Timeline
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| Date | Bomber Command | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1940-6-77 Jun 1940 – 8 Jun 1940 | French Navy | One Farman N.C.223.4 converted long-range transport. Flew from Bordeaux via Baltic Sea, approaching Berlin from the north. |
| 1940-8-2525 Aug 1940 – 26 Aug 1940 | RAF | 95 aircraft. |
| 1941-8-88 Aug 1941 | Soviet Air Force | Ilyushin Il-4 bombers, operating from Kuressaare airfield on Saaremaa island. |
| 1941-8-1110 Aug 1941 – 11 Aug 1941 | Soviet Air Force | Fourteen Petlyakov Pe-8 heavy bombers from Pskov, eleven of which reached Berlin. |
| 1941-11-77 Nov 1941 – 8 Nov 1941 | RAF | 160 aircraft. 20 aircraft (12.5%) lost." |
| 1943-8-2323 Aug 1943 – 24 Aug 1943 | RAF | 727 Lancasters, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Mosquitos set out, with 70 turning back before reaching target. 57 aircraft (7.8%) lost. |
| 1943-8-3131 Aug 1943 – 1 Sep 1943 | RAF | 613 heavy bombers and 9 Mosquitos. 47 aircraft (7.6%) lost. |
| 1943-9-33 Sep 1943 – 4 Sep 1943 | RAF | 316 Lancasters dispatched with four Mosquitos carrying out diversionary laying of flares to distract defences. 22 aircraft lost. |
| 1943-11-1818 Nov 1943 – 19 Nov 1943 | RAF | Berlin, the main target, was attacked by 440 Avro Lancasters and 4 de Havilland Mosquitos. They bombed the city, which was under cloud. Diversionary raids on Mannheim and Ludwigshafen by 395 other aircraft. Mosquitos attacked several other towns. In all 884 sorties. 32 aircraft (3.6%) lost. |
| 1943-11-2222 Nov 1943 – 23 Nov 1943 | RAF | Berlin the main target. 469 Lancasters, 234 Handley Page Halifaxes, 50 Short Stirlings, 11 Mosquitos. Total 764 aircraft. This was the most effective raid on Berlin of the war. Most of the damage was to the residential areas west of the centre, Tiergarten and Charlottenburg, Schöneberg and Spandau. Because of the dry weather conditions, several 'firestorms' ignited. 175,000 people were made homeless and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche) was destroyed. The ruins of the old church are now a monument to the horrors of war. Several other buildings of note were either damaged or destroyed, including the British, French, Italian and Japanese embassies, Charlottenburg Castle and Berlin Zoo. Also the Ministry of Weapons and Munitions, the Waffen SS Administrative College, the barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau, as well as several factories employed in the manufacture of material for the armed forces. 26 aircraft lost, 3.4% of the force. |
| 1943-11-2323 Nov 1943 – 24 Nov 1943 | RAF | Berlin, the main target, was attacked by 365 Lancasters, 10 Halifaxes, 8 Mosquitos (383 aircraft). |
| 1943-11-2424 Nov 1943 – 25 Nov 1943 | RAF | Berlin, in a small raid, was attacked by 6 Mosquitos, 1 Mosquito lost |
| 1943-11-2525 Nov 1943 – 26 Nov 1943 | RAF | 3 Mosquitos to Berlin. |
| 1943-11-2626 Nov 1943 – 27 Nov 1943 | RAF | Berlin, the main target, was attacked by 443 Lancasters and 7 Mosquitos. Most of the damage in Berlin was in the semi-industrial suburb of Reinickendorf. Stuttgart was a diversion, attacked by 84 aircraft. The total sorties for the night was 666. 34 aircraft (5.1%) lost. |
| 1943-12-022 Dec 1943 – 3 Dec 1943 | RAF | Berlin, the main target, was attacked by 425 Lancasters, 18 Mosquitos, 15 Halifaxes. The Germans correctly identified that Berlin was the target. Unexpected cross winds had scattered the bomber formations and so German fighters found the bombers easier targets. 37 Lancasters, 2 Halifaxes, 1 Mosquito (8.7% of the force). Due to the cross winds the bombing was inaccurate and to the south of the city, but two more of the Siemens factories, a ball-bearing factory and several railway installations were damaged. |
| 1943-12-1616 Dec 1943 – 17 Dec 1943 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. It was attacked by 483 Lancasters and 15 Mosquitos. German night fighters were successfully directed to intercept the bombers. The damage to the Berlin railway system was extensive. 1,000 wagon-loads of war material destined for the Eastern Front were held up for 6 days. The National Theatre and the building housing Germany's military and political archives were both destroyed. The cumulative effect of the bombing campaign had now made more than a quarter of Berlin's total living accommodation unusable. Two Bristol Beaufighters and 2 Mosquitos of No. 100 Group equipped with Serrate radar detector patrolled the route for German nightfighters. A Bf 110 was damaged, the first time these hunter killers had been on a successful Serrate patrol. 25 Lancasters, 5.2% of the Lancaster force, were lost over enemy occupied territory, with a further 29 aircraft lost on landing in England due to very low cloud. |
