Dresden, Germany · February 13, 1945 On this night in 1945, Shrove (or Fat) Tuesday, and over the next day, Ash Wednesday, some 1,300 British and American bombers appeared over largely untouched Dresden in Eastern Germany. A city of 642,000 (1939) swelled by 300,000 refugees fleeing from fighting on the Eastern Front, Dresden was the…
London, England · January 12, 1940 On this date in 1940 the German Luftwaffe conducted its first bombing raid on London, the British capital, 4 months after assaulting the Polish capital, Warsaw, at the start of World War II in Europe. Five months later, on May 10, the Royal Air Force retaliated with its first strategic bombing raid…
London, England · November 18, 1943 On this date in 1943 the Royal Air Force Bomber Command under Arthur “Bomber” Harris launched the airborne Battle of Berlin, which lasted through March 1944. Harris believed the aerial assault on Berlin—if it came anywhere close to Hamburg’s terrifying destruction the previous July (Operation Gomorrah)—could be the blow…
SHAEF HQ, Versailles, France · September 30, 1944 On this date in 1944 staff at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) estimated that since the start of the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944, one million German soldiers had been killed, captured, or taken prisoner by Allied armed forces. By…
Hamburg, Germany · July 24, 1943 On this date in 1943 over the North German city of Hamburg, the Royal Air Force kicked off Operation Gomorrah (July 24 to August 3, 1943). British retaliation for the Luftwaffe’s firebombing of the medieval city of Coventry in the English Midlands, where 500 tons of explosives and 56 tons of incendiaries over…
Tokyo, Japan · March 9, 1945 Apart from Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s April 1942 raid on the Japanese capital, Tokyo, early air raids on Japan focused on military and industrial targets with disappointing results. So U.S. Army Air Forces Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, a veteran of the horrific air campaign over Nazi Germany, filled each…
Dresden, Germany · February 13, 1945 On this night in 1945, Shrove (or Fat) Tuesday, and over the next day, Ash Wednesday, some 1,300 British and American bombers appeared over largely untouched Dresden in eastern Germany. A city of 642,000 (1939) swelled by 300,000 refugees fleeing from fighting on the Eastern Front, Dresden was the ancient capital…
London, England · January 12, 1940 On this date in 1940 the German Luftwaffe conducted its first bombing raid on London, the British capital, four months after assaulting the Polish capital, Warsaw, at the start of World War II in Europe. Five months later, on May 10, the Royal Air Force retaliated with its first strategic bombing…