6 Group Unavailable
734 aircraft - 554 Lancasters, 169 Halifaxes, r r Mosquitoes - carried out the first Bomber Command raid on this target, home of Germany's main ball-bearing factor¬ies. 266 American B-r7s had raided the factories the previous day
Bomber Command introduced a novel tactic on this night. The Schweinfurt force was split into two parts - 392 aircraft and 342 aircraft, separated by a 2-hour interval. Part of the German fighter force was drawn up by earlier diversions. The first wave of the Schweinfurt bombers lost 22 aircraft, 5-6 per cent; the second wave lost only 11 aircraft, 3·2 per cent, and it is believed that only 4 bombers from the second wave were shot down by night fighters. Total losses were 33 aircraft - 26 Lancasters, 7 Halifaxes - 4·5 per cent of the force.Both phases of the bombing suffered from undershooting by some of the Pathfinder backers-up and by many of the Main Force crews. Schweinfurt records refer to 'nominal damage' in the R.A.F. night raid and give a combined figure of 362 people killed by the American raid the previous day and by this R.A.F. raid. No breakdown of this figure is available.
source: The Bomber Command War Diaries, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt
Halifax BIII aircraft LK 754 QO-Z swung on take-off for a raid on the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany and came to rest in the trees on the airfield perimeter. The crew escaped serious injury. This was this bomber's first operational sortie with 432 Squadron
Sergeant JJ Barr (RCAF), Flying Officer EK Reid (RCAF), 2nd Pilot FS A Clarke (RCAF), Flying Officer JT Smith (RCAF), Warrant Officer Class 2 VC MacDonald (RCAF), FS GG Maguire (RCAF), Sergeant RL Clarkson (RCAF) and Sergeant JA May (RAF) all survived
Several from this crew would be shot down 1944-03-31 on 432 Squadron Halifax MZ 504 QO-C on a raid over Nuremberg, Germany
Aircraft accidents in Yorkshire
432 Squadron Story - Canadian Aerospace
Bomber Command Museum Monthly ORB