Wuppertal
29 May 1943 — Wuppertal
- Date
- 29 May 1943
- Target
- Wuppertal, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 719 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 33
Narrative
The attack on the Barmen half of Wuppertal on the night of 29/30 May 1943 is generally reckoned the first occasion on which RAF bombing kindled a true firestorm. A force of 719 aircraft — 292 Lancasters, 185 Halifaxes, 118 Stirlings, 113 Wellingtons and 11 Mosquitoes — was sent against the narrow valley town in the eastern Ruhr, and the Pathfinder marking on this night was exceptionally accurate, drawing the main force into a tightly concentrated attack. More than two thousand tons of bombs fell, over half of them incendiaries, into the cramped streets of Barmen. It being a Saturday night, many of the town’s fire and air-raid officials were absent, and the separate fires merged before they could be fought. The resulting conflagration destroyed something like four-fifths of Barmen’s built-up area — five of its six largest factories, hundreds of other works and several thousand houses — and killed thousands of people. Thirty-three bombers, about 4.6 per cent of the force, did not return. Wuppertal-Barmen demonstrated with terrible clarity the destructive potential of concentrated incendiary attack, a foretaste of the firestorms that would consume Hamburg two months later.
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
245 airmen in this archive died on 29 May 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 Lieutenant Leslie William Abbiss (41)
- Sergeant Robert Adair
- Flight Sergeant Robert Davey Adgey (21)
- Corporal Harry Allan (22)
- Pilot Officer Stanley Gordon Allan (21)
- Flying Officer Reginald Edward Charles Allen (23)
- Sergeant Ronald Morrison Anderson
- Warrant Officer Class II William Sherron Anglin (27)
- Flight Sergeant Hector Vivian Francis Archer (32)
- Flight Sergeant Edward Lawrence Armstrong (33)
- Flight Sergeant Robert Gordon Bailey (20)
- Sergeant Charles Patrick Baker (18)
- Aircraftman 2nd Class George Rupert Band (22)
- Flight Sergeant Frederick Alexander Bandy
- Sergeant Norman Edgar Barrett (21)
- Air Corporal Robert Batty (37)
- Sergeant John Reay Bazire
- Sergeant William Christie Beck
- Sergeant Ernest Bell (25)
- Pilot Officer Raymond Frederick Bennett (29)
- Flight Sergeant Albert Berry
- Leading Aircraftman Herbert Berry (23)
- Sergeant Kenneth George Berry (24)
- Leading Aircraftman Ronald Rees Biddle
See all 245 who died on 29 May →
Source: Wikipedia — Battle of the Ruhr →