1 September: The Luftwaffe begins Operation Wasserkante as part of the invasion of Poland. The first air attacks against Warsaw start.
2 September: Single PZL.23B of the 21st Squadron of Polish Air Force bombs a factory in Ohlau. The attack represented the first Allied bombing raid to be conducted against a target in territory within the Third Reich.
3 September: The RAF launches its first raid of the war over Germany territory. Eighteen Handley Page Hampdens and nine Vickers Wellingtons are sent to attack the German warships moored at the Wilhelmshaven naval base. However poor visibility prevents the bombers from finding any targets before nightfall so they return.[5]
4 September: The first British airman to be taken prisoner was Sergeant George Booth, a RAF Observer from 107 Squadron. He was captured after his Bristol Blenheim was shot down over the German coast.[8]
20 September: The first recorded kill of the French Armee de l'Air is credited to Sergeant André-Armand Legrand, flying a Curtis H75A-1 in the Groupe de Chasse II/5 La Fayette, for downing a Messerschmitt Bf 109E of the Luftwaffe 3/JG 53 over Überherrn.[10]
27 September: The Luftwaffe ceases its bombing campaign against Warsaw after its Polish garrison surrenders to German forces. Approximately 1,150 sorties were flown by a wide variety of aircraft, including obsolete Junkers Ju 52/3m bombers.[11]
30 November: The Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland starts. Three hours after the Red Army had crossed the border and started the Winter War, Helsinki is bombed. Throughout the war, the Soviet Air Force has the air superiority and several cities in Finland are targeted.
18 December: The first use of radar for defence (an "experimental Freya radar") gave warning of RAF bombers near the German Bight as they made an attack on Wilhelmshaven.[12]: 20 However the German fighters were not permitted to intercept until visual confirmation was made - the bombers were attacked after they had dropped their bombs.
15 May: A kill shared by French pilot René Mouchotte and Englishman Jack Charles becomes the 1,000th victim of RAF Biggin Hill fighters--Vickers threw a "fabulous party"
15 May: The RAF lost the 100th of its France-based bombers. In 72 hours, it had lost half of its offensive force.[13]
19 May: French fighters strafed advanced columns of Operation Abendsegen[12]: 4
27 May 1940: Heinkels bombarded the Dunkirk perimeter followed by Stukas and Dorniers: opposition included the "first major encounter" by Spitfires of No. 74 Squadron RAF.[16]: 71
7 September: The Blitz bombing of Britain began with 57 nights of air raids
8 September: Three Dornier 17 bombers are downed by a single shot from a "Territorial gun crew" near Farnington.[18]: 129
9 September: A bombing raid on Tel Aviv caused 137 deaths.[19]
19 October: Four SM.82 bombers attacked American-operated oil refineries in the British Protectorate of Bahrain, damaging the local refineries.[20] The raid also struck Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, but causing little damage.[20]
15 September: In a single day, the Luftwaffe loses 60 aircraft over England during the Battle of Britain[21]: 68
14 November: In the Coventry Blitz Luftwaffe aircraft cause significant, and infamous, damage to Coventry, killing nearly 700 people and destroying Coventry Cathedral.
30 November: The second phase of The Blitz began against British industrial and port cities
31 March/1 April: A bombing raid on Emden is the first use of the 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) HC "cookie" blockbuster bomb
15 April: The Belfast Blitz kills 1000, the greatest loss of British lives outside London from a night raid.
10 May: The longest blitz air raid on london killing 2324 people and 11,000 houses.
22 June - 3 July: In the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Luftwaffe achieved air superiority by destroying some 2,000 Soviet aircraft, at a loss of only 35 aircraft (of which 15 were non-combat-related).
18 December: Blenheim aircraft conducted the first night intruder attack, successfully striking Soesterberg airfield in the Netherlands with bombs and attacking two German bombers in the air with guns
1942
16 February: The first regular operations with the American Douglas Boston bomber were conducted.
25/26 March: In the largest force (254 aircraft) sent to a single target to date, bombers of an Essen mission were drawn off by decoy fire from Rheinberg.[specify]
8/9 April: The largest force to date (272 aircraft) bomb Hamburg.
