Bombing During The Battle
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| Date | Target location | |
|---|---|---|
| 1943-03-055 March | Essen | The opening of the battle of the Ruhr began with a 442 aircraft attack on Essen, the primary city targeted by the British Area bombing directive. Three waves of bombers (a mixture of Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Lancasters) dropped their incendiary and time-delayed bombs in under an hour. Only 153 aircraft bombed within three miles (5 km) of the aiming point despite the target area marking by Pathfinders using Oboe. Fourteen aircraft were lost. |
| 1943-03-99/10 March | Ruhr | 8 Mosquitoes sent to Ruhr |
| 1943-03-1010/11 March | Essen and Mulheim | 2 Mosquitoes. |
| 1943-03-1212/13 March | Essen | 23 aircraft were lost on a raid on Essen |
| 1943-03-2626/27 March | Duisburg | Duisburg was attacked with a large force; cloud cover and problems with the Oboe Mosquitoes gave a "widely scattered raid" |
| 1943-03-2929/30 March | Bochum | 149 Wellingtons with marking by 8 Oboe Mosquitoes; raid was a failure due to cloud and problems skymarking - 8% aircraft loss. This raid occurred on the same night as a major raid on Berlin. |
| 1943-04-33/4 April | Essen | Essen was targeted by 956 dispatched bombers - 797 bombers attacked and 12 different cities were hit (three more Essen attacks were conducted within a week.). |
| 1943-04-88/9 April | Duisburg | 392 aircraft sent to Duisburg. 4.8% aircraft loss. |
| 1943-04-99/10 April | Duisburg | 104 Lancasters with 5 Mosquitoes. "Scattered attack", 8 aircraft lost. |
| 1943-04-2626/27 April | Duisburg | 561 aircraft attacked Duisburg for 3% aircraft loss. Many buildings destroyed but most of the bombs had fallen to the north-east of Duisburg. |
| 1943-04-3030 April/1 May | Essen | 305 aircraft with skymarking ("Musical Wanganui" method)by Oboe-equipped Mosquito due to expected cloud. |
| 1943-05-1717 May | Möhne and Eder Dams | Operation Chastise; 14 bombers in attack. Bouncing bombs breach the Möhne and Eder Dams, but fail to disrupt the water supply or hydroelectrical power to the Ruhr Area more than briefly. Aircraft loss was 40%. |
| 1943-05-4 4/5 May | Dortmund | 596 aircraft in the first major attack on Dortmund. |
| 1943-05-1313/14 May | Bochum | 442 bombers of which 5.4% were lost. Bombing off target possible due to decoy markers. |
| 1943-05-2323/24 May | Dortmund | 826 bombers raided Dortmund dropping 2,000 tons of HE and incendiary bombs in an hour. Hoesch steelworks "ceased production" RAF loss 4.8%. |
| 1943-05-2525/26 May | Düsseldorf | 729 against Düsseldorf. Two layers of cloud and decoy fires caused widely spread bombing. 3.6% of bombers lost. |
| 1943-05-2727/28 May | Essen | 518 against Essen with 4.4% loss. Scattered bombing led to damage to parts of Essen and 10 other towns |
| 1943-05-2929/30 May | Wuppertal | 719 bombers attacked Wuppertal; Oboe marking was used, and being relatively close to the UK maximum payloads were carried. With only light defences, the bombing force was able to deliver their bombs accurately 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of the old town burned down when a firestorm takes hold. "Five of the six major factories" were destroyed and the homes of 100,000. |
| 1943-06-1111/12 June | Düsseldorf | 783 aircraft. Although initial marking was spot on for the first wave a backup marker Mosquito dropped target indicators 14 miles (23 km) off target to the north-east; with the effect that part of the bombing fell there. 130 acres (0.53 km2) of Düsseldorf claimed as destroyed. 4.9 per cent of force lost. |
| 12/13 June 1943 | Bochum | 503 aircraft with targeting by Oboe skymarking. "severe damage to the centre of Bochum". 4.8 per cent of the force |
| 14/15 June | Oberhausen | 197 Lancasters plus Oboe Mosquitoes which skymarked as cloud covered target. 8.4% aircraft loss. |
| 16/17 June | Cologne | 212 bombers. Marking by Pathfinder's heavy bombers with H2S. Cloud cover and equipment trouble gave scattered bombing. 14 bombers lost. |
| 17/18 June | Cologne and Ruhr | 3 Mosquitoes; no aircraft lost. |
| 19/20 | Cologne, Duisburg and Düsseldorf | 6 Mosquitoes; no aircraft lost |
| 21/22 June | Krefeld | A 705 aircraft raid on a moonlit night; 6.2 per cent of the force lost. Oboe Mosquitoes marked the ground in good visibility, the main force started a fire that "raged out of control, for several hours". |
| 1943-06-2222 June | Huls | USAAF daylight raid on synthetic rubber plant |
| 22/23 June | Mülheim | 557 aircraft, marking through cloud layer. According to the post-war British Bombing Survey Unit, this raid destroyed 64% of the town. |
| 24/25 June | Wuppertal | 630 aircraft, post-war British estimates 94% of Elberfeld destroyed by this raid |
| 1943-06-25 25/26 June | Gelsenkirchen, Nordstern oil plant | 473 RAF bombers unsuccessfully attack the Nordstern synthetic-oil plant at Gelsenkirchen due to cloud and "unserviceable" equipment on 5 of the 12 Oboe-equipped Mosquitoes |
| 28/29 June | Cologne | 608 aircraft with 4.1% lost. Only half the Oboe Mosquitoes sent were able to skymark. |
| 1943-07-9 9/10 July | Gelsenkirchen | 418 bombers unsuccessfully attack Gelsenkirchen - Oboe equipment failed to operate in 5 of the Mosquitoes and a 6th marked 10 miles (16 km) north of the target. |
| 1943-07-25 25/26 July | Essen | A force of 600 bombers dropped their bombs on Essen over a period of less than an hour. Goebbels recorded in his diary "last raid....complete stoppage of production in the Krupps works". |
| 1943-07-3030/31 July | Remscheid | The last raid of the Battle of the Ruhr attacked Remscheid with 273 aircraft. 5.5% of the attacking force was lost |
During the battle other German targets received large attacks.
- Berlin 27/28 March, 29/30 March
- Stettin (now Szczecin in modern Poland) 20/21 April
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Ruhr
Famous quotes containing the words bombing and/or battle:
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—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
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