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  1. Martin Antonenko A Fixture

    Country:
    Germany
    Operation Gomorrah - Coldly Planned Mass Murder ...!



    In the evening hours of July 24, 1943, a total of 791 bombers of the new "Lancaster" type of the Royal Air Force took off from their bases in the south of England ...:

    [IMG]

    One hour before midnight, the bomber fleet reaches the northern German metropolis of Hamburg ...

    [IMG]

    ... and releases its deadly cargo, a total of 2,300 tons of bombs ...:

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    Great Britain worked for a long time until the ideal recipe was found to burn down a large German city from the air:

    First normal high-explosive bombs are dropped ...:

    [IMG]

    They destroy the streets and the water pipes that run under the streets; the fire brigade cannot get to the fires - and if they manage to do it, they have no water!

    Next up is a mix of heavy air mines ...

    [IMG]

    ... and dropped thousands of light phosphorus bombs...:

    [IMG]

    The heavy air mines (the Germans call them "Wohnblock-Knacker") fall faster than the phosphor bombs and detonate at about 30 meters height ...:

    [IMG]

    The air pressure of the huge detonations covers the roofs of the houses - and turns every building into a chimney!

    The last thing to arrive are the small and light stick incendiary bombs, which are filled with phosphorus.

    [IMG]

    In the now open attics and the junk usually stored there, they find the ideal "tinder" to set the city on fire.

    And: phosphorus ...

    [IMG]

    ... cannot be extinguished with water, only with sand. And who has sand in the attic ...?

    The countless individual fires set in this way then combine to form a coherent large fire, the notorious "firestorm" arises, in which the flames race along the streets with the force of an Oscar - and destroy the air there with one blow!

    [IMG]

    People suffocate in a firestorm and are already dead before they burn in the fire!

    [IMG]

    In Hamburg, on July 24, 1943, the RAF bombers succeeded in kindling a firestorm for the first time!

    Although the destination, the St. Nikolai Church in the city center ...

    [IMG]

    ... is missed and the bombs drop over a relatively wide area of the Hanseatic city, the damage in the city center and the districts of Hoheluft, Eimsbüttel and Altona is great - extensive fires occur! Some northwestern suburbs are also hit.

    When the bombers turn away, 1,500 hamburgers are left dead!

    Twelve "Lancasters" are shot down by German night fighters ...:

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    The air defense over Hamburg itself is practically blind, because the British, together with their bombs, drop thousands of tinfoil strips, so-called "Düppel" by the Germans ...::

    [IMG]

    The British have found out that these tinfoil strips blinds the German anti-aircraft control radar of the "Würzburg" type and thus makes it ineffective ...:

    [IMG]

    This is the first attack of the - revealingly - so-called "Operation Gomorrah", which aims to destroy the city of Hamburg.

    The Chief of British Bomber Command, Air Marshal Arthur Harris ...

    [IMG]

    ... had previously made no secret of the fact that the city center and the densely populated residential areas are the target of his air force!

    This is intended to break the morale of the German population - Harris therefore quite openly calls the attacks "moral bombing"!

    The RAF will come back to Hamburg three more times until August 4th ...


    **continued next post**
  2. Martin Antonenko A Fixture

    Country:
    Germany
    Part II



    In addition, the 110 B-17s of the 91st, 351st, 381st bomb groups of the 8th USAAF (United States Army Air Force, an air force as a separate armed force did not exist in the USA at the time!) Are flying as part of "Operation Gomorrah" on July 25th and July 26th three day attacks on Hamburg ...:

    [IMG]

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    In contrast to Arthur Harris, the Americans emphasize that - unlike the British - they limit themselves exclusively to "military goals".

    Well - the port of Hamburg is such a military target, and everything that doesn't hit the port hits civilian residential areas.

    So the end result is the same - it just sounds better ...!

    When the attacks of Operation Gomorrah ended on August 3, 1943, they went down in history as the - until then - heaviest air raids of all time.

    107,000 explosive bombs, 300,000 phosphorus incendiary bombs and three million stick incendiary bombs were dropped on Hamburg, 277,330 apartments as well as 580 industrial plants, 2,632 commercial operations, 80 Wehrmacht plants, 24 hospitals, 277 schools and 58 churches were destroyed.
    Commercial and port vehicles with 180,000 GRT were sunk in the port.

