Operation Gomorrah
24 July 1943 — Hamburg
- Date
- 24 July 1943
- Target
- Hamburg, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 791 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 12
Narrative
Opening night of the Battle of Hamburg. First operational use of Window (metallised paper strips) to confuse German radar. The campaign caused a firestorm on the night of 27/28 July that killed an estimated 37,000 people.
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
199 airmen in this archive died on 24 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.
- Sergeant John McFarland Acheson (27)
- Pilot Officer Anthony Agar (25)
- Sergeant Thomas Aldridge (21)
- Flight Lieutenant William George Clifford Allison (33)
- Flying Officer Roy Vernon Anderson (37)
- Flight Sergeant Aubrey George Ashley (25)
- Pilot Officer George Ashplant (21)
- Sergeant George Irvine Bailey (19)
- Flight Lieutenant Tom Bakewell (31)
- Flight Sergeant Reginald Newman Barlow (24)
- Sergeant William Barnes (34)
- Flight Sergeant Hugh Walter Beavis (21)
- Sergeant Derek Reginald Bell (21)
- Flying Officer Adam Sidney Bellingham (28)
- Pilot Officer Richard Watt Belshaw (21)
- Flight Lieutenant John Lancelot Birbeck (23)
- Sergeant Warwick Hall Bolam (21)
- Pilot Officer William Job Brighton (21)
- Sergeant Alfred George Broadmore (20)
- Corporal Donald James Brown (30)
- Leading Aircraftman Herbert Douglas Brown (26)
- Flight Sergeant William Brown (23)
- Flying Officer Colin Hugh Buchanan (25)
- Flight Lieutenant Ralph Burton-fanning (42)