Bomber Command raid - 2 March 1945

COLOGNE
858 aircraft - 531 Lancasters, 303 Halifaxes, 24 Mosquitoes. 6 Lancasters and 2 Halifaxes were lost and 1 Halifax crashed in Belgium.
There were 2 raids on Cologne, now almost a front-line city. The first raid was carried out by 703 aircraft and the second by 155 Lancasters of 3 Group. In the second raid, however, only 15 aircraft bombed, because the G-H station in England was not working correctly. The main raid was highly destructive, with the Pathfinders marking in clear weather conditions. Our local expert, Erich Quadflieg, describes the great 'carpet of bombs', mostly high explosive, which stretched right across the main city on the west bank of the Rhine; 'Das war das Ende von Kln,' Herr Quadflieg writes. Not surprisingly, details of the exact extent of the damage are non-existent and casualty figures are vague. The number of dead civilians is given as 'hundreds' and the American troops who entered the city a few days later cleared at least 400 bodies from the streets; the warning sirens had sounded only 2 minutes before the first bombs fell. In addition, at least 160 German soldiers were killed, mostly S.S. men. Many of these died in the basement of the Krebsgasse Police Station, which was being used as the local air-raid control room; this building was hit by 5 bombs. Many German military units were affected by the bombing.
This was the last R.A.F. raid on Cologne, which was captured by American troops 4 days later.

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MINOR OPERATIONS
69 training aircraft on a sweep, 67 Mosquitoes to Kassel and 3 to Berlin, 48 R.C.M. sorties, 31 Mosquito patrols, 10 Halifaxes and Lancasters minelaying off Norway and 6 Mosquitoes in the Kiel Canal, 21 aircraft on Resistance operations. No aircraft lost.