London, England • July 8, 1941 On this date in 1941, 5 months before the United States was drawn into World War II, the Boeing B‑17 Flying Fortress was flown in combat for the first time, this by the Royal Air Force in an attack on the North German port of Wilhelmshaven. The first production model, the…
London, England • June 10, 1943 On this date in 1943 U.S. and British air forces unleashed their Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) against industrial targets valuable to Nazi Germany’s war machine, particularly to the Luftwaffe. The CBO had several antecedents. In late 1942 both the British and the Americans had identified “bottleneck” German industries (Great…
London, England • May 10/11, 1941 Although it would not be known for over a month, the Luftwaffe raid on London on this night, May 10/11, 1941, brought closure to Nazi Germany’s 15‑month strategic bombing campaign of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The British public dubbed the aerial campaign the Blitz (September 7, 1940, to May 10, 1941),…
London, England • February 27, 1942 Under the cover of darkness on this date in 1942, 119 British paratroopers kicked off Operation Biting when they parachuted into Nazi-occupied Normandy close to a German radar station in the parish (commune) of La Poterie-Cap-d’Antifer, 12 miles/19 km north of the large French harbor of Le Havre. A number of what…