great, I will now send you a private message..........well if you can drop any info on this site about your fathers mission that will not take away from your future book work please post away

E ~

another thought I will post here for your thoughts Leslie.

do you think the raid on Rüsselheim was secondary to the raid to Brunswick or were they both two fold on the same eve ?

~ I've wonder if the op your Father was on was suppose to draw away the LW night fighters to leave Brunswick bombers free to plaster the place ? though with what 27 bombers lost over Brunswick that does not seem to be the case. Am still trying to hunt down the LW night fighter claims for the evenings operations, with 0 luck so far.

E

This will be a rather long reply Erich, but I believe the following will confirm that Russelsheim was a primary target. Brunswick was considered an experimental raid. The following information comes from Bomber Command diaries.

RUSSELSHEIM: Total 297 aircraft, 191 Lancasters, 96 Halifaxes, 10 mosquitos. 13 Lancasters & 7 Halifaxes lost. 6.7 percent of the force.
Target: Opel Motor Factory. Normal Pathfinder marking methods used. Motor factory only slightly damaged. Local report states that tire, dispatch departments and the powerhouse were hit, but most of the bombs fell in open countryside south of the target.

BRUNSWICK: 242 Lancasters, 137 Halifaxes. 17 Lancasters & 10 Halifaxes lost. 7.1 percent of the force.
This was an experimental raid. No Pathfinders involved and there was no marking. The intention was to discover how successfully a force of aircraft could carry out a raid with each crew bombing on the indications of its own H2S set. The raid was not successful and there was no concentrtion of bomb ing. The Brunswick report calls it a "heavy raid" but only states that bombs fell in the central and Stadtpark areas. Other towns up to 20 miles distant were mistaken for Brunswick and were also bombed.

Other ops on that night were:
144 aircraft, 91 Lancasters, 36 Halifaxes, 12 Stirlings, 5 Mosquitos bombed a German Troop concentration and a road junction north of Falaise. Bombing was believed to have been effective - no aircraft were lost.

40 Halifaxes & 12 Mosquitos bombed 2 launching sites and a storage depot. Does not say the location. No aircraft lost.

Support & 143 training aircraft on diversionary sweep over the English Channnel. 21 Mosquitos to Kiel, 10 to Frankfurt and 3 each to Coulommiers and Juvincourt airfields. 33 RCM sorties, 47 mosquito patrols. 10 Lancasters & 4 Halifaxes minelaying off Biscay ports, 21 OTU sorties. 2 Mosquitos lost - 1 from Frankfurt raid & 1 Mosquito of No. 100 group, probably a Serrate
aircraft.

Total effort for the night: 1,167 sorties, 49 aircraft (4.2%) lost. The bombs dropped during this night brought Bomber Command's total for the war so far to approximately 500,000 tons.

Regards
Leslie

Leslie thank you for the 2 emails, and for the run down on Brunswick and Rüsselheim. I have fond finally the claims listing for the August 44 operation, some 44 Night fighter victories with 22 from NJG 1 alone / 13 of these just from IV. gruppe

Erich

I am still searching for the listing Theo sent through the masses of research data now piling up on my dining room table. I have my father's log book along with Squadron orbs for 101 and partial 156 squadrons, so if there are other missions you have enquiries about please feel free to ask.

Leslie

Leslie thank you for the offer, right now as Fred came upon his link to lost bombers and the copying of Chorleys work I am trying to correct that with LW claims.......

am interested in 1945 the whole year

Erich ~