Essen
12 March 1943 — Essen
- Date
- 12 March 1943
- Target
- Essen, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 457 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 23
Narrative
A week after the opening blow Bomber Command returned to Essen, again with the Oboe Mosquitoes of No. 109 Squadron leading. The marking once more fell accurately on the Krupp works, and the 457 aircraft of the main force — Wellingtons, Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings — pressed the attack home, though as the raid went on the bombing tended to creep north-westward away from the aiming point in the way that dogged so many Ruhr nights. The damage was nonetheless reckoned about thirty per cent heavier than on 5 March, with roughly 500 houses destroyed and between 170 and 320 people killed. The cost rose with it: twenty-three bombers were lost, five per cent of the force, the night-fighter and flak belt of the Ruhr taking its steady toll of a stream that had to fly the same well-defended approaches twice in a week. Two accurate attacks in seven nights had shown that Essen, for so long the hardest target in Germany, could now be hit at will when Oboe held good.
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
246 airmen in this archive died on 12 March 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.
- Flight Sergeant Howard Victor Adams (22)
- Sergeant William Eric Akrill (21)
- Flight Sergeant Andrew Allan
- Sergeant William Andrews
- Pilot Officer Douglas Invicta Arthur
- Sergeant Henry Edwin Ash (21)
- Flight Sergeant Leslie Barker (26)
- Flying Officer Anthony Drew Ashby Barnes (27)
- Sergeant Albert Edward Beaven
- Aircraftman 1st Class John Patrick Beesley (22)
- Flying Officer Edwin Harold Beeton
- Sergeant George Edward Benson
- Sergeant Harry Bentley (29)
- Flying Officer Roy Benzies (31)
- Flight Sergeant Winston Seymour Berry (22)
- Pilot Officer Lionel Hubert Rogers Binning
- Sergeant Henry Stuart Fell Bishell (22)
- Sergeant William Smith Black (19)
- Flight Sergeant Douglas George Blackmore (22)
- Sergeant William Alfred Blackmore (25)
- Aircraftman 2nd Class Leslie Samuel Boarer
- Pilot Officer Peter Britten (19)
- Flight Sergeant Frederick Harold Brough
- Sergeant Anthony Richard Burgess (21)
See all 246 who died on 12 March →
Source: Wikipedia — Battle of the Ruhr →