Mannheim
5 September 1943 — Mannheim
- Date
- 5 September 1943
- Target
- Mannheim, Germany
Narrative
On the night of 5/6 September 1943 a large force attacked Mannheim and, across the Rhine, the great IG Farben chemical works at Ludwigshafen. A deliberate plan to creep the bombing back across both cities spread the destruction widely, devastating much of Mannheim’s centre — one of the heaviest of the many attacks on this Rhine industrial centre.
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
272 airmen in this archive died on 5 September 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.
- Sergeant Kenneth Arthur Adams (20)
- Sergeant George Edward Agate (20)
- Pilot Officer Francis Barker Allan (25)
- Sergeant Leonard Allen (22)
- Flight Sergeant David William Anderson (22)
- Flying Officer Robert Barclay Anderson (29)
- Sergeant Alan Astin (21)
- Flying Officer Kenneth Arthur Charles Ayling
- Flight Sergeant David Herbert William Badcock (27)
- Corporal Ronald Hayden Bailey (23)
- Pilot Officer Vernon Reginald Baker (22)
- Sergeant Ernest George William Bartlett (29)
- Sergeant William James Batty (20)
- Flight Sergeant Albert Beckett (22)
- Sergeant George Hutchinson Rennie Bell (20)
- Sergeant Arthur Ernest Belshaw (19)
- Sergeant John Henry Bennett (20)
- Sergeant Wallace John Robert Blakeley (20)
- Flying Officer Robert James Boyd (24)
- Sergeant Thomas William Bradford (31)
- Flying Officer Gilbert Stanley Bray (29)
- Warrant Officer Class II Leo Joseph Martin Broderick (24)
- Flight Sergeant John Livingstone Brooks (20)
- Flight Sergeant Andrew Angus Brown (21)