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648 aircraft - 421 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 tho marking. No details are available from Magdeburg but it is believed that most of tho 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
Halifax BV aircraft LK 680 SE-R was shot down by night fighter pilot Major Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein of the Stab/NJG 2, who was flying Ju 88 C-6 R4+XM from Deelen airfield in the Netherlands, during a night raid to Magdeburg, GermanyThe Halifax "crashed in a gigantic ball of fire" at the railway station of Imsum, Geestland, Niedersachsen Germany, according to the radio operator on board of the Junkers, Feldwebel Friedrich Ostheimer
Only one crew member survived the crash
Flying Officer JA Linde (RCAF), Pilot Officer WJ Louth,Warrant Officer JP McLeod, Sergeant JH Di Pinto, Sergeant C Gilroy (RAFVR), and Sergeant W Kingham (RAFVR) were all killed in action
FS H Krentz (RCAF), the sole survivor from his crew, was taken Prisoner Of War
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