berlinraids

Summary of the Battle of Berlin 23 Aug 43 - 25 Mar 44

'We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USAAF will come in on it. It will cost between us 400-500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.' Sir Arthur Harris to Sir Winston Churchill 3 Nov 43.

Raid No		Date		Total Dispatched		Early Return (ER)	Aircraft Missing	Lost in crashes Accidents in Eng		% Lost after ER + Crashes				Aircrew Casualties		POWS		Evaders	Interned in Sweden	HE dropped (Tons)	Incendiaries (Tons)
1		23/24 Aug 43		719		70	57	5		9.6				298		117		2	9	962	850
2		31 Aug/1 Sep 43		613		86	47	0		8.9				225		108		1		749	647
3		3/4 Sep 43		316		18	20	0		6.7				130		10		1	2	583	382
4		18/19 Nov 43		440		26	9	0		2.2				43		20		4		792	783
5		22/23 Nov 43		764		68	26	6		4.6				167		25				1153	1348
6		23/24 Nov 43		383		46	20	6		7.7				127		24				734	643
7		26/27 Nov 43		450		28	28	14		10.0				196		35				889	735
8		2/3 Dec 43		458		43	40	1		9.9				228		60		2		840	760
9		16/17 Dec 43		498		30	25	34		12.6				294		14			7	925	848
10		23/24 Dec 43		390		32	15	0		4.2				104		16				697	568
11		29/30 Dec 43		712		45	20	0		3.0				81		53		1		1026	1196
12		1/2 Jan 44		421		29	28	0		7.1				168		34				741	610
13		2/3 Jan 44		383		60	26	0		8.0				168		31				624	442
14		20/21 Jan 44		769		75	35	5		5.8				172		75		10		1137	1211
15		27/28 Jan 44		530		38	33	0		6.7				172		55		4		1036	668
16		28/29 Jan 44		677		66	46	6		8.5				254		67				1050	837
17		30/31 Jan 44		540		43	33	1		6.8				193		53				1029	867
18		15/16 Feb 44		891		75	43	5		5.9				265		54		5		1230	1413
19		24/25 Mar 44		811		53	72	3		9.9				392		131		4		1070	1423
	Totals		7804		623				3677		982	34	18		17267		16231
	Avg sorties/raid		567

Total aircraft available for Operations	Mosquitos	Lancasters	Halifaxes	Stirlings	Total
July 1943	51	444	331	203	1029
January 1944	72	627	373		1072

Stirlings did 3 raids to Berlin (raids no. 1,2,5) and were then withdrawn.

The Halifaxes were not used on every raid either (raids 1,2,5,6,8,10,11,13,14,16,17,18,19)

On the 19 raids to Berlin Bomber Command lost 623 aircraft out of an average total of 1050. A lost rate of 58%.

'The expectations of the Commander-in-Chief had not been fulfilled and by that standard the Battle of Berlin had been a failure. The attacks on the capital itself had not 'cost Germany the war' nor had the broader Lancaster offensive brought the enemy to,or ,as events were to show, anywhere near, the point of capitulation on 1s^tApril 1944. Moreover, in the operational sense, the Battle of Berlin was more than a failure. It was a defeat. The disastrous Nurember operation, in which the missing rate was no less than 11.8 %, brought the Bomber Command tactics of massed and concentrated attack against major targets to a dead stop and they were not again resumed until the entire air situation over Germany had been radically altered. Neither the greatly increased size and improved quality of Bomber Command, nor the introduction of Window and many other radio counter-measures, now practised by a special roup, nor the even more inenious measures of evasion and deception had in the long run been able to prevent what was now rapidly becoming the mastery of the niht fighter over the night bomber.' The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945 Vol II

Sources: The Berlin Raids, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945, Bomber Command War Diaries