flying Officer Henry James Stuart O'Brien
- Flying Officer Henry Milton Pope (22)
- Pilot Officer Graham Purvis (22)