RAF Bombs Cologne’s Gereon Freight Yard

As the Allied strategic bombing campaign intensified in late 1944, the British Royal Air Force increasingly targeted Germany’s rail infrastructure to choke off fuel, troop movements, and industrial output. On the night of December 29, 1944, RAF Bomber Command launched a major raid on Cologne. One of the primary targets was the Gereon freight yard, a critical node in the Deutsche Reichsbahn network linking the Ruhr industrial region to western front supply routes. The bombing caused extensive track destruction, warehouse fires, and derailments of standing freight cars. Signal boxes were destroyed, severely limiting the yard’s operational capacity for weeks. This degradation of the rail network contributed to the growing logistical paralysis faced by the German military in the final months of the war. The raid remains a significant example of the increasing focus on rail hubs as strategic wartime targets.