while serving with a Conversion Unit; its mixed crew of instructors and pupils were all killed.
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ST-NAZAIRE
21 aircraft. No losses.
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BREMEN
The Thousand Force' was reassembled for this raid, although only 960 aircraft became available for Bomber Command use. Every type of aircraft in Bomber Command was included, even the Bostons and Mosquitoes of 2 Group which, so far, had only been used for day operations. The force was composed as follows: 472 Wellingtons, 124 Halifaxes, 96 Lancasters, 69 Stirlings, 51 Blenheims, 50 Hampdens, 50 Whitleys, 24 Bostons, 20 Manchesters and 4 Mosquitoes. Bomber Command never before, or after, dispatched such a mixed force.
After Churchill had intervened and insisted that the Admiralty allow Coastal Command to participate in this raid, a further 102 Hudsons and Wellingtons of Coastal Command were sent to Bremen but official records class this effort as a separate raid, not under Bomber Command control. 5 further aircraft provided by Army Co-Operation Command were also added to the force. The final numbers dispatched, 1,067 aircraft, made this a larger raid than that on Cologne at the end of May.
Parts of the force were allocated to specific targets in Bremen. The entire 5 Group effort - 142 aircraft - was ordered to bomb the Focke-Wulf factory; 20 Blenheims were allocated to the A.G. Weser shipyard; the Coastal Command aircraft were to bomb the Deschimag shipyard; all other aircraft were to carry out an area attack on the town and docks.
The tactics were basically similar to the earlier Thousand' raids except that the bombing period was now cut to 65 minutes. Bremen, on the wide River Weser, should have been an easy target to find and the inland penetration of the German night-fighter belt was only a shallow one. There were doubts about a band of cloud which lay across the Bremen area during the day, but this was being pushed steadily eastwards by a strong wind. Unfortunately the wind dropped in the evening and the bomber crews found the target completely covered for the whole period of the raid. The limited success which was gained was entirely due to the use of Gee, which enabled the leading crews to start fires, on to the glow of which many aircraft of later waves bombed. 696 Bomber Command aircraft were able to claim attacks on Bremen.
The results in general terms were not as dramatic as at Cologne but much better than the second Thousand' raid to Essen. Bremen reports a strengthening wind at the time of the raid which fanned the many fires started throughout the town, increased the extent of the damage and, according to the diary provided by the Bremen Stadtarchiv, left whole areas of dwelling-houses in ruins. 572 houses were completely destroyed and 6,108 damaged. More than 90 percent of these were in the southern and eastern quarters of the town's four air-raid areas. 85 people were killed, 497 injured and 2,378 bombed out.
On the industrial side, the diary stated that the R.A.F.'s plan to destroy the Focke-Wulf factory and the shipyards was not successful, although an assembly shop at the Focke-Wulf factory was completely flattened by a 4,000-lb bomb dropped by a 5 Group Lancaster. A further 6 buildings at this factory were seriously damaged and 11 buildings lightly so. Damage was also experienced by 4 important industrial firms - the Atlas Werke, the Vulkan shipyard, the Norddeutsche Htte and the Korff refinery - and by 2 large dockside warehouses.
The Bremen report concludes with the estimate put forward by the senior local air-raid official at the time that only So R.A.F. bombers had attacked Bremen. The subsequent B.B.C. broadcast that over 1,000 bombers had been sent was judged to be a propaganda bluff and a device to explain away the heavy casualties suffered by the bombing force. The Germans claimed 52 bombers shot down. This figure, said the official, would not appear too serious to the British public if seen as part of a 1,000-bomber force.
The actual losses of the Bomber Command aircraft involved in the raid were 48 aircraft, including 4 which came down in the sea near England from which all but 2 crew members were rescued. This was a new record loss. It represented exactly 5 percent of the Bomber Command aircraft dispatched. This time, heaviest casualties were suffered by the O.T.U.s of 91 Group, which lost 23 of the 198 Whitleys and Wellingtons provided by that group, a loss of 11.6 percent. The relevant reasons for this may be the fact that O.T.U.s were usually equipped with old aircraft retired from front-line squadrons, that the Bremen raid involved a round trip 200 miles longer than the Cologne and Essen raids and that extra time had been taken up in searching for the target in the cloudy conditions of that night. The trainee crews of 91 Group suffered accordingly. 5 of the 102 Coastal Command aircraft were also lost.
INTRUDER OPERATIONS
56 aircraft of 2 Group - 31 Blenheims, 21 Bostons, 4 Mosquitoes - were dispatched to attack and harass 13 German airfields. 15 of the Blenheims were lent by Army Co-Operation Command and were operating under Bomber Command orders. The Boston and Mosquito sorties were the first Intruder flights by those aircraft types. Most of the Intruders bombed or machine-gunned the airfields to which they were allocated but there were no encounters with German aircraft. 2 of the Army Co-Operation Blenheims, attacking St-Trond and Venlo airfields, were lost.
Total Bomber Command effort for the night: 1,016 sorties, 50 aircraft (4.9 percent) lost. Total including Coastal Command: 1,123 sorties, 55 aircraft (49 percent) lost.
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, but 14 of the aircraft lost from the Pilsen and Mannheim raids came down in the sea and a proportion of their crews were rescued.
