Intruder Activity over East Anglia September 6th 1943

[Steve Smith]

Hi,

Looking for details please on the units operating over East Anglia on the night of September 6th 1943. A number of small bombs were dropped on RAF Station Downham Market.

Any additional information very welcome.

Kind regards

Steve

[Andy Mitchell]

Steve,

Air raid by Michael Bowyer mentions that Downham Market was attacked around that date but it a little unclear from the text as to which date, it may even have been late August. However, in the following paragraph he then mentions that other airfields were attacked on 7/8 Sep 1943. (P284)

Text - "At Downham Market Drem lights were on when operations advised the tower of a "bogey". Visiting aircraft were in the circuit in the bright moonlight when at 22.08 the Me 410 roared in at 400ft first placing a 250 kg HE on the intersection of Runway 16/21. From its second pass a 50 kg SDX landed 52 ft from the runway controllers caravan, as the raider had evaded four rounds of Bofors fire. Two airmen were slightly injured."

Unfortunately - direct no references or footnotes.

Parry in "Intruders over Britain" does not mention Downham Market.

[Chris Goss]

V/.KG 2 was active that night as I have a logbook entry for a pilot that took off from Schiphol at 0342 landing 0510 on 7 Sep 43 for a Fernnachtjagd mission. No more details I'm afraid

[Steve Smith]

Dear both,


Thank you for your help with this. The RAF Downham Market Station Records gives a brief account of the hit & run raid. One "Intruder" dropped a single bomb at 22:05 hours injuring two RAF air man, one of which was transferred to RAF Hospital Ely.

With no actual dates given by Michael Bowyer, I am still not 100% sure!

Steve

[Brian Bines]

The Home Office Key Points reports says on 6/7th Sept. fifteen aircraft attacked over an area east of the line King's Lynn/Chichester and on the 7/8th two aircraft flew over Essex . For the whole week ending 0900hrs on the 8th Sept. there was only two Key Points,two airfields and one RAF Station (not named) involved but no serious damage reported. On the 8/9th. Sept eight aircraft operated over East anglia ( Me410s of V/KG2 according to Ulf Balke) by inference the summary at the end indicates two unnamed RAF airfields were affected but with no serious damage ,

Regards
Brian Bines