RCAF Bomber Squadrons: Bomb Tonnage 1941-1945

The 400-series squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air Force were Canadian from the day they formed, but they flew in different RAF Bomber Command Groups: 4 Group, 5 Group, 3 Group and others, and for a time, as with 405, in Coastal Command and the Pathfinders. 6 Group, the Canadian Group, was formed on 1 January 1943 to bring them together. This map shows the weight of bombs and mines they dropped, night by night, at about 143,529 short tons on 661 nights at 316 targets and areas. Every record names its Group. Click a circle for the nights behind it, and choose all the Canadian squadrons or 6 Group only.

The squadrons covered so far are 405, 408, 419, 420 and 425 from mid-1941, and every 6 Group squadron from January 1943 to May 1945. Bombs are shown together, day and night; mine-laying ("gardening") is shown separately. The squadrons of other Groups and commands (418, 404, 407, 413 and the rest) have not been added yet.

Circle area is the weight on that target (short tons of 2,000 pounds). Where one night names several targets its weight is shared equally between them. Where CASPIR's own personnel and aircraft event records name the same target for the same squadrons on the same night, the popup says so, and where an account names no place the target comes from those records. Where a squadron's own Operations Record Book, a primary source, gives the target actually attacked, it is used and named in the popup. Sea areas (Frisian Islands, Kattegat, Kiel Bay, Heligoland and the like) are approximate, and a night that names no place is in the monthly figures but not on the map. Tons here are the weights in the accounts; they are not a full count of 6 Group's effort. Click the map, then scroll, to zoom. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.