Brest

Date

5 January 1942

Target

Brest, France

Force dispatched

154 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

69 airmen in this archive died on 5 January 1942 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 George Thomas Atkins (21)
• Leading Aircraftman George Henry Bailey
• Pilot Officer Thomas Herbert Bigmore (22)
• Aircraftman 1st Class John Robert Blackshaw (21)
• Aircraftman 1st Class John Keith Macdonald Brown (32)
• Sergeant Anthony John Browne
• Sergeant Maurice Bryan (21)
• Flight Sergeant Harry Douglas Bryant (26)
• Flight Sergeant Alexander Gibson Buchanan (23)
• Leading Aircraftman Philip Edward Bushell (28)
• Sergeant Reginald Alfred Butcher (29)
• Pilot Officer David Norris Carmichael (26)
• Pilot Officer John Graham Castling (25)
• Sergeant William Chalmers (26)
• Air Sergeant Wilfred Hugh Comyns
• Sergeant Gerald Geoffrey Cornes (20)
• Leading Aircraftman Robert Frederick James Crowhurst (17)
• Pilot Officer Norman Clifford Davies (28)
• Aircraftman 1st Class Alan Denton (20)
• Sergeant Raymond Bertram Hamilton Driver (26)
• Squadron Leader William H. E. Drury
• Sergeant Paul Lister Elliott (19)
• Sergeant Eric Ewings (21)
• Sergeant James David Garrow (21)

See all 69 who died on 5 January →

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