Berlin
20 January 1944 — Berlin
- Date
- 20 January 1944
- Target
- Berlin, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 769 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 35
Narrative
After a pause, Bomber Command mounted one of its largest Berlin raids of the winter, sending close to 770 Lancasters and Halifaxes to the capital on the night of 20/21 January 1944. Thirty-five aircraft were lost. Low cloud over Berlin once more frustrated attempts to judge the results, a recurring problem that made it impossible to know how much real harm the great effort was doing. The raid was part of the final, intense burst of attacks before the battle wound down, with ever larger forces being thrown at a target that stubbornly refused to be ‘wrecked from end to end’ as Harris had hoped.
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
446 airmen in this archive died on 20 January 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.
- Sergeant Leslie Francis Abel (21)
- Flight Sergeant Roland Arthur Adams (22)
- Flight Sergeant James McGinn Aitken
- Squadron Leader Arthur Marsden Lewis Alderton (24)
- Pilot Officer Robert Norman Allan (21)
- Flying Officer Edward Anderson (31)
- Flight Lieutenant Ronald John Andrews
- Flight Sergeant Douglas Alexander Arthur (21)
- Sergeant Leo Ashton (21)
- Sergeant William Goodson Atkins (20)
- Flight Sergeant John Jeffrey Aylott (22)
- Flying Officer Audrey Allen Ayres
- Sergeant Dennis Frederick Bache
- Sergeant Victor George Baker (21)
- Flight Lieutenant Wilfred Guy Baldwin (33)
- Flying Officer Peter Richard Bales (24)
- Sergeant John Douglas Barker (19)
- Flight Sergeant William Thomas Barnes (27)
- Flight Sergeant John Percival Bartington (22)
- Sergeant Kenneth William John Baxter (20)
- Warrant Officer Class II Robert Leroy Baxter (23)
- Flight Sergeant Joseph Stanley Bergin (33)
- Sergeant Thomas George Berry (24)
- Flying Officer Laurence George Biddiscombe (20)