ESSEN
40 Mosquitoes attacked the Krupps works area without loss.
Minor Operations: 3 Mosquitoes to Duisburg and 3 to Osnabrck, 2 R.C.M. sorties, 8 Halifaxes minelaying off Texel and Den Helder. No losses.
---
LILLE
239 aircraft - 166 Halifaxes, 40 Lancasters, 22 Stirlings, 11 Mosquitoes - of 3, 4, 6 and 8 Groups. 1 Lancaster lost.
A full description of this raid is available from our French researcher, Philippe Lerat, who lives near Lille. The target was the Lille-Dlivrance goods station, which was hit by 49 bombs. Much damage was caused to buildings and tracks and 2,124 of the 2,959 goods wagons in the yards were destroyed. Unfortunately for the local people, much of the attack fell outside the railway area and 456 French people were killed. More than 90 percent of these casualties were in the suburb of Lomme, where more than 5,000 houses were destroyed or damaged. M. Lerat's report continues: 'The Cit des Cheminots, the housing area in Lomme where all the railwaymen lived in pleasant but frail houses, was completely destroyed. Fortunately the full moon permitted the search for wounded. The inhabitants were very resentful towards the British at the time. My own bookseller was living near by and remembers Frenchmen and women walking as lost among the bomb holes and shouting bastards, bastards! They had lost everything. Many inhabitants of other suburbs felt they were living their last hour, such was the intensity of the bombing.'
VILLENEUVE-ST-GEORGES
225 aircraft - 166 Lancasters, 49 Halifaxes, 10 Mosquitoes - of all groups. No aircraft lost.
Bomber Command claimed a successful attack on these railway yards near Paris. The local report does not contain details of damage to the railways but states that more than 400 houses were damaged or destroyed and that 93 people were killed and 167 injured.
Minor Operations: 36 Mosquitoes to Mannheim and 8 to four other targets, 16 Serrate patrols, 103 Lancasters of 1 and 5 Groups minelaying off Danzig, Gdynia and Pillau in the Baltic, 61 aircraft on Resistance operations, 9 O.T.U. sorties. 9 Lancasters from the minelaying force and 1 Serrate Mosquito were lost.
Total effort for the night: 697 sorties, 11 aircraft (1.6 percent) lost.