17 April: The Augsburg Raid is the first to attempt low-level daylight bombing for accuracy - in this case against the factory producing engines for U-boats. Half of the 12 bombers were shot down for little damage caused.
30 May: The first use of the bomber stream and the first British large scale operation, as part of Operation Millennium the first "Thousand Bomber" raid is sent against Cologne, Germany. Of the 1,047 aircraft sent, nearly 900 bombed the target area - the whole raid passing over in 90 minutes.
11–12 June: First American daylight raid over European soil, against petroleum wells in Ploiești, Romania, along with objectives in Bulgaria, the first stages of American Bombing offensive.[26]
25/26 June: The third "Thousand bomber" raid bombs Bremen, a new record of RAF Bomber Command losses (48 of 1,067 aircraft).
4 July: The first American bombing mission over enemy-occupied territory in Europe used 20 Boston bombers (plus 6 RAF-crewed Bostons) to attack the Alkmaar, Hammsted, and Valkenburg airfields --[27]: 106 only two reached the target area (two shot down, the others heavily damaged).[12]: 111
14 August: First German warplane downed by the USAAF. A German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor reconnaissance-bomber is shot down by two US fighter pilots, flying a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, off the coast of Reykjavík, Iceland. All six German airmen are killed as the plane explodes and goes into the sea.[28]
15 August: 82nd Airborne is the first US airborne division. (the first combat jumps were 8 November 1942 by the 509th Parachute Battalion in the North Africa Operation Torch).[27]: 106, 107
17 August: 12 B-17s of the 97 BG (including one with Eaker aboard) escorted by RAF Spitfires bombed the Sotteville railyard 3 miles (4.8 km) South of Rouen, France, in the "first combat action" of the Eighth Air Force and the first B-17 bombing of Europe.
19 August: 22 B-17's drop 34 tons of bombs on Abbeville/Drucat A/F in France causing extensive damage.
20 August: 11 of 12 B-17's bomb Amiens/Longeau Marshilling Yard, France at 1801 hours without loss.
21 August: 12 B-17's are dispatched to bomb the shipyards in Rotterdam, Netherlands but is aborted due to an attack by Bf 109s and Fw 190s; 1 bomber is damaged; lack of proper coordination with the Spitfire escorts is a major factor in the failure of the mission.
16/17 April: A force of 327 Lancasters and Halifaxes set out to destroy the Škoda arms factory at Plzeň, in German occupied Czechoslovakia. 271 aircraft raided Mannheim as a diversion the same night. The force mistook the mental hospital near Dobřany to be the factory at Plzeň. The raid sustained the heaviest losses until that point in the air war.[31]
24 July: After the US developed an airborne radar immune to Window, the first use of the countermeasure (40 tonnes—92 million strips) were dropped during a Hamburg bombing mission.[32]: 145
29 July: First use of unguided air-to-air rockets against American combat box formations of heavy bombers by JG 1 Oesau and JG 11, attacking with Bf 109Gs and Fw 190As each armed with pairs of Werfer-Granate 21 rocket ordnance, developed from the 21 cm Nebelwerfer 42 ground barrage rocket system.
1 August: Flying from North Africa Operation Tidal Wave bombs the oil refineries at Ploiești. A large number of the bombers are lost for little strategic benefit. Five Medals of Honor are awarded to American aircrew.
27 August: The first mission against a "Heavy" Crossbow site bombed the WattenV-2 rocket bunker
9 September: The Luftwaffe's KG 100 bomber wing is involved with the world's first successful use of a precision-guided munition in modern military history, through their sinking of the Italian battleship Roma, using the Fritz X armored gravity-propulsion PGM munition.
10 October: As a result of the June "surrender/escape" of a 100 BG B-17, out of the 13 B-17s of 100 BG attacking a railyard in Münster, only the B-17F of Robert Rosenthal survives to return safely to RAF Thorpe Abbotts in England.
