MINOR OPERATIONS
45 Mosquitoes to Hamburg, 4 to Wiesbaden, 3 to DÜSSELDORF and 2 to Cologne, 6 Serrate patrols, 20 Lancasters and 19 Halifaxes minelaying in the Kattegat, 6 Stirlings on Resistance operations. No aircraft lost.
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WALCHEREN
112 Lancasters of 5 Group attacked the Flushing battery positions but visibility was poor and the bombing was scattered. 4 Lancasters lost.
Minor Operations: 4 R.C.M. sorties, 6 Ranger patrols. No losses.
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ESSEN
1,055 aircraft - 561 Lancasters, 463 Halifaxes, 31 Mosquitoes. This was the heaviest raid on Essen so far in the war and the number of aircraft dispatched was also the greatest number to any target so far; these new records were achieved without the Lancasters of 5 Group being included. 5 Lancasters and 3 Halifaxes were lost.
4,538 tons of bombs were dropped. More than 90 percent of this tonnage was high explosive (and included 509 4,000-pounders) because it was now considered that most of the burnable buildings in Essen had been destroyed in earlier raids. The greater proportion of high explosive, against all the trends in earlier area-bombing raids, was now quite common in attacks on targets which had suffered major fire damage in 1943. A report from Essen states that 607 buildings were destroyed and 812 were seriously damaged; 662 people were killed, a figure which included 124 foreign workers, and 569 people were injured. Other details from Essen and Bomber Command's own claims for bombing results are given in the report for a further raid on 25 October.
Minor Operations: 38 Mosquitoes to Berlin, 10 to Wiesbaden and 2 to Aschaffenburg, 41 R.C.M. sorties, 50 Mosquito patrols, 1 Hudson on a Resistance operation. No aircraft lost.
Total effort for the night: 1,197 sorties, 8 aircraft (0.7 percent) lost.
