Operation Carthage — the Copenhagen raid

Last updated 5 July 2026 · numbered references [n] point to the sources below

Of everything that happened at Fersfield, this is the story told with the most pride and the most sorrow — often in the same breath.

Why Copenhagen

By early 1945 the Danish resistance was close to collapse. The Gestapo had made its headquarters in the Shellhus — the Shell Company building in central Copenhagen — filling it with prisoners, interrogation rooms, and the card indexes that mapped the entire resistance network. Danish contacts pleaded with London for an air strike: destroy the records, and give the prisoners held in the building at least a chance [1][2].

The job went to the RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force and its de Havilland Mosquitos — the only aircraft that could realistically thread a bomb into one specific building in the middle of an occupied city. Published accounts name the three squadrons of No. 140 Wing — No. 21 Squadron RAF, No. 464 Squadron RAAF and No. 487 Squadron RNZAF — led on the day by Group Captain R. N. Bateson, with Mustang fighters as escort [2][3]. (We’re in the process of confirming the squadron details against RAF operational records — see the note at the end.)

They staged through Fersfield. On the morning of 21 March 1945 the force lifted off from the Norfolk airfield and crossed the North Sea at wave-top height [1][2].

The raid

The Mosquitos came into Copenhagen at rooftop level and bombed in waves. The Shellhus was hit and destroyed: Gestapo files burned, and prisoners — including resistance leaders awaiting interrogation — escaped from the wreckage of the upper floors [1][2].

The tragedy

One aircraft in the first wave clipped a lamp post on the run-in and crashed near the Institut Jeanne d’Arc, a Catholic school in Frederiksberg, about a mile and a half from the target. The fire from the crash was mistaken by some following crews for the marked target, and bombs fell on the school [2][3].

Danish accounts record that more than a hundred people died at the school and in the surrounding streets — most of them children [2][3].

In Denmark the raid is remembered in both registers at once: it broke the Gestapo’s grip in the city and saved the resistance — and it caused one of the worst civilian tragedies in wartime Denmark. Memorials in Copenhagen mark both. Any telling that keeps only the triumph, or only the tragedy, is not the whole story — and this page will always carry both.

The RAF paid too: aircraft and crews were lost on the raid, recorded in published accounts as four Mosquitos and two escort Mustangs, with nine airmen killed [2].

A note on our sourcing

The core facts — the Shellhus as Gestapo headquarters, its destruction on 21 March 1945 by Second Tactical Air Force Mosquitos, the staging from Fersfield — are solidly established [1][2]. Details such as the exact squadron roster, escort numbers and casualty breakdowns rest on secondary accounts [2][3]; we’re verifying them against RAF operational record books and Danish institutional sources (including the Museum of Danish Resistance), and will refine this page as that work completes.