He flew with a Handley Page Halifax (type III, serial LW617, code NP-I).
STRATEGIC OPERATIONS
(Eighth Air Force): By this date, all Pathfinder aircraft of the 482d Bombardment Group (Pathfinder), engaged in H2X and other radar training at RAF Alconbury, have been dispersed to bombardment groups within the bombardment division, which set up their own H2X training.
In Germany, 415 P-47s and P-51s are dispatched to attack aircraft and ground targets in the Hannover-Kassel area; 73 bomb flak positions at Elburg, a factory near Nienburg, and miscellaneous ground targets; bad weather causes other fighter-bombers to jettison bombs in the English Channel and Zuider Zee; the fighter-bombers strafe transportation and other ground targets with good results.
TACTICAL OPERATIONS
(Ninth Air Force): In France, bad weather cancels all operations except fighter patrols by the IX and XXIX Tactical Air Commands over W Germany; the fighters attack rail targets
In Belgium, the 153d Liaison Squadron, IX Tactical Air Command (attached to First Army), moves from Verviers to Spa with L-5s; the 410th and 411th Fighter Squadrons, 373d Fighter Group, moves from Reims, France to Le Culot with P-47s.
US STRATEGIC AIR FORCES IN EUROPE (USSTAF): The 173d Liaison Squadron, USSTAF, is activated at Orly Airport, Paris with L-4s and UC-78s.
1,055 aircraft - 561 Lancasters, 463 Halifaxes, 31 Mosquitos - to Essen. This was the heaviest raid on this target 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 No 5 Group being included. 5 Lancasters and 3 Halifaxes were lost. 4,538 tons of bombs were dropped. More than 90 per cent 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.
38 Mosquitos to Berlin, 10 to Wiesbaden and 2 to Aschaffenburg, 41 RCM 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 per cent) lost.
2 Wellingtons and 1 Liberator on signals patrols.
57 Mosquitos to Hannover. 6 to Aschaffenburg and 4 to Oberhausen, 3 RCM sorties, 11 Mosquito patrols, 25 Lancasters and 9 Halifaxes minelaying in the Kattegat and off Oslo, 1 aircraft on a Resistance operation. No aircraft lost.
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