Raid on le Havre 19-20 May 1940

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello,

The fist air raid on Le Havre is said to have been on 19 May 1940. It was probably a night raid, and maybe even in the early hours of 20 May as all crew of the French ship sunk (the auxilary mine sweeper AD 49 Augustin Normand) are officially listed as being killed on the 20th.

I will be interested to know which Luftwaffe units did this raid, and at which hour.

Thanks in advance

[RudiS]

Accoring to this website, the ship was sunk in the Channel off Le Havre, so not in the harbour itself.

[Nick Beale]

See also the attached from the daily situation reports on the German Docs in Russia site. It seems that the harbour installations were bombed but that a destroyer was claimed hit out at sea.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by RudiS

Accoring to this website, the ship was sunk in the Channel off Le Havre, so not in the harbour itself.

Thanks Rudi, but wikipedia is not a reference. Basically all losses are given "off [location]" even when the primary source says "at part in [location]". I am slowly working on it (for a given month, there was a dozen ships either duplicated (at two dates) or with the wrong month/year (for example, I am working on March 1940 and the above ship is listed in an Internet list as being sunk on 20th March)).

By the way I have found on Google Books confirmation that this ship was sunk in port (with the precise quay name) by a direct bomb hit at 2350 hrs on the 19th, with 12 killed and 7 heavily wounded. The French WWII casualties database show 13 named dead for this ship, all on 20th May (only wrong by ten minutes, and possibly including a 13th crew who died of wounds).

The book, "Le Havre, 1940-1944" by Jean-Claude Dubosq, says that the first raid on Le Havre during the war starts at 2200 hrs on the 19th and ended at 0200 hrs on the 20th. During the first two hours some incendiary bombs were dropped, the main bombing took place between 23h50 and 0h30, hitting the port and the town. Between 20 and 30 aircraft were estimated to have attacked Le Havre (French estimate so could be far from the real number).

Edited: by the way, I have just updated the wikipedia entry for Augustin Normand.

[RudiS]

If the attack happened at night I doubt that the Luftwaffe unit responsible for the attack was even aware that it had sunk the vessel. I think that the best chance is looking for FB entries to identify the unit that attacked Le Havre.

[Chris Goss]

I have looked through the Luftwaffe claims for ships and nothing in that location 19-20 May 40. Agree with Rudi

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Fully agree with last posters. From what I have found, German aircraft that night bombed Le Havre and dropped magnetic mines off the port, that was closed for the next five days. I doubt the sinking of such a small boat could be reported at night, especially as there were several tens of fires in the port and city.

[robert]

Hi,

the squadron, which attacked Le Havre (3 Ju 88s dropped bombs, 3 He 111s and 3 Ju 88s mines) did not claim any ship as destroyed.

Regards

Robert

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Thanks Robert, do you know the units involved, especially of the 3 Ju 88s who dropped bombs (even if given the results listed in the book above, I think more than 3 Ju 88s were involved) ?

[robert]

Yes I know but I cannot tell you. I have a war diary of this squadron and all details will be published in our forthcoming books (September Campaign is ready for production but delayed due to Covid). A few Ju 88s of another squadron could also attack Le Havre because they had had problems with finding of their primary target (I think it was Dieppe) - I basing here on a logbook.

Regards

Robert