| 1943-12-2323 Dec 1943 – 24 Dec 1943 | RAF | Berlin was attacked by 364 Lancasters, 8 Mosquitos and 7 Halifaxes. German fighters encountered difficulty with the weather and were able to shoot down only 16 Lancasters, 4.2% of the force. Damage to Berlin was relatively small. |
| 1943-12-2829 Dec 1943 – 30 Dec 1943 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 457 Lancasters, 252 Halifaxes and 3 Mosquitos (712 aircraft), RAF losses were light, at 2.8% of the force. Heavy cloud cover frustrated the RAF and damage was light. |
| 1944-01-101 Jan 1944 – 2 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 421 Lancasters despatched to Berlin. German night fighters were effective and 6.7% of the bombers were shot down. A small raid on Hamburg by 15 Mosquitos and smaller raids on other towns did not divert the night fighrers. |
| 1944-01-022 Jan 1944 – 3 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 362 Lancasters, 12 Mosquitos, 9 Halifaxes (383 aircraft). The night fighters did not catch up to the bombers until they were over Berlin and managed to shoot down 27 Lancasters, 10% of the force. |
| 1944-01-055 Jan 1944 – 6 Jan 1944 | RAF | A diversionary raid by 13 Mosquitos on Berlin. |
| 1944-01-1010 Jan 1944 – 11 Jan 1944 | RAF | Small raids on Berlin, Solingen, Koblenz and Krefeld by 20 Mosquitos. No aircraft were lost. |
| 1944-01-1414 Jan 1944 – 15 Jan 1944 | RAF | 17 Mosquitos launched small raids on Magdeburg and Berlin. |
| 1944-01-2020 Jan 1944 – 21 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 495 Lancasters, 264 Halifaxes, 10 Mosquitos (769 aircraft) despatched to Berlin. Night fighter attacks were pressed home successfully; 22 Halifaxes and 13 Lancasters were lost, 4.6% of the force. The damage could not be assessed due to low cloud cover the next day. |
| 1944-01-2727 Jan 1944 – 28 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 515 Lancasters and 15 Mosquitos (530 aircraft) despatched to Berlin. The RAF records state that the bombing appeared to have been spread well up- and down-wind. The diversionary raids were only partially successful in diverting German night fighters. 33 Lancasters were lost, which was 6.4 per cent of the heavy force. A further 167 sorties were flown against other targets, with one aircraft lost. |
| 1944-01-2828 Jan 1944 – 29 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 432 Lancasters, 241 Halifaxes, 4 Mosquitos (677 aircraft) despatched to Berlin. Western and Southern districts, covered by partial cloud, were hit in what the RAF records state was the most concentrated attack of this period. German records do not fully support this mentioning that were 77 places outside the city were hit. Deception raids and routing over Northern Denmark did not prevent the German air defences from reacting. 46 aircraft, 6.8 per cent of the force. Just over 100 other aircraft attacked a number of other targets. |
| 1944-01-3030 Jan 1944 – 31 Jan 1944 | RAF | Berlin was the main target. 440 Lancasters, 82 Halifaxes, 12 Mosquitos (534 aircraft), despatched to Berlin. RAF losses were 33 aircraft, 6.2% of the total. |
| 1944-02-15 15 Feb 1944 – 16 Feb 1944 | RAF | Berlin main target. 561 Lancasters, 314 Halifaxes, 16 Mosquitos (891 aircraft), despatched to Berlin. Despite cloud cover most important war industries were hit, including the large Siemensstadt area, with the centre and south-western districts substaining most of the damage. This was the largest raid by the RAF on Berlin. A diversionary raid by 24 Lancasters of No. 8 Group on Frankfurt-on-the-Oder failed to confuse the Germans. RAF lost 43 aircraft - 26 Lancasters, 17 Halifaxes, which was 4.8 per cent of the force. A further 155 sorties were flown against other targets. |
| 1944-03-044 Mar 1944 | VIII | Target: Berlin. Attempted raids had been halted by bad weather on 3 March. A maximum effort raid by 730 (504 B-17s and 226 B-24s) bombers and 644 fighters of the Eighth Air Force. Resulted in 37 losses. |
| 1944-03-066 Mar 1944 | US VIII, IX | 69 US bombers were lost. 11 P-51 Mustangs were also lost. The Bomber loss rate stood at 10.2 percent. The Luftwaffe lost 64 fighters, including 16 Bf 110 and Me 410 heavy fighters. |
| 1944-03-088 Mar 1944 | US VIII | Raid against Berlin by 623 bombers. 37 US bombers were lost and 18 fighters were also lost. The Luftwaffe lost 42 fighters, with 3 killed, 26 missing and 9 wounded (includes the Me 410 and Bf 110 multiple manned aircraft) |
| 1944-03-2424 Mar 1944 – 25 Mar 1944 | RAF | Berlin main target. The bomber stream was scattered and those that reached Berlin bombed well out to the south-west of the city. The RAF lost 72 aircraft, 8.9% of the attacking force. |
Read more about this topic: Bombing Of Berlin In World War II