    [IMG]

    Hamburg as an organized and habitable community no longer exists!

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

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    34,000 people are dead, 125,000 injured ...

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    Prisoners from the nearby Neuengamme concentration camp are also used to recover the corpses, which, with all the sympathy for the innocent bomb victims, reminds us of which regime the attacks were directed against - even if they clearly represent a war crime and a coldly planned mass murder ...:

    [IMG]

    And much of the deadly cargo dropped in 1943 is still undiscovered in the ground: between 1947 and 2013, more than 11,000 duds were found and defused in Hamburg alone ...

    Everyone who wants to build in Hamburg is legally obliged to have their property searched for duds by specialist companies before construction (at their own expense!) - if something is found and the ordnance clearance service has to move in, the public purse pays ...:

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

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    It is no different at my hometown Bremen!

    The Nikolai church at Hamburg, which was destroyed during the Gomorrah attacks, was not rebuilt and is now a memorial ...:

    [IMG]

    However, I find this simple memorial on the edge of the city center far more moving ...:

    [IMG]
  3. sd0324 PlanetFigure Supporter

    War is Hell.
    Martin Rohmann likes this.
  4. Chrisr PlanetFigure Supporter

    Country:
    Australia
    I have never thought the bombing of civilians was a justifiable act in war. It was simply murder. The idea that it would break the morale of the enemy is a bankrupt strategy, as shown time and again.
    Tutilo17 and Martin Rohmann like this.
  5. Dr Bison Well-Known Member

    Country:
    Germany
    And here's the statue commemorating the man himself:

    london-england-sir-arthur-bomber-harris-statue-aussen-st-clement-danes-raf-kirche-a7x3kd.jpg
  6. Airkid A Fixture

    Country:
    England
    Good post Martin, and again very thought provoking. Strategic bombing inevitably involves collateral casualties, but in the case of Hamburg and many other large German cities there was a deliberate policy of mass destruction. The Allies believed in the strategic bombing theory propounded by Giulio Douhet back in the 1920s. He said " in fact the choice of targets, their grouping into areas and the order in which these areas are to be destroyed constitutes the most delicate and difficult part of air warfare, and may be defined as Air Strategy" It took the
    Americans until "Rolling Thunder" and "Linebacker 1 & 2" against North Vietnam to realise that this strategy was flawed.
    I have seen both the Hamburg memorials you mention. Humbling.

    Phil
  7. Martin64 A Fixture

    Country:
    Germany
    While Arthur Harris without doubt was convinced of the idea behind moral bombing I don`t think that he is the man to blame for it. He acted on orders of Winston Churchill.
    Winston_Churchill_statue,_Parliament_Square,_London.JPG
  8. Plastic Max Active Member

    Country:
    England
    The RAF were using tactics already pioneered by the Luftwaffe... if the finger of blame is being pointed... step up Hermann Göring... step up Adolf Hitler.

    "The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940... reached such a new and severe level of destruction that Joseph Goebbels later used the term coventriert ("coventried") when describing similar levels of destruction of other enemy towns." from the article here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz

    No doubt had the Luftwaffe included four-engined heavy bombers (such as the Lancaster and B-17) in their airforce, damage to cities across Britain, Europe, Russia would have been far greater...

    Translating the inscription on the memorial in Hamburg... "On the night of 29/30 July 1943, 370 people perished in a bomb attack in an air raid shelter on Hamburger Strasse - these dead warn never again fascism, never again war".

    Attached Files:

    Martin Rohmann, housecarl and sd0324 like this.
  9. Henk A Fixture

    Country:
    United-Kingdom
    The inhabitants of Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, London, and a few more, sent their heartfelt sympathies.
    sd0324 likes this.
  10. Bournouna Active Member

    Country:
    United-States
    "The inhabitants of Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, London, and a few more, sent their heartfelt sympathies."

    Guess, Martin thought that the Germans dropped cream pies on those cities.
    sd0324 likes this.
  11. Old Pete Active Member

    Country:
    Scotland
    And Clydebank
    sd0324 likes this.
  12. Nap Moderator

    Country:
    England
    Certainly a very thought provoking thread , showing one of the many horrors of war that happens on both sides

    What's incredible imo is the strength of those affected

    Nap

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