Courtrai

Date

20 July 1944

Target

Courtrai

Force dispatched

166 aircraft

Aircraft lost

31

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

134 airmen in this archive died on 20 July 1944 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 James Hedley Abraham (22)
• Sergeant Christopher Maurice Ashford (23)
• Pilot Officer Herbert Frank Axford (28)
• Leading Aircraftman Alwyn Royce Baker (19)
• Flight Sergeant Charles Alfred Barlow (19)
• Flying Officer David Arnold Barlow (20)
• Sergeant Ronald John Morton Batty
• Flying Officer William Alexander Bell (26)
• Leading Aircraftman Leon Herbert Bernard Bennett (19)
• Flight Sergeant Philip William Benson (32)
• Flying Officer Harold Francis Sargent Best (22)
• Flying Officer Keith Cedric Binnie (23)
• Flying Officer Leonard Joseph Blackwell (21)
• Flying Officer Hugo Hysert Borchardt (30)
• Pilot Officer Ernest Elroy Boyle (26)
• Pilot Officer Paul Herman Brittain (19)
• Pilot Officer Alfred Joseph Britts
• Flying Officer David Oscar Brown
• Flying Officer Henry John Burtt (31)
• Flight Lieutenant John Philip Sargent Calder (29)
• Flying Officer Horace Callow (27)
• Flight Lieutenant Lionel Manton Capron (40)
• Flight Sergeant John Joseph Chigwidden (33)
• Flying Officer Colin Mervyn Clarey (30)

See all 134 who died on 20 July →

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