On a full moon night, a formation of 579 British four-engined Bomber Command planes bombs the Nazi base at Peenemünde, where the V-1s are being tested and built. 753 people die, but only two scientists or engineers die, and Wernher von Braun’s entire team remains intact and unharmed. Among the soldiers present on site are members of the I and II Italian Fog Battalions. The RAF raid, with 15 Halifax bombers, 23 Lancasters, and two Stirlings, is preceded by a separate raid on Berlin with eight Mosquitoes, to divert German attention. The operation is called Hydra. Hydra is the first operation against the German V-weapon program, a campaign later known as “Crossbow.” The British lose 40 bombers and 215 crew members, and several hundred slave laborers at the nearby Trassenheide forced labor camp are killed. 1,938 tons of bombs were dropped. The Luftwaffe lost 12 night fighters and approximately 170 German civilians were killed, including two V-2 rocket scientists. Assessments of the raids’ effectiveness vary; the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1945) called the raid “ineffective”, while in 2006 historian Adam Tooze judged it to have been a great success. Assessments vary between having caused a delay of 2 and 6 weeks in the development of German V-weapons. Also in the first wave was George Dunn, in a Halifax (76Sq crew), whom I met at Duxford in September 2024 (he was 102 years old).
