The Bombing of Nuremburg

[NVSMITH]

-I'm sure that this book has been listed before but I think it bears mentioning again: The Bombing of Nuremburg by James Campbell covers the 30-31 March 1944 raid by some 795 RAF Lancasters on a target of dubious military significance.
-Of the 795 sent 94 (12%) were lost during the raid and another 71 (9%) were damaged. Of that 71, 17 were written off, for a total loss of 14%.
-What was particularly interesting to me was the odd staff machinations that went into every aspect of the raid. The fact that no to little coverage of the raid in WW2 histories implies a desire by senior personnel, including PM Churchill, to sweep the raid under the rug.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Having never really read about this raid, I did a search. Apparently 214 of the bombers were Hallys and not Lancs, according to this page.

The city had some industry, and obviously symbolic status as well, but I don't know enough to say whether the raid was worth losing 100+ bombers. From this American's perspective it looks a bit like a British version of Schweinfurt.

 

[pbehn]

-I'm sure that this book has been listed before but I think it bears mentioning again: The Bombing of Nuremburg by James Campbell covers the 30-31 March 1944 raid by some 795 RAF Lancasters on a target of dubious military significance.
-Of the 795 sent 94 (12%) were lost during the raid and another 71 (9%) were damaged. Of that 71, 17 were written off, for a total loss of 14%.
-What was particularly interesting to me was the odd staff machinations that went into every aspect of the raid. The fact that no to little coverage of the raid in WW2 histories implies a desire by senior personnel, including PM Churchill, to sweep the raid under the rug.

There are at least two other books on this raid, and I have two more books which mention it in some detail. Several web sites also mention it, one refers to it as the last raid in the Battle of Berlin. The last Hurrah of Harris before RAF bomber command had to apply itself to D-Day preparations. As I understand it the raid was poorly planned and poorly executed, also cursed with the planes vapour trails being visible down to low altitude. Apart from implying which everyone seems to do with Churchill today, does this book give any actual evidence that Churchill tried to sweep anything under a rug? AFAK it has always been clearly there in the history of Bomber Command.

 

[pbehn]

There was a commemorative 1st day cover of the 50th anniversary.

 

[JDCAVE]

Martin Middlebrook's book on this raid is outstanding. As it was published in 1973, he sourced accounts from Bomber Command veterans. I don't know the other book.

Jim

 

[mikemike]

The city had some industry, and obviously symbolic status as well, but I don't know enough to say whether the raid was worth losing 100+ bombers. From this American's perspective it looks a bit like a British version of Schweinfurt.

I own the Middlebrook book, and he has a copy of the target map in it. There was a lot of important industry in Nürnberg, including MAN, who built most of the diesels for U-Boats. But the aim point was smack on the densely-populated and highly flammable medieval city core, with "bomb creep" (a tendency of bomber crews to drop their load early, leading to the impacts moving increasingly back against the course of the bomber stream the longer the raid lasted) expected to put paid to all of the city center. The first factories were a mile beyond the aim point on the bomber stream course; it would have been easy to relocate the aim point, but at that point of the war, Bomber Command had no interest whatsoever in bombing industrial targets. The Krupp factory in Essen was hit by Bomber Command only because it was in the middle of the city (you might say the city grew around it).