Essen

Date

8 April 1944

Target

Essen, Germany

Force dispatched

43 aircraft

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

60 airmen in this archive died on 8 April 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.

• Corporal Charles Melvin Allan (27)
• Warrant Officer Donald Albert Anderson (25)
• Flying Officer Robert Alwyn Anderson
• Flight Sergeant Richard Benner Bamford (26)
• Sergeant Sidney Basil Barber (35)
• Leading Aircraftman Owen Warren Bate (20)
• Squadron Leader Heathcote Huia Butler Beale (27)
• Flying Officer Jeffery James Kellaway Burr
• Wing Commander Eric Frank Knowles Campling (23)
• Leading Aircraftman Albert Nelson Carr (37)
• Corporal Joseph George James Carter
• Leading Aircraftman Albert Ernest Cary (24)
• Sergeant Joseph Arthur Chambers (30)
• Corporal George Thomas Coombes
• Corporal John Henry Cronk (22)
• Sergeant John Lowes Crouch (20)
• Leading Aircraftman Robert Millar Cummings (23)
• Flight Sergeant Frank Dadd (23)
• Leading Aircraftman Edgar Cowley Dennis (38)
• Flying Officer Henry George Eise (22)
• Leading Aircraftman Ronald Percy Freer (22)
• Flight Sergeant William Noel Hartley (24)
• Flight Lieutenant Carl Delbert Theodore Holmberg
• Sergeant Alfred Donald Hooker (19)

See all 60 who died on 8 April →

Source: RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary (60th-Anniversary website, via the Wayback Machine) →