1 November: A Combined Bomber Offensive progress report estimates that 19/19/9 German towns & cities have been virtually destroyed/severely damaged/more effectively damaged – another report claims 10% of German war potential had been destroyed[3]
3 November: A Wilhelmshaven raid is the first Eighth Air Force blind-bombing mission to completely destroy the aiming point, the Eighth's first 500-plane mission, and the first use by the US of H2X radar
22/23 November: The largest force sent to bomb Berlin to date (764 aircraft) conducted the most effective World War II raid on Berlin
2 December: 100 Ju-88s bombed the port of Bari, sinking 28 ships including the American cargo ship SS John Harvey which was secretly carrying mustard gas. There were 83 military casualties from the poison. Autopsies indicated excess white blood cells, and the discovery led to the use of the gas to combat leukemia. Records were completely declassified in 1959.[32]: 149
30 January: The first U.S. Intruder operation was conducted by P-47s and accurately preceded the bombers to strike fighters at Villaorba airfield.
6–27 February: The Soviet Air Force launched bombing raids against several Finnish cities. The greatest air raids once again targeted Helsinki. In this manner the USSR hoped to force Finland to break its ties with Germany and agree to a peace settlement.
28 July: The first operational use of rocket-powered point-defense interceptors occurs as Me 163Bs of I. Gruppe/JG 400 take off from Brandis to defend against a USAAF strategic bombing raid on the Merseburg/Leuna synthetic fuel production complex.[38]
27 August: The RAF restarted daylight bombing of Germany (first since 12 August 1941) with an attack on the Homberg Fischer-Tropsch plant in Hamburg.[41]: 149
8 September: Operation Penguin began with the first V-2 rocket launches against Paris and London
17 September: The last UK-USSR-Italy-UK shuttle bombing was completed as 72 B-17s and 59 P-51s flew from Italy without bombs to the UK; 70 B-17s 57 P-51s land safely in the UK.
5 January: The first mission of Operation Cornflakes begins when a mail train to Linz was bombed. Fake mailbags containing anti-Nazi propaganda were then dropped on the wreckage in the hope the letters would be unwittingly delivered by the Reichspost. The OSS dropped two million Das Neue Deutschland (German: The New Germany) propaganda newspapers during this psychological warfare operation; which ended in February.[32]: 104
13–15 February: The Allied Bombing of Dresden causes a firestorm that kills up to 25,000 people in the city.[44]
3 March: The RAF mistakenly bombed the densely populated Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in the Dutch city of The Hague. The bomber crews had intended to bomb the Haagse Bos district, where the Germans had installed V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack English cities. 511 residents were killed and approximately 30,000 were left homeless.[45]
12 March: The RAF drop 4,851 tonnes of bombs on Dortmund using 1108 aircraft (748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, 68 Mosquitos). Up to 98% of buildings in the city center are destroyed. It would be the heaviest raid on a single target in World War II.[46]
18 March: The largest number of Me 262s to date launch their most concentrated attacks against Allied bomber formation. Mission 894 attacking Berlin (1,329 bombers and 733 fighters) loses 13 bombers and 6 fighters. The AAF claim 25 Luftwaffe aircraft.[49]
22 March: Two hundred L-4 Grasshopper spotter planes each carrying one armed infantryman (instead of an observer) cross the Rhine to form a bridgehead for the US 3rd Army near Oppenheim.[30]: 2068 (Light aviation became a major part of the US Army's Field Artillery fire detection center on 4 June 1942).[27]: 104
19 April: The last RAF air operation using Grand Slam bombs in Europe takes place over Heligoland. Twenty aircraft from 617 Squadron, six with Grand Slams and the remainder with smaller Tallboy bombs, along with 16 aircraft from 9 Squadron attack the island's coastal gun-batteries. No aircraft were lost. A total of 42 Grand Slams were dropped in air operations over Germany.[52]
25 April: The last Eighth Air Force full-scale mission in the ETO hit the Škoda Works at Pilsen in Czechoslovakia (B-17s), while B-24s bombed rail complexes surrounding Hitler's Berchtesgaden.
