Page 2 - William Gordon Frost

Seventeen Lancasters from 576 Squadron were tasked on Main Force operations for the evening
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of 20 February 1945, the target that night was an area attack on the German city of Dortmund in
the Ruhr valley.

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The crew of Flying Officer Richard Bastic were on their 15 operation, halfway to the 30
operations required to finish a tour of operations before being screened from further operations
and rested.

Their Lancaster that night was NF975 J-Jig2, their regular mount. The Lancasters war load that
night consisted of 1 x 2000lb high capacity bomb and 11incendiery carriers, each with 150 x 4
pound incendiaries, a typical Area bombing load. 9 of the Squadrons Lancasters had the 4,000lb
‘Cookie’ high capacity bomb.

Taking off from Fiskerton’s main runway at 21.41pm they climbed into the night sky and formed up
into a loose gaggle heading towards the English town of Reading where the rest of the Main Force
heavies of Bomber Command would form up and then begin their flight over the English Channel
to approach the German frontier from the South West taking advantage of the areas free of
German night fighter activity over liberated Northern France, this also denied the German air
defences time to react to this incursion of their airspace.

The Command that night, now at nearly full strength with a total heavy bomber force of over 1,600
Heavies put on a show of force designed to inflict maximum damage onto the enemy.

Bomber Commands operations that night were:

514 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitos of No’s 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups attacked Dortmund in Bomber
Command's last large-scale raid on this target. 14 Lancasters lost. The intention of this raid was to
destroy the Southern half of Dortmund and Bomber Command claimed that this was achieved.

173 aircraft - 156 Halifax’s, 11 Mosquitos, and 6 Lancasters - of No’s 4 and 8 Groups attacked the
Rhenania Ossag refinery in the Reisholz district of Düsseldorf. The raid was accurate and it was
later established that all oil production was halted.
4 Halifax’s and 1 Lancaster lost.

128 aircraft - 112 Halifax’s, 10 Mosquitos, 6 Lancasters - of 6 and 8 Groups attacked the Rhenania
Ossag refinery at Monheim with similar results to the Reisholz raid. 2 Halifaxes lost.

154 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitos of No. 5 Group were ordered to attack the Mittelland Canal near
Gravenhorst but the raid was ordered to be abandoned by the Master Bomber because the area
was covered by cloud. No aircraft lost.

Diversionary sorties: 91 aircraft from Heavy Conversion Units in a sweep over the North Sea, 66
Mosquitos to Berlin and 16 to Mannheim, 65 RCM (radio counter measures) sorties, 45 Mosquito
patrols, 6 aircraft on Resistance operations.1 aircraft of No. 100 Group (type not recorded) lost.

In total 1,283 aircraft of Bomber Command took part in these operations that night with a loss of
22 aircraft (1.7% lost)