11 Mosquitoes to Emden, the Bruderich steelworks at DÜSSELDORF and Dortmund. All targets bombed without loss.
---
KASSEL
569 aircraft - 322 Lancasters, 247 Halifaxes. The German controller was again successful in assessing the target and 43 aircraft - 25 Halifaxes, 18 Lancasters - were lost, 7.6 percent of the force.
The initial 'blind' H2S marking overshot the target but 8 out of the 9 'visual' markers correctly identified the centre of Kassel and placed their markers accurately. Although German decoy markers may have drawn off part of the bomber force, the main raid was exceptionally accurate and concentrated. The result was the most devastating attack on a German city since the firestorm raid on Hamburg in July and the results at Kassel would not be exceeded again until well into 1944. The fires were so concentrated that there was a firestorm, although not as extensive as the Hamburg one.
It is impossible to list all the damage. 4,349 separate dwelling blocks containing 26,782 family living units (flats/apartments) were destroyed and 6,743 more blocks with 26,463 'units' were damaged. 63 percent of all Kassel's living accommodation became unusable and 100,000-120,000 people had to leave their homes. The fire services dealt with 3,600 separate fires. The intensity of the destruction is illustrated by the fact that more buildings were completely destroyed than those classed as 'lightly damaged' and there were more 'large' fires (1,600) than small ones (1,000); in most raids the lightly damaged buildings and small fires outnumbered serious incidents several times over.
In addition to dwelling-houses, the following properties were destroyed or badly damaged: 155 industrial buildings, 78 public buildings, 38 schools, 25 churches, 16 police and military buildings (including the local Gestapo), 11 hospitals. The Kassel records do not provide any further detail about the industrial damage caused but R.A.F. photographic reconnaissance showed that the Kassel railway system and its installations were severely hit and all 3 Henschel aircraft factories seriously damaged; as these were making V-1 flying bombs at the time, this was a most useful result of the raid and had a major effect upon the eventual opening and scale of the V-1 campaign, comparable to the recent raid on Peenemnde which set back the V-2 rocket programme.
The Kassel records give the number of dead recovered up to the end of November as 5,599, of which 1,817 bodies were unidentifiable and the records go on to add that the 'Missing Department' (the Vermisstensuchstelle) was still trying to trace 3,300 people. 459 survivors, however, had been recovered from ruined houses 'after many days of heavy work'. 3,587 people were injured - 800 seriously - and a further 8,084 people were treated for smoke and heat injury to their eyes.
FRANKFURT
28 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes of 8 Group carried out a diversionary raid. Bombing was scattered. 1 Lancaster lost.
Minor Operations: 12 Oboe Mosquitoes to Knapsack power-station and 1 to Dortmund, 17 aircraft minelaying in the Frisians and off Texel, 10 O.T.U. sorties. 1 Mosquito lost.
Total effort for the night: 645 sorties, 45 aircraft (7.0 percent) lost.
It was on this night that an R.A.F. ground radio station in England, probably the one at Kingsdown in Kent, started its broadcasts with the intention of interrupting and confusing the German controllers' orders to their night fighters. The Official History (Vol. IV, p. 23n.) describes how, at one stage, the German controller broke into vigorous swearing, whereupon the R.A.F. voice remarked, 'The Englishman is now swearing'. To this, the German retorted, 'It is not the Englishman who is swearing, it is me'.
