Dam Busters Raid Downside

[Alex Smart]

However heroic the 617 Sqn raid on the dams were the downside was the loss of over 1,500 of our own who were POWs.
Is there a list of their names that are on a memorial or something on line that does so ?
Thanks
Alex

[Nick Beale]

I thought that the main loss of life was among Russian or Ukrainian PoWs — the reviews said that Max Hastings’ recent book “Chastise” goes into this. Whether he lists names of any British victims, I don’t know.

[Alex Smart]

Thanks Nick for your responce, but even so they were allies . I must say that when I saw this I did think that it meant "our" Pow's.
Thank you for the explanation
Alex

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I found pictures of two memorials for the victims of the dams destruction, but without names:
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/ohne_n...rre_on_nrw.htm
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/ohne_n...k2_on_hess.htm

For the victims number, the German wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B...d_Sch%C3%A4den) gaves numbers of 1348 dead with known location of death, and says another reports says 1579 died, including 1020 forced workers and POWs. As the page is about the flood coming from the broken Möhne dam, I don't know if this are figures for this dam only or for both it and the Eder.
In the book Middlebrook's Bomber Command War Diaries, estimates of the number of drowned people was given as 1294, including at least 58 near the Eder dam.

As for French POWs, by checking http://www.memorialgenweb.org/memori...l/fr/index.php with death date of 16 or 17 May 1943, I found 18 POWs reported as dying due to this attack, and 5 more who died in places affected by the flooding with no cause of death, but very probably due to it.

The database as https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.def...erre_mondiale/ is more complete and list (for 16 and 17 May) 30 POWs reported as dying due to this attack, and 9 more who died in places affected by the flooding with no cause of death, but very probably due to it.

The first link will list names recorded on French memorials and include Resistance members, forced workers and other civilians, but is showing only a part of the real casualtues, the second is only for military (and members of Resistance members officially considered as military) but is more or less complete.

As for Dutch casualties, I found on the Oorlogsgraven website 13 Dutch civilians who died on 17 May 1943 in Neheim:
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/zo...persoon&filter[0]=overlijdensplaats&value[0]=Neheim-H%C3%BCsten%2C+Landkreis+Arnsberg#zoeken-form
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/zo...persoon&filter[0]=overlijdensplaats&value[0]=Neheim-H%C3%BCsten+Landkreis+Arnsberg#zoeken-form
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/zo...persoon&filter[0]=overlijdensplaats&value[0]=Neheim-H%C3%BCsten#zoeken-form
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/zo...persoon&filter[0]=overlijdensplaats&value[0]=Neheim-Husten#zoeken-form
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/zo...persoon&filter[0]=overlijdensplaats&value[0]=Neheim-H%C3%BCsten%2C+Landr.+Arnsberg#zoeken-form

No idea if there were forced works or voluntary workers in Germany.

As for the British, the CWGC shows only one British Army dead for 16 and 17 May 1943 and he is buried in Berlin War Cemetery, so is unlikely to be linked to the bombing. All RAF dead for both day are either from 617 Sqn (crews of shot down bombers) or from 415 Sqn (two, crews of two Hampden shot down off the German coast during anti-shipping sorties). So it seems that there was no British victims on the ground.

All American listed on ABMC for 16 or 17 May 1943 in European cemeteries were lost during air operations, especially the decimated B-26 low altitude raid on the 17th. ABMC lists only the American still missing or buried abroad, less than half of WWII casualties, but it the number of American POWs in Germany was then rather low, so it is probable none was killed either.

I have no data for the other Allied countries.

[Alfred.MONZAT]

Middlebrook's Bomber Command War Diaries quotes 493 foreigners out of its 1294.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by Alfred.MONZAT

Middlebrook's Bomber Command War Diaries quotes 493 foreigners out of its 1294.

Actually he quotes 493 foreigners in one camp, but there were many more.

On the Volksbund website, you can find the description of one cemetery in Neheim where the 893 victims of the flood were buried:
_ 131 identified German men, women and children
_ 50 unknown Germans,
_ 59 French prisoners of war
_ 7 Belgian prisoners of war
_ 14 Dutch civil workers
_ 632 men and women of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian nationalities who were forced to work in the local defense industry.

Source: https://www.volksbund.de/graebersuch...iedhofergebnis

That means that there were more French POWs killed (59) than the 39 I could find in the online databases.
Also it answers one of my questions: the Dutch are registered as civil workers, not as forced workers. I don't know if a forced work service existed in May 1943 in Netherlands (it started shortly later in France).
Also there were 7 Belgian POWs killed, but I don't know how to identify them.

[Alex Smart]

Thank you Alfred and Laurent both for your replies and efforts in supplying links and details.
Many thanks
Alex