Just came across this site today. I am researching my wife's uncle's (F/O Frederick Fernley) flying history as a pilot in Bomber Command,186 Sqn (Stradishall) - "B" Flt, during 1945. I recently was given his logbook. He flew a total of 35 Lancaster missions with the squadron from January 1945 on, dropping 386,500 pounds of ordnance. He was also awarded a DFC. I would like to make contact with relatives of any other aircrew personal from the squadron during this time period to share information and research more info about their missions. I would also like to learn the circumstances around his receiving the DFC.
Here is a listing of the missions he flew on:
Bomber Command War Diary
11 January 1945
152 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H raid on the railway yard in the Uerdingen suburb of Krefeld. No aircraft lost.
13 January 1945
158 Lancasters of No 3 Group attacked the railway yards at Saarbrücken. The bombing appeared to be accurate, though with some overshooting. 1 Lancaster crashed in France.
16 January 1945
1138 Lancasters of No 3 Group attacked the benzol plant at Wanne-Eickel. No results known. 1 Lancaster lost.
28 January 1945
153 Lancasters of No 3 Group attacked the railway yards at Cologne/Gremberg in conditions of good visibility. Some of the bombing fell on the target but some overshot. 3 Lancasters were lost and 1 crashed in France.
2/3 February 1945
495 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups to Wiesbaden. 3 Lancasters crashed in France. This was Bomber Command's one and only large raid on Wiesbaden. There was complete cloud cover but most of the bombing hit the town. 5 important war industries along the banks of the Rhine were untouched but the railway station was damaged.
20/21 February 1945
514 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups attacked Dortmund in Bomber Command's last large-scale raid on this target. 14 Lancasters lost. The intention of this raid was to destroy the southern half of Dortmund and Bomber Command claimed that this was achieved.
22 February 1945
167 Lancasters of No 3 Group in forces of 85 and 82 aircraft to oil refineries at Gelsenkirchen and Osterfeld. A Film Unit Lancaster of No 463 Squadron, No 5 Group, accompanied the Gelsenkirchen force. Both targets were accurately bombed in clear weather conditions. 1 Lancaster lost from the Gelsenkirchen raid.
25 February 1945
153 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H attack on the synthetic-oil refinery at Kamen. 1 Lancaster lost.
26 February 1945
149 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H attack on the Hoesch benzol-oil plant at Dortmund through cloud. No results were seen but the bombing appeared to be concentrated. No aircraft lost.
28 February 1945
156 Lancasters of No 3 Group in a G-H raid on the Nordstern synthetic-oil plant at Gelsenkirchen. No aircraft lost.
1 March 1945
151 Lancasters of No 3 Group attacked an oil plant at Kamen through cloud.
4 March 1945
128 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H attack through cloud on Wanne-Eickel. No results were seen.
6 March 1945
119 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H attack through cloud on the Wintershall oil refinery at Salzbergen. 1 lost.
7/8 March 1945
526 Lancasters and 5 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups raided Dessau. 18 Lancasters lost, 3.4 per cent of the force. This was another devastating raid on a new target in Eastern Germany with the usual town centre, residential, industrial and railway areas all being hit.
10 March 1945
155 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H attack on the oil refinery at Scholven/Buer. Photographs taken later showed this to have been a very accurate and effective raid. No aircraft lost.
12 March 1945
1,108 aircraft - 748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, 68 Mosquitos attacked Dortmund. This was another new record to a single target, a record which would stand to the end of the war. 2 Lancasters lost. Another record tonnage of bombs - 4,851 - was dropped through cloud on to this unfortunate city. The only details available from Dortmund state that the attack fell mainly in the centre and south of the city. A British team which investigated the effects of bombing in Dortmund after the war says that, 'The final raid … stopped production so effectively that it would have been many months before any substantial recovery could have occurred'.
14 March 1945
169 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out G-H attacks through cloud on oil plants at Datteln and Hattingen (near Bochum). Both attacks appeared to be accurate but no results were seen. 1 Lancaster lost from the Hattingen raid.
4/5 April 1945
327 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitos of Nos 3, 6 and 8 Groups attacked the synthetic-oil plant at Leuna. The target was cloud-covered, the bombing was scattered and only minor damage was caused. 2 Lancasters lost.
9/10 April 1945
591 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3 and 8 Groups to Kiel. 3 Lancasters lost. This was an accurate raid, made in good visibility on two aiming points in the harbour area. Photographic reconnaissance showed that the Deutsche Werke U-boat yard was severely damaged, the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was hit and capsized, the Admiral Hipper and the Emden were badly damaged. The local diary says that all 3 shipyards in the port were hit and that the nearby residential areas were severely damaged.
13/14 April 1945
377 Lancasters and 105 Halifaxes of Nos 3, 6 and 8 Groups to Kiel. 2 Lancasters lost. This raid was directed against the port area, with the U-boat yards as the main objective. Bomber Command rated this as 'a poor attack' with scattered bombing.
18 April 1945
969 aircraft - 617 Lancasters, 332 Halifaxes, 20 Mosquitos - of all groups attacked the naval base at Heligoland, the airfield and the town on this small island. The bombing was accurate and the target areas were turned almost into crater-pitted moonscapes. 3 Halifaxes were lost.
20 April 1945
100 Lancasters of No 3 Group bombed the fuel-storage depot at Regensburg accurately. 1 Lancaster lost. This was the last raid in the current campaign against German oil targets which had been waged since June 1944. Much of Bomber Command's effort during this period, sometimes at considerable loss, had been devoted to these oil operations, which had helped not only the Allied ground forces on the Western Front but also those fighting in Italy and on the Eastern Front.