BERLIN
727 aircraft - 335 Lancasters, 251 Halifaxes, 124 Stirlings, 17 Mosquitoes. The Mosquitoes were used to mark various points on the route to Berlin in order to help keep the Main Force on the correct track. A Master Bomber was used; he was Wing Commander J. E. Fauquier, the Commanding Officer of 405 (Canadian) Squadron. (The famous 'Johnny' Fauquier later commanded 617 Squadron.) 56 aircraft - 23 Halifaxes, 17 Lancasters, 16 Stirlings - were lost, 79 percent of the heavy bomber force. This was Bomber Command's greatest loss of aircraft in one night so far in the war.
The raid was only partially successful. The Pathfinders were not able to identify the centre of Berlin by H2S and marked an area in the southern outskirts of the city. The Main Force arrived late and many aircraft cut a corner and approached from the south-west instead of using the planned south-south-east approach; this resulted in more bombs falling in open country than would otherwise have been the case. The German defences - both Flak and night fighters - were extremely fierce.
Much of the attack fell outside Berlin - 25 villages reported bombs, with 6 people killed there - and in the sparsely populated southern suburbs of the city. Despite this, Berlin reports the most serious raid of the war so far, with a wide range of industrial, housing and public properties being hit. 2,611 individual buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged. The worst damage was in the residential areas of Lankwitz and Lichterfelde and the worst industrial damage was in Mariendorf and Marienfelde; these districts are all well south of the city centre. More industrial damage was caused in the Tempelhof area, nearer the centre, and some of those bombs which actually hit the centre of the city fell by chance in the 'government quarter', where the Wilhelmstrasse was recorded as having not a building undamaged. 20 ships on the city's canals were sunk.
Casualties in Berlin were heavy considering the relatively inaccurate bombing. 854 people were killed: 684 civilians, 60 service personnel, 6 air-raid workers, 102 foreign workers (89 of them women) and 2 prisoners of war. 83 more civilians were classified as missing. The city officials who compiled the reports found out that this high death rate was caused by an unusually high proportion of the dead not having taken shelter, as ordered, in their allocated air-raid shelters. Our excellent adviser from Berlin, Arno Abendroth, who was living in the city at this time until evacuated in September 1943, says that when Doktor Goebbels, who as well as being Minister of Propaganda was also Berlin's Gauleiter, received the report on the number of people killed outside the shelters, Goebbels 'nearly went nuts'.
Minor Operations: 40 Wellingtons minelaying in the Frisians and off Lorient and St-Nazaire, 22 O.T.U. sorties. No losses.
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MINOR OPERATIONS
8 Mosquitoes to Berlin, 66 aircraft minelaying in the Heligoland, Frisian and Texel areas. No aircraft lost.
