W7707
Crashes > of the R.A.F.
During the approach to the 1000-bomber raid on Cologne on the night of 31 May 1942, Halifax II, W7707 was shot at by the German fighter pilot Lt. Franz Brinkhaus in his Bf 110E. He attacked the aircraft from the port side, firing from a distance of 70 to 30 metres and hitting the fuselage. The bomb exploded inside the Halifax and tore it into thousands of small pieces in an enormous fireball.
The wreckage of the aircraft was scattered over a radius of up to three kilometres between Niederaussem and Rheidt. None of the entire crew was found; they are still missing today and were later declared dead. All of them received a memorial plaque on the Runnymede Memorial.
