6 Bomber Group March 5/6, 1943
20 Halifaxes from 408 and 419 Squadrons were joined by 64 Wellingtons from 420, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, and 431 Squadrons were ordered on an attack at Essen. The crews were over the target at between 13,000 and 20,000 feet, releasing 178,000 lbs of high explosives and 146,000 lbs of incendiaries. According to reports, bombing was accurate and severe damage was caused to the target.
While most of the crews went to Essen, 4 Wellingtons from 431 Squadron were ordered on a mining operation to the Frisian Islands. The crews were over the garden at between 1,000 and 2,000 feet, sowing 4@1500 lb mines. Richard Koval (6bombergroup.ca)
442 aircraft - 157 Lancasters, 131 Wellingtons, 94 Halifaxes, 52 Stirlings, 8 Mos¬quitoes. It was on this night that Bomber Command's roo.oooth sortie of the war was flown. 14 aircraft- 4 Lancasters, 4 Wellingtons, 3 Halifaxes, 3 Stirlings - lost, 3·2 per cent of the force.,/p>
The only tactical setback to this raid was that 56 aircraft - nearly 13 per cent of the force - turned back early because of technical defects and other causes. 3 of the 'early returns' were from the 8 Oboe Mosquito marker aircraft upon which the success of the raid depended but the 5 Mosquitoes which did reach the target area opened the attack on time and marked the centre of Essen perfectly. The Pathfinder backers-up also arrived in good time and carried out their part of the plan. The whole of the marking was 'blind', so that the ground haze which normally concealed
Essen did not affect the outcome of the raid. The Main Force bombed in 3 waves - Halifaxes in the first wave, Wellingtons and Stirlings in the second, Lancasters in the third. Two thirds of the bomb tonnage was incendiary; one third of the high-explosive bombs were fuzed for long delay. The attack lasted for 40 minutes and 362 aircraft claimed to have bombed th, main ta,g,t. Those tac6cs would be typical of many other raids on the Ruhr area in the next 4 months.
Reconnaissance photographs showed 160 acres of destruction with 53 separate buildings within the Krupps works hit by bombs. A map from Essen shows the main area of damage to have been between the Krupps works and the city centre. The local report states that 3,018 houses were destroyed and 2,166 were seriously damaged. The number of people killed is given in various reports as between 457 and 482; at least Io of these were firemen. If the higher figure is correct, the previous record number of people killed in an air raid on Germany - 469 in the moo-bomber raid on Cologne in May 1942 - was exceeded.Small numbers of bombs fell in 6 other Ruhr cities
.source: The Bomber Command War Diaries, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt
Bomber Command Museum Monthly ORB