^Irving, David (1964). The Mare's Nest. London: William Kimber and Co. p. 223. ISBN0-586-06368-4. NOTE: V-2 rocket air operations were conducted by various German Army units, but operational orders were issued by a Joint Services (OKW) command.
^Haarr, Geirr H. (2013). The Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe September 1939 - April 1940. Seaforth Publishing. pp. 227–230. ISBN9781473832732.
^Jablonski, Edward (1971). Volume 1 (Tragic Victories), Book II (The Big League). p. 71. ((cite book)): |work= ignored (help)
^ ab
Forrester, Larry (1973) [1956]. Fly for Your Life: The Story of R. R. Stanford Tuck, D.S.O, D.F.C. and Two Bars. Sir Max Aitken (Foreword). Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday. ISBN0-553-11642-8.
^
Seversky, Alexander P. de (1942). Victory Through Air Power. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 145. "Destruction of enemy morale from the air can be accomplished only by precision bombing."
^McBride, Gisela R.: Through my eyes: memoirs of Hitler's Berlin. Hamilton Books, 2006, page 209. ISBN0-7618-3394-3
^ abcdefLang, Walter (1998) [199]. United States Military Almanac: a Chronological Compendium of Over 200 Years of American History. Avenel NJ: Random House. p. 102,106–7. ISBN1-84065-001-X.
^Hammel, Eric. Air War Europa: America's Air War against Germany in Europe and North Africa 1942-1945. Pacifica Press, 1994, p. 56.
^Middlebrook, Martin (1982). The Peenemünde Raid: The Night of 17–18 August 1943. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. ISBN0-672-52759-6.
^
Zaloga, Steven J. (2008) [2007]. German V-Weapon Sites 1943-45. Fortress (72). illustrated by Johnson, Hugh & Taylor, Chris. New York: Osprey Publishing Ltd. ISBN978-1-84603-247-9.
^
Collier, Basil (1976) [1964]. The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944–1945. Yorkshire: The Emfield Press. p. 174. ISBN0-7057-0070-4.
^King, Benjamin; Timothy Kutta (2003). Impact: The History of Germany's V-Weapons in World War II. Da Capo Press. p. 309. ISBN0-306-81292-4.
^Smith, J. Richard & Eddie J. Creek (1997). Blitz!: Germany's Arado Ar 234 Jet Bomber. Merriam Press. p. 23. ISBN9781576380079.
^Flower, Stephen (2004). Barnes Wallis' Bombs. Researched from the original records and interviews with those involved with the development and use of the bombs. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 362–64. ISBN0-7524-2987-6.
^Till, Major Noel O (September 1945). Report on Investigations, WO 309/1592. No. 2 War Crimes Investigation Team. From the Till report of June 1945: "The Intelligence Officer with 83 Group RAF has admitted on two occasions; first to Lt H. F. Ansell of this Team (when it was confirmed by a Wing Commander present), and on a second occasion to the Investigating Officer when he was accompanied by Lt. H. F. Ansell, that a message was received on 2 May 1945 that these ships were loaded with KZ prisoners but that, although there was ample time to warn the pilots of the planes who attacked these ships on the following day, by some oversight the message was never passed on... From the facts and from the statement volunteered by the RAF Intelligence Officer, it appears that the primary responsibility for this great loss of life must fall on the British RAF personnel who failed to pass to the pilots the message they received concerning the presence of KZ prisoners on board these ships." See: Jacobs and Pool, 2004 and Till, 1945
Bibliography
"Campaign Diary". Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary. UK Crown. Archived from the original on 6 July 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
German Luftwaffe
German OKW V-2 forces[1].svg){kind=small}
Polish Air Force
French Air Force
United Kingdom Royal Air Force[2]
Italian Regia Aeronautica
Soviet Union Red Army Air Force
Finnish Air Force.svg){kind=small}
Royal Canadian Air Force
Romanian Air Force.svg){kind=small}
Royal Hungarian Air Force
United States Army Air Forces[3]
United States Artillery Observers.svg){kind=small}
Royal Bulgarian Air Force
