Events

Battlefields Trust Online Talk: Op Gisella - The Last Battle over England

Thursday 12th September 2024

The battle of Culloden is regarded by most historians as the last pitched battle on British soil, but the story of the last battle in the skies over Britain during the last weeks of World War II, an operation named Gisela by the Germans – is now almost forgotten.

Conceived as a plan to attack the RAF bombers at their point of landing following their night raids over Germany, ‘Gisela’ was mocked in the British press as a last gasp of a dying regime. Although the raid achieved some success as an operation its effects were negligible and it was soon overshadowed by the actions of the planned British crossings of the Rhine, the Americans capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen and Nazi Germany’s collapse in general.

In this talk Mike Mannix will look at the background to the operation, the German plans and the raid itself. He will also look at the casualties from both sides and the effect and losses caused to civilians in Germany’s last raid over the British Isles during WWII.

Mike Mannix has been a member of the Battlefields Trust for many years and is a former editor of ‘Battlefield’.

He graduated in Prehistory & Archaeology from Sheffield University in 1977. In the early 1980s he edited a weekly newspaper aimed at personnel and civilians of the British Army of the Rhine. Later spending time as a freelance journalist in Middlesbrough, before going on to a career in media education.

Michael’s interest in Bomber Command goes back to childhood, but his interest in ‘Operation Gisela’ began fairly recently while researching military aspects of his home in North Yorkshire. Now retired, he is currently researching into the origins of Shakespeare’s Sir Toby Belch.

 
 

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The Battlefields Resource Centre