By Sean Feast
The Threat
While some British scientists thought it improbable, by the spring of 1943, Allied intelligence agencies were convinced that Germany was developing a viable, long-range rocket at Peenemünde, a secret research facility on the Baltic coast.
The V-2, a liquid-fuelled ballistic missile, developed under the leadership of Wernher von Braun, was a technological leap far beyond anything the Allies possessed at that time. Capable of reaching speeds far beyond the speed of sound and striking targets over 200 miles away, the V-2 was unstoppable once launched.
The British code-breaking organisation Ultra, along with aerial reconnaissance and information from resistance networks across Europe, had confirmed Peenemünde’s importance, and the threat that the rockets posed, especially if they could be built in numbers. Orders were given that the facility had to be destroyed, and the plan given its own codename: Operation Hydra.
Triumph and Tragedy
Bombing a target deep in enemy territory posed significant risk. The Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Sir Arthur Harris, had also made it clear that if Peenemünde was not destroyed at the first time of asking, the bomber boys would have to go back and finish the job.
(Left - Test Stand VII at Peenemünde before the raid. Air Historical Branch.)
The raid on Peenemünde was remarkable in many ways, not least because rather than having one single aiming point, there were three, with a ‘Master Bomber’ in overall charge of the attack.
The Master Bomber – Wing Commander John Searby – was responsible for ‘shifting’ the attack from one point to the next, to ensure maximum destruction. This was the first time a Master Bomber had been used to control a Main Force attack.
The raid on the secret rocket research establishment at Peenemünde has gone down in history as one of the most successful and remarkable of the war. The site was badly damaged, many important scientists were killed, and the Germans forced to move rocket production and development elsewhere. But it came at a terrible cost. Out of an attacking force of almost 600 aircraft, more than 40 bombers and 245 RAF aircrew killed.
(Left - Test Stand VII at Peenemünde after the raid. Air Historical Branch.)
The Lost Graves
After the war, the bodies of many of those who were killed were recovered by the Missing Research and Enquiry Service (MRES) and ultimately buried in Commonwealth War Graves Commission war graves. But not all. Among those still listed as ‘Missing’ are the crews of two pilots in particular: Flying Officer Reg Harding of 44 Squadron, and Squadron Leader ‘Ray’ Raphael of 467 Squadron.
('Ray' Raphael on the right with his crew at RAF Bottesford in June 1943.)
A series of mishaps and miscommunication led the MRES to search for the bodies of the missing men in the wrong place, and valuable time and resource wasted on a false errand. Funds to continue the search dried up. And with the Peenemünde site falling into Russian hands, and access to British and US search parties severely restricted, the search ultimately had to be called off. Time and money had run out.
Meticulous research by the late Mike McLeod, married to one of the relatives of the missing men, suggests that today, more than 82 years after the raid, the bodies of the missing men are still there, waiting to be found. He identified serious flaws in the investigations at the time and subsequently. He expressed his frustration at the lack of interest shown by both the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Air Historical Branch of the RAF in looking into his findings or that their information could be wrong.
In particular, he has challenged the assumptions made concerning the identity of the so-called ‘Lady in the Lake’, and whether the remains of the Lancaster that rests there is in fact a different aircraft altogether to the one the authorities suppose.
(Left. A view over the south shore of the Kölpien-See, at Peenemünde, the site of some of the 'lost' graves. Mike McLeod.)
The triumph of the Peenemünde raid has perhaps, over time, been eclipsed by the tragedy of those who lost their lives that night. The ongoing tragedy is that an opportunity to recover the bodies of some of those that died that night has now probably been missed forever.
Any hope of publication of Mike McLeod’s “Missing Graves of Konigsberg” ?