HAGEN
243 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes of 1, 5 and 8 Groups. 2 Lancasters lost, 0.8 percent of the force.
This raid was a complete success achieved on a completely cloud-covered target of small size, with only a moderate bomber effort and at trifling cost. The Oboe sky-marking was perfect and severe damage was caused in Hagen. There was the usual housing damage but 2 of the town's 4 industrial areas were severely hit and a third suffered lesser damage. Hagen reports that 46 industrial firms (not individual buildings) were destroyed and 166 were damaged. In his post-war interrogation, Albert Speer stated that the destruction in Hagen of an important factory making accumulator batteries slowed down the output of U-boats considerably. Speer did not mention this raid specifically but Hagen was not heavily attacked again until December 1944.
29. Hagen, a Ruhr town not seriously bombed until late 1943. This scene, of smoking ruins and workers having to walk to work because of disrupted bus and suburban rail services, was typical on the mornings after R.A.F raids.
Other details from the Hagen report: 3,480 fires of which 100 were large and 715 medium-sized, 241 Germans and 25 foreigners killed, 2,386 Germans and 135 foreigners wounded, 30,000 people bombed out.
At the same time as the main attack on Hagen was ending, 12 Oboe Mosquitoes were dispatched to attack a steelworks at Witten, north-west of Hagen, for training purposes. 8 Mosquitoes bombed at Witten and 2, whose Oboe equipment failed, dropped their bombs on the fires burning in Hagen. No aircraft lost.
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and flew Lancasters from Kelstern until nearly the end of the war and then 5 raids from Scampton in April 1945.
OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE
625 Squadron flew 3,385 Lancaster sorties and lost 66 aircraft (1.9 percent) in 191 bombing and 2 minelaying raids. A further 8 Lancasters were destroyed in crashes.
626 SQUADRON
SERVICE
Formed in 1 Group on
