Bombing of Essen in World War II
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In addition to having a Krupps factory as a military target, Essen was a primary target designated for city bombing by the February 1942 British Area bombing directive.
| Bombing of Essen during World War II[1] | |||||
| March 8/9, 1942: 211 RAF aircraft destroy a few Essen houses and a church, 10 people killed and 19 missing. | |||||
| March 9/10, 1942: 187 RAF aircraft destroy 2 buildings in Essen (72 damaged) and cause damage in 24 other Ruhr towns (particularly Hamborn and Duisburg). In Essen, 10 people were killed, 19 were missing and 52 were injured. In other towns, 74 people were killed and 284 injured | |||||
| March 10/11, 1942: 62 RAF crews claimed to have bombed Essen, with 2 bombs hitting on an industrial target (railway lines near the Krupps factory). 1 house was destroyed and 2 damaged in residential areas. 5 Germans were killed and 12 injured and a Polish worker was killed by a Flak shell which descended and exploded on the ground. | |||||
| March 17, 1942: 1 RAF Wellington on a cloud-cover raid to Essen dropped its bombs somewhere in the Ruhr. | |||||
| March 18, 1942: 5 RAF Wellingtons to Essen returned because of lack of cloud. | |||||
| March 19, 1942: 1 RAF Wellington to Essen returned early because of lack of cloud. | |||||
| March 21, 1942: 1 RAF Wellington to Essen returned because of lack of cloud | |||||
| March 25/26, 1942: In the largest force sent to 1 target so far (254 aircraft), much of the Essen effort was drawn off by the decoy fire site at Rheinberg and 1 house was destroyed and 2 seriously damaged. 5 people were killed and 11 injured. | |||||
| March 26/27, 1942: 2 Essen houses destroyed, 6 people killed and 14 injured. 11 of the 115 RAF bombers were lost. | |||||
| March 31/April 1, 1942: 4 RAF Wellingtons, with selected crews, to Essen but only random targets were bombed by 2 aircraft. No losses. | |||||
|
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
|
|||||
| March 2/3, 1943: 6 RAF Mosquitos to the Ruhr without loss. The aircraft which bombed Essen scored direct hits in the middle of the main Krupps factory. | |||||
| March 5/6, 1943: 442 aircraft in the first raid of the Battle of the Ruhr fly RAF Bomber Command's 100,000th sortie of the war (14 aircraft - 4 Lancasters, 4 Wellingtons, 3 Halifaxes, 3 Stirlings - lost, 3.2 per cent of the force). 56 aircraft turned back early -- 3 were Oboe Mosquito marker aircraft. 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 fused for long delay. The attack lasted for 40 minutes and 362 aircraft claimed to have bombed the main target. Reconnaissance photographs showed 160 acres of destruction with 53 separate buildings within the Krupps works hit by bombs. | |||||
| March 10/11, 1943: 2 RAF Mosquitos to Essen | |||||
| March 12, 1943: 11 RCAF squadrons raid Essen with 113 planes, dropping 495.2 tons of bombs with approximately 23 bombers shot down. 196,300 square yards was destroyed and three unknown factories collapsed.[citation needed] | |||||
| March 12/13, 1943: 457 RAF aircraft fly a successful Oboe-marked raid. The centre of the bombing area was across the giant Krupps factory, just west of the Essen centre, with later bombing drifting back to the north-western outskirts. Krupps received 30 per cent more damage on this night than on 5/6 March. 23 aircraft lost, 5.0 per cent of the force. | |||||
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
