Cologne
28 June 1943 — Cologne
- Date
- 28 June 1943
- Target
- Cologne, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 608 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 25
Narrative
This was the most lethal attack Cologne suffered in the whole war. A force of 608 aircraft — Lancasters, Halifaxes, Wellingtons and Stirlings behind the Oboe markers of the Mosquitoes of No. 109 Squadron — found the city under good marking, and the bombing was concentrated with terrible effect across the central districts. Around 4,400 people were killed on the ground, the heaviest death toll yet inflicted on a German city in a single night, and tens of thousands were made homeless as fire swept through the old town and the commercial quarter. Twenty-five bombers failed to return. Coming a year and a month after the first thousand-bomber raid had shaken Cologne but spared most of its substance, this night showed how far the Command’s accuracy and concentration had advanced: the same target, struck now with a precision that turned a large raid into a catastrophe for the people below.
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
236 airmen in this archive died on 28 June 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 Jack Adsetts
- Flying Officer David Renwick Agnew (20)
- Pupil Pilot Anderson (19)
- Sergeant Ralph Edgar Archer (21)
- Flying Officer Charles Henry Ashworth (28)
- Sergeant Francis Donovan Ayerst (31)
- Sergeant Alfred Bailey (21)
- Corporal Ernest Edward John Baldwin (31)
- Leading Aircraftman George Mark Ball
- Sergeant William Richmond Barclay (19)
- Sergeant James William Baxter (23)
- Sergeant Arthur Joseph Beaulieu
- Sergeant William Bell
- Pilot Officer Graham Thomas Beveridge (20)
- Flight Sergeant Frank Birkin (23)
- Sergeant Sidney Bonner
- Flying Officer William Richard Booker (20)
- Sergeant Albert William Booth
- Sergeant James Roy Boxall (19)
- Sergeant Raymond Vernon Boyd (22)
- Pilot Officer Reginald Eric Bradshaw
- Pilot Officer Gordon Page Bray (21)
- Sergeant Kenneth Broadhurst
- Sergeant David Brown
See all 236 who died on 28 June →
Source: Wikipedia — Battle of the Ruhr →