The Battle of the Barges. Germany was preparing to invade south-east England and the French, Belgian and Dutch Channel ports were crowded with invasion barges. Bomber Command mounted low-level attacks and destroyed significant numbers as well as much other materiel.

The Augsburg Raid. The introduction of the Lancaster led some, notably 5 Gp, to believe that it could defend itself in a deep penetration daylight operation. 44 Sqn and 97 Sqn were selected to attacked the MAN Diesel works at Augsburg, Bavaria in a rare 2 x 6-ship, tree-top height, daylight attack. Bad luck and inattention to timing caused the loss of 7 out of the 12 aircraft, with unspectacular results. The operational commander, Wing Commander John Nettleton, received the VC for this attack.

Operation ROBINSON was the code name for the low-level dusk attack by 86 unescorted bombers on the Schneider Armaments and locomotive Works at Le Creusot, France. 5 Group trained for weeks in low-flying formations and the attack was a success with very low losses. Aircraft from 49 Sqn and 50 Sqn were involved.

Operation MILLENIUM. The first 1,000 aircraft raid against Cologne on the night of and was a great success. There were two more such, but neither was successful, mainly on account of the weather. 5 Group contributed 162 aircraft and 286 tons of bombs to this first raid.

The Dams Raid. Famous raid by 617 (Dambusters) Squadron on the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe Dams

The final bomber raid including the Wellington, to Hanover.

The Battle of the Ruhr. The centre of gravity for the German armaments indutry was the crucial Ruhr Valley, a heavily defended area attacked repeatedly. Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Cologne, Bochum, Dusseldorf, Munchen-Gladbach were attacked time and time again. Serious damage was done to war production, factories destroyed, communications disrupted, and workers killed. Losses were just within tolerance limits.

The Nuremburg Raid. On the night of Mar 30 1944, 795 Royal Air Force Bomber Command aircraft operated against Nuremburg and suffered 96 losses, with 8 more aircraft written off afterwards. Badly forecast winds and a straight-in attack path, coupled with a lack of predicted cloud cover and a full, bright moon, gave the defences what amounted to a turkey shoot. The strong winds rapidly fragmented the planned concentration of aircraft which was to swap enemy air defences. 155 other aircraft operated against other targets with only one loss. 101 Sqn was the lead contributing sqn and also suffered the most losses.

The Battle of Berlin. During autumn and winter 1944/45 3/4 of bomber operations were against Berlin. The generally accepted result of this battle is a draw between RAF and the defenders, both sides recording serious losses.