page_title: Operation Hydra (1943)
section_title: First wave
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Hydra (1943) / Attack / First wave
caption_attribution_description: English: Extracts from the account of the raid on Peenemunde on the night of 17-18 August 1943 by Group Captain John Searby, the Master Bomber on the raid. (AIR 20/4040) Operation Hydra, the raid on Peenemünde. Targets shown are A: Experimental station B: Factory workshops C: Power plant D: Unidentified machinery E: Experimental establishments F: Sleeping and living quarters G: Airfield
context_page_description: Operation Hydra was an attack by RAF Bomber Command on a German scientific research centre at Peenemünde on the night of 17/18 August 1943. Group Captain John Searby, CO of 83 Squadron, commanded the operation, the first time that Bomber Command used a master bomber to direct the attack of the main force. Hydra began Operation Crossbow, a campaign against the German V-weapon programme. The British lost 215 aircrew, 40 bombers and killed several hundred enslaved workers in the nearby Trassenheide labour camp. The Luftwaffe lost twelve night-fighters and about 170 German civilians were killed, including two V-2 rocket scientists. Prototype V-2 rocket launches were delayed for about two months, testing and production was dispersed and the morale of the German survivors was severely affected.
context_section_description: Throughout the attack, the master bomber (Group Captain J. H. Searby, CO of No. 83 Squadron RAF) circled over the target to call in new pathfinder markers and to direct crews as to which markers to bomb. The 244 3 Group and 4 Group Stirlings and Halifaxes attacked the V-2 scientists. At 00:10 British time, the first red spot fire was started and at 00:11, sixteen blind illuminator marker aircraft commenced marking runs with white parachute flares and long-burning red target indicators (TIs). Patches of stratocumulus cloud caused uncertain visibility in the full moon and Rügen did not show as distinctly on H2S radar as expected, resulting in the red "datum lights" spot fires to be placed on the northern tip of Peenemünde Hook instead of burning as planned for ten minutes on the northern edge of Rügen.
  The 2 mi (3.2 km) error caused early yellow TIs to be dropped at the Trassenheide forced labour camp. Within three minutes, the master bomber noticed a yellow marker for the scientists' settlement "very well placed" and ordered more yellows as close as possible; four of six were accurate, as well as three backer-up green indicators. At 00:27, the first wave turned for home after encountering some flak, including a few heavy anti-aircraft guns on a ship 1 mi (1.6 km) offshore and guns on the western side of the peninsula. One third of the aircraft in the wave bombed Trassenheide and killed at least 500 enslaved workers before the accurate markers on the housing estate drew the bombing onto the target. About 75 per cent of the buildings were destroyed but only about 170 of the 4,000 people attacked were killed, because the soft ground muffled bomb explosions and air raid shelters in the estate had been well built. Dr Walter Thiel, the chief engineer of rocket motors and Dr Erich Walther, chief engineer of the rocket factory, were killed.
caption: Target 3/Air/389, Attack order with targets highlighted
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