6 Group Unavailable
648 aircraft- 42 I Lancasters, 224 Halifaxes, 3 Mosquitoes - on the first major raid to this target. The German controller again followed the progress of the bomber stream across the North Sea and many night fighters were in the stream before it crossed the German coast. The controller was very slow to identify Magdeburg as the target but this did not matter too much because most of the night fighters were able to stay in the bomber stream, a good example of the way the Tame Boar tactics were developing. 57 aircraft - 35 Halifaxes, 22 Lancasters - were lost, 8·8 per cent of the force; it is probable that three quarters of the losses were caused by German night fighters. The Halifax loss rate was 15·6 per cent.
·The heavy bomber casualties were not rewarded with a successful attack. Some of the Main Force aircraft now had H2S and winds which were stronger than forecast brought some of these into the target area before the Pathfinders' Zero Hour. The crews of 27 Main Force aircraft were anxious to bomb and did so before Zero Hour. The Pathfinders blamed the fires started by this early bombing, together with some very effective German decoy markers, for their failure to concentrate the marking. No details are available from Magdeburg but it is believed that most of the bombing fell outside the city. An R.A.F. man who was in hospital at Magdeburg at the time reports only, 'bangs far away'.
source: The Bomber Command War Diaries, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt
419 Moose Squadron (Moosa Aswayita) RAF Middleton St George. Halifax BII aircraft JD 466 VR-E was hit by flak from the schwere Flak-Abteilung 539 and crashed at 1 km northwest of Borne, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany during a raid against Magdeburg, Germany
There were no survivors among this crew
Warrant Officer Class 2 TB Tobin (RCAF), Flight Lieutenant AG Hermitage (RCAF), Warrant Officer Class 2 RH Walton (RCAF), Pilot Officer JB Chess (RCAF), Sergeant JA Wilson (RCAF), Sergeant RW Edwards (RCAF), and Sergeant R Shields (RAFVR) were all killed in action
This aircrew were initially buried in Borne, Germany, near the crash site, but later exhumed and all were re-buried in the 1939-1945 Berlin War Cemetery
There were two 419 Squadron Halifax II aircraft lost on this operation. See Fletcher, WJ for information on Halifax JD 420 VR-D
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