Operation Hydra (1943)
Operation Hydra was an attack by RAF Bomber Command on a German scientific research centre at Peenemünde on the night of 17/18 August 1943. Group Captain John Searby, commanding officer of No. 83 Squadron RAF, commanded the operation, the first time that Bomber Command used a master bomber to direct the attack of the main force. Hydra began the Crossbow campaign against the German V-weapon programme. The British lost 215 aircrew and 40 bombers, and killed several hundred enslaved workers in the nearby Trassenheide forced labour camp. The Luftwaffe lost twelve night-fighters and about 170 German civilians were killed, including two V-2 rocket scientists. However, the impact of this British operation on German V-weapon production was apparently lumped together with subsequent Allied attacks on Peenemünde as "not effective" in the 1945 "Summary Report" of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. (which, however, was prevented from visiting Soviet-occupied Peenemünde.) The Germans had already started to disperse the manufacturing of the V-2 in 1942, for example to Raderach near Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance.
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L 264, Usedom-Nord
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Latitude | Longitude |
---|---|
N 54.143 ° | E 13.794 ° |
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L 264
17449 Usedom-Nord
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
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