old, not bold
Does anyone else have any record of that Brunsbuttel raid on 4th September? There was another on the same day on Wilhemshaven, with Blenheims and Wellingtons, with many losses to fighters and flak. They were the RAF's first losses in the war.
There's a bit here:
HyperWar: Royal Air Force 1939–1945: Volume I: The Fight at Odds [Chapter II]
While Doran was attacking near Wilhelmshaven, fourteen Wellingtons of Nos. 9 and 149 Squadrons were making their way towards Brunsbüttel. Here McPherson had reported two battleships. But bad weather and fierce anti-aircraft fire shielded the targets, and only one crew claimed a possible hit. Two of the Wellingtons which penetrated the harbour failed to return.
These operations of 4th September, which cost seven of the twenty-nine aircraft taking part, may be regarded as characteristic of our first attempts to damage the enemy from the air. The over-optimistic view of what might be achieved: the care taken to avoid harming the German civil population: the large proportion of aircraft failing to locate the objective: the ineffective bombs and inconsiderable results: the expectation that crews would be skilful enough to find and bomb in atrocious weather a precise and hotly defended target on the other side of the North Sea: and the unflinching courage with which the attacks were pressed home—all these were typical, not merely of September 1939, but of many months to come.