MINOR OPERATIONS
43 Mosquitoes to Hannover and 12 to Steenwijk, 8 R.C.M. sorties, 23 Mosquito patrols, 19 aircraft on Resistance operations. No aircraft lost.
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LE HAVRE
344 aircraft - 311 Lancasters, 30 Mosquitoes, 3 Stirlings - bombed German fortifications and transport without loss.
EMDEN
105 Halifaxes and 76 Lancasters of 6 and 8 Groups on the first large raid to this target since June 1942; it was also the last Bomber Command raid of the war on Emden. The force was provided with an escort, first of Spitfires and then of American Mustangs. Only 1 Lancaster, that of the deputy Master Bomber, Flight Lieutenant Granville Wilson, D.S.O., D.F.C., D.F.M., of 7 Squadron, a 23-year-old Northern Irishman, was lost. Wilson's aircraft received a direct hit from a Flak shell and he was killed instantly, together with his navigator and bomb aimer, Sergeants D. Jones and E. R. Brunsdon. The 5 other members of the crew escaped by parachute. Flight Lieutenant Wilson is now buried in the Sage War Cemetery, near Oldenburg; the names of the 2 sergeants are on the Runnymede Memorial to the Missing.
The bombing was accurate and Emden was seen to be a mass of flames, but no local report is available other than a brief note which states that several small ships in the harbour were sunk.
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MINOR OPERATIONS
32 Mosquitoes to Hamburg and 6 to Emden, 17 R.C.M. sorties, 33 Mosquito patrols, 8 Halifaxes minelaying in the River Ems and off Texel, 6 Stirlings on Resistance operations. 1 Serrate Mosquito lost.
The bombing in the Mosquito raid to Hamburg was entirely on estimated positions through 10/10ths cloud but 68 people in Hamburg were killed and 73 were injured, some of them when Fire Station No. 13 in the harbour area received a direct hit.
