550 Squadron and RAF North Killingholme Association

Squadron Operations: Summary Information

Overview

Listed below is the information available for operations to this target flown by 550 Squadron.

Operation Summary: The column headers should be fairly self-explanatory. The term "aborted" as used here covers a number of possibilities:

the operation was cancelled before crews were briefed
the crews have been briefed as to the target, and in some cases the planes may even have been bombed up and the crews on-board at their stations awaiting take-off, before the op has been stood-down
finally a number of cases where the op was already under way and the planes en-route but for whatever reason the operation was aborted (e.g. the master bomber orders the attack cancelled due to weather conditions at target adversely affecting targeting).

Aircraft Deployed: When a link to a particular aircraft is given, this indicates aircraft known to have taken part in this raid (in the records currently available to the web-site author). A record of whether the aircraft returned or failed to return (FTR) is also logged.

Servicemen Deployed: Names of the crew in the operation.

Station Summary: This section is the information from the RAF North Killingholme Station Record Book for the operational date (if available).

Definitions of the abbreviations used are available: here.

Manageable Lists

The amount of data in the database is growing and this is resulting in the "all operations/targets" list getting rapidly bigger and thus slower to generate. There are options to display shorter, more quickly generated, reports if you want to home in on something specific. For example, there are options to generate reports on operations to a single target, or by single aircraft (to all targets) or by single aircraft to a single target. There is, on the database-reports summary page, a short user guide (PDF format) on how to do this.

Operation/Target: Essen (23 Oct 1944 - 23 Oct 1944)

Operation Summary
Target	Out	Back	Aborted (Y / N)	Comments
Essen	23 Oct 1944	23 Oct 1944	N	26 aircraft with crews were offered for operations and were briefed at 14.15hrs, with one crew acting as Squadron stand-by. Twenty-five aircraft took off at 16.15hrs to form part of a 1000 aircraft attack on ESSEN. Twenty-four succeeded in bombing the primary target and one aircraft returned early. Opposition encountered was considered moderate and the weather was reasonably good, all aircraft returned safely to Base.

Aircraft Deployed			Servicemen Deployed
Aircraft Service Number	Returned or FTR	Comments	Crew Details
PD221	Returned	Primary 19,000 feet at 19.50 hours

Operation/Target: Essen (25 Oct 1944 - 25 Oct 1944)

Operation Summary
Target	Out	Back	Aborted (Y / N)	Comments
Essen	25 Oct 1944	25 Oct 1944	N	27 aircraft with crews were offered, accepted and briefed to attack once again objectives in ESSEN. The take-off was as usual good and without incident. The Station Commander, Group Captain R V McIntyre D.F.C captained "R" and like the remainder of the crews enjoyed the trip. Opposition over the target area was negligible but a fair number of jet-propelled fighters were seen high over the attackers, but no attempt was made to interfere with the bombing and all our aircraft returned safely to Base.

Aircraft Deployed			Servicemen Deployed
Aircraft Service Number	Returned or FTR	Comments	Crew Details
PD221	Returned	Primary 18,000 feet at 15.43 hours [Station CO McIntyre pilot]	G/C R V McIntyre (P) F/O R P Franklyn (P) Sgt S Dennis (F/Eng) F/Sgt R H Lucas (Nav) F/Sgt J A Dibley (A/B) F/Sgt R J Chester (W/Op) Sgt K Sharp (MU/AG) Sgt P J James (R/AG)

Operation/Target: Essen (12 Dec 1944 - 13 Dec 1944)

Operation Summary
Target	Out	Back	Aborted (Y / N)	Comments
Essen	12 Dec 1944	13 Dec 1944	N	25 aircraft and crews took off without incident at 16.00hrs to attack ESSEN. The journey out proved uneventful and the 10/10 cloud which greets us with almost monotonous regularity was again in evidence. Early crews saw sky markers up aloft, a situation which gave bomb aimers rather a headache, but aircraft arriving later did not have the same problem to solve and were able to bomb in the orthdox fashion. Observed results were confined to a red glow seen reflected on the underside of the clouds and three healthy explosions each of which lighted the sky for appropimately 30 secs. Photographs were unable to throw any light on the subject and so once again we shall have to await the accurate assessment of the result. Flak was light to moderate and later increased in intensity. In addition to the operations 20.52hrs flying training was carried out.

Aircraft Deployed			Servicemen Deployed
Aircraft Service Number	Returned or FTR	Comments	Crew Details
PD221	Returned	Primary 20,000 ft at 19.36 1/2	F/O J A Beale (P) F/O G W Bell (P) Sgt R J McElroy (F/Eng) F/O D C R Hills (Nav) F/O B H Lowen (A/B) Sgt J F Noonan (W/Op) Sgt D E Hookham (MU/AG) Sgt R West (R/AG)

Summary Statistics

Based on the data in the lists displayed above, and keeping in mind that data is still being updated and thus not yet complete, the following statistics are generated:

Aircraft Deployment Statistics

Aircraft deployments	3
MAX Aircraft deployed in single operation	1 (Essen, 23 Oct 1944)

These details were last updated: 01 May 2024

Note

this list is still being built and will take some time to complete
what is currently displayed is believed accurate but much more is still to be added

This note describes the options currently available to produce a smaller, more manageable list and also describes planned future enhancements to the reporting facility.

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