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: Gelsenkirchen (12 Jun 1944 - 13 Jun 1944)

Operation Summary
Target	Out	Back	Aborted (Y / N)	Comments
Gelsenkirchen	12 Jun 1944	13 Jun 1944	N	Nineteen aircraft offered for operations and briefed to attack synthetic oil plant at GELSENKIRCHEN four miles north of Essen. All the squadron aircraft carried nearly six tons of H.E. including a "Cookie" and claimed to have bombed the markers. The weather offered no unusual difficulties the target, however, was a more than usually elusive one even for the Ruhr, consisting as it did of a compact and highly vulnerable plant in a sparsely built up area. First impressions culled from our crews are very optimistic, although it appears that there were two areas collecting both markers and bombs. The main concentration of both markers and bombs seems to have achieved the fireworks which only a highly inflammable target could provde. Most of the crews report a vivid yellow explosion early in the bombing period which started with a flame estimated to reach several thousand feet and finished in a pall of oily black smoke. Those who bombed later report a cleary defined fire area, which strengthens that belief that the attack was a highly successful one. Good photographs were obtained and all the aircraft returned safely to base. F/L Waite and P/O Rogers and their crews completed the first operational tour on this sortie.

Aircraft Deployed			Servicemen Deployed
Aircraft Service Number	Returned or FTR	Comments	Crew Details
EE193	Returned	Primary 19,000 ft at 01.02 hrs. Smoke up to 15000 ft. Aircraft hit by flak.	P/O N D Holdsworth (P) Sgt H Mimmack (F/Eng) Sgt V Kirby (Nav) Sgt C S Venables (A/B) Sgt J A C Steer (W/Op) Sgt W Johnston (MU/AG) W/O H Granger (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	1
MAX Aircraft deployed in single operation	1 (Gelsenkirchen, 12 Jun 1944)

These details were last updated: 22 October 2024

Note

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