Hamburg New Blow
Title
Hamburg New Blow
Description
A newspaper article about another attack on Hamburg. It is annotated 'No 6 2/3 8/43'.
Temporal Coverage
Language
Type
Format
Two newspaper cuttings
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
SWilliamsonF1311249v10003-0010
Transcription
200-hour blaze
It is in the interests of the enemy to howl that their chief port has become a dead city, which is no longer worth attacking. This explains the Nazi-inspired stories of more than 30,000 casualties before Monday night's attack.
But there is little doubt about the fact that Hamburg has been burning or smouldering for more than 200 hours, for when our crews reached their target in their fourth big raid they testified to seeing fires still burning before they had dropped their loads of high-explosives and incendiaries.
These fires had been observed to be flourishing also on Sunday, 60 hours after the third heavy night assault. The great clouds of smoke had blown away, and it was at last possible for the photographic interpretation departments to make a detailed assessment of the damage.
It will be a long time before this is finished and a full count made of all the industrial damage. But it is already known that many important factories, in addition to those previously announced, have been hit and severely damaged.
A violent thunderstorm was going on in the upper air while our bombers were attacking Hamburg on Monday night.
Pilots said it was impossible to tell which was flak and which was lightning. Blue electric flames played round the gun barrels and the propeller tips of
[symbol] BACK PAGE, COL. SEVEN
HAMBURG NEW BLOW
[inserted] No 6 2/3 8/43
[symbol] FROM PAGE ONE
many of the machines. Over the target city there were gaps in the clouds and it was through these that our men saw the fires. Some went below the clouds to less than 10,000 feet to bomb. A Lancaster captain, who went very low, clearly identified the docks of Hamburg and reports fires spreading in the area. Great quantities of bombs were dropped on these fires.
Flak and searchlights were hampered by the weather. But the night fighters drove through the storm to intercept. One Halifax, attacked four times by a Messerschmitt 109, and twice by a Junkers 88, outmanoeuvred both fighters and came through to make a happy landing.
Despite the foul weather the crews on their return were satisfied that they had delivered another tremendous blow in this great experimental battle.
In their attack on July 29-30 their bombs were directed on the north-east and south-east areas of the German city. Previously they had caused great damage to the central and dock quarters, particularly in the Grasbrook, Billwader, Ausschlag, and St Georg districts.
A FULL PATTERN
So it is clear that each visit by the R.A.F. is directed at knocking out great sections, making a full pattern that will have no industrial part immune from devastation.
There may be still big areas to be dealt with, for the waterways in the town occupy some 10,000 acres, and there are 22 miles of quays for sea-going ships, and 110 miles of docks and landing stages.
The dock area is a labyrinth of oil refineries, flour mills, oil-seed crushing mills, margarine factories, and warehouses, in addition to the submarine building plants, where a third of all the U-boats were constructed.
It is eloquent of the strength of Bomber Command that while the Hamburg battle is being fought in these great night actions, a great force of planes could be spared for a raid on Remscheid, a town less than a tenth of the size of the major target.
Photographs of the damage caused by the Remscheid attack on Friday night last make a picture of great devastation.
A high proportion of the damage is among the industrial plants in this important steel and engineering centre on the outskirts of the Ruhr. The main railway station and the main post office have also been hit.
But the world's eyes are on Hamburg, where, stated the Air Ministry last night, a battle is being fought greater even in intensity and ferocity than the battle of the Ruhr.
It is in the interests of the enemy to howl that their chief port has become a dead city, which is no longer worth attacking. This explains the Nazi-inspired stories of more than 30,000 casualties before Monday night's attack.
But there is little doubt about the fact that Hamburg has been burning or smouldering for more than 200 hours, for when our crews reached their target in their fourth big raid they testified to seeing fires still burning before they had dropped their loads of high-explosives and incendiaries.
These fires had been observed to be flourishing also on Sunday, 60 hours after the third heavy night assault. The great clouds of smoke had blown away, and it was at last possible for the photographic interpretation departments to make a detailed assessment of the damage.
It will be a long time before this is finished and a full count made of all the industrial damage. But it is already known that many important factories, in addition to those previously announced, have been hit and severely damaged.
A violent thunderstorm was going on in the upper air while our bombers were attacking Hamburg on Monday night.
Pilots said it was impossible to tell which was flak and which was lightning. Blue electric flames played round the gun barrels and the propeller tips of
[symbol] BACK PAGE, COL. SEVEN
HAMBURG NEW BLOW
[inserted] No 6 2/3 8/43
[symbol] FROM PAGE ONE
many of the machines. Over the target city there were gaps in the clouds and it was through these that our men saw the fires. Some went below the clouds to less than 10,000 feet to bomb. A Lancaster captain, who went very low, clearly identified the docks of Hamburg and reports fires spreading in the area. Great quantities of bombs were dropped on these fires.
Flak and searchlights were hampered by the weather. But the night fighters drove through the storm to intercept. One Halifax, attacked four times by a Messerschmitt 109, and twice by a Junkers 88, outmanoeuvred both fighters and came through to make a happy landing.
Despite the foul weather the crews on their return were satisfied that they had delivered another tremendous blow in this great experimental battle.
In their attack on July 29-30 their bombs were directed on the north-east and south-east areas of the German city. Previously they had caused great damage to the central and dock quarters, particularly in the Grasbrook, Billwader, Ausschlag, and St Georg districts.
A FULL PATTERN
So it is clear that each visit by the R.A.F. is directed at knocking out great sections, making a full pattern that will have no industrial part immune from devastation.
There may be still big areas to be dealt with, for the waterways in the town occupy some 10,000 acres, and there are 22 miles of quays for sea-going ships, and 110 miles of docks and landing stages.
The dock area is a labyrinth of oil refineries, flour mills, oil-seed crushing mills, margarine factories, and warehouses, in addition to the submarine building plants, where a third of all the U-boats were constructed.
It is eloquent of the strength of Bomber Command that while the Hamburg battle is being fought in these great night actions, a great force of planes could be spared for a raid on Remscheid, a town less than a tenth of the size of the major target.
Photographs of the damage caused by the Remscheid attack on Friday night last make a picture of great devastation.
A high proportion of the damage is among the industrial plants in this important steel and engineering centre on the outskirts of the Ruhr. The main railway station and the main post office have also been hit.
But the world's eyes are on Hamburg, where, stated the Air Ministry last night, a battle is being fought greater even in intensity and ferocity than the battle of the Ruhr.
Collection
Citation
“Hamburg New Blow,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 16, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/38138.
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