British bombings. Air bombardment of germany air force of england and usa

On the night of August 25, 1940, ten German planes strayed off course by mistake dropped bombs on the outskirts of London. The British responded promptly. The first air raid on Berlin took place on the night of August 25-26, 1940. 22 tons of bombs were dropped on the city. Until September 7, there were only seven raids on the German capital. Each of those night raids was reflected in the official reports of the Wehrmacht High Command. German medium bomber Yu-88.

August 26, 1940: “Enemy aircraft first appeared over Berlin last night. Bombs were dropped on the suburbs." August 29, 1940: “Last night, British aircraft systematically attacked the residential areas of the Reich capital ... High-explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped. Many civilians were killed. There were cases of fires, material damage was caused. August 31, 1940: “During the night, British aircraft continued their attacks on Berlin and other targets in Reich territory. Several bombs fell in the city center and in working-class neighborhoods." September 1, 1940: “Last night British aircraft attacked the Ruhr area and Berlin. Bombs were dropped. The damage caused is not significant, none of the military installations were damaged.” September 2, 1940: "Last night, enemy planes again attempted to attack Berlin." September 5, 1940: “Last night, British planes again invaded Reich territory. An attempt to attack the capital of the Reich was repulsed by dense fire from anti-aircraft artillery. The enemy managed to drop bombs on the city in only two areas. September 7, 1940: “Last night, enemy planes again attacked the capital of the Reich. Massive bombing of non-military targets in the city center was carried out, which led to civilian casualties and property damage. Luftwaffe aircraft also began raids on London in large numbers. East London docks were attacked last night with explosive and incendiary bombs. Fires started. The fire was observed in the docks, as well as in the area of ​​​​the oil storage in Thameshaven. After that, the bomb war against the capitals of the opposing sides began to gain momentum. Now she was on her own. "Blitz" on London was declared an act of retaliation for the raids on Berlin. It began on the night of September 6-7, 1940, that is, five months after the start of an unrestricted bomb war and two weeks after the first bombs were dropped on Berlin. The raids continued uninterrupted until November 13, 1940, with between 100 and 150 medium bombers. The largest bombardment of London took place on September 7, when more than 300 bombers attacked in the evening and another 250 at night. By the morning of September 8, 430 Londoners had been killed, and the Luftwaffe issued a press release stating that over a thousand tons of bombs had been dropped on London within 24 hours.
The intact dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, with smoke and fire from the surrounding buildings, during the bombing of London by German aircraft on December 29, 1940. (AP Photo / U.S. Office of War Information). This photo is sometimes called a symbol of London's resistance - London survived.

In fact, both sides were not ready for strategic bombing. When the war began in 1939, the RAF had only 488 bombers of all types, mostly obsolete, of which only about 60 were new Vickers: most of the rest did not have sufficient range to strike even on the Ruhr (let alone Berlin), had insignificant armament, and could not carry a significant bomb load. There were no effective sights for bombing, very few bombs that could cause significant damage to the enemy, and even such obvious things as maps of Europe to determine the course to the target and back were in great short supply. Moreover, the difficulty of targeting bombers, at night, at long ranges to accurately attack small targets, was greatly underestimated.

The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine bomber, used extensively in the first two years of the war.

Germany by that time had abandoned plans for the production of strategic bombers. Given that German technical resources were already largely committed to other needs, the doctrine of the Luftwaffe was to actively support the army, and taking into account the practical experience of Spain, the German command concentrated on the use of tactical bombers as aerial artillery in support of army operations, and fighters as a means of protecting bombers from enemy fighters. Before the start of strategic bombing, no one thought about creating a long-range fighter that could provide cover for bombers in their raids deep into enemy territory.

German bomber Heinkel He 111 over the docks of London.

According to British data, the first raid on Berlin was carried out by 3 high-speed bombers in the daytime. However, there is no official report on the results of the raid. According to rumors, his goal was to mock Goering, who at that time was supposed to make an appeal to a mass audience. In connection with the raid, Goering's speech was delayed by one hour. Until the end of 1940, another 27 night raids on Berlin were carried out. The largest of them took place in September, when 656 British bombers headed for Berlin, although, of course, not all of them reached the target. After that, there is a trend towards a decrease in the number of bombers involved in such raids. In December, only 289 vehicles took part in the attacks on Berlin, then there was a pause in the British air raids. Air raids on the German capital were mainly carried out by Wellington and Hampden aircraft, the maximum range of which only allowed them to fly to Berlin and back. With a strong headwind, the planes could not reach the target, and they had to lie down on the opposite course. If the pilots were wrong in the calculations, they were sometimes forced to land the cars in the sea. Since at that time there was still no reliable aiming device for bombers that would allow them to confidently hit an individual target in the dark, the number of hits compared to misses was negligible. The main targets of the British aircraft were the building of the Imperial Ministry of Aviation, as well as railway stations. Despite the best efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots, the results of the raids were meager. In September 1940, 7,320 tons of bombs were dropped on South England, including 6,224 tons on London. At the same time, only 390 tons of bombs fell on German territory, including Berlin. The so-called retaliation raid on Berlin on the night of September 23-24, 1940, carried out by 199 bombers, proved to be more effective than usual, although as a result of bad weather conditions, only 84 aircraft reached the target. Since that time, the inhabitants of Berlin began to feel a constant threat over themselves. Due to the fact that at that time there were a large number of diplomatic visits to the capital of Germany, the raids were carried out mainly at night. From the memoirs of Spanish Foreign Minister Serano Sunyer, we know that during his visit to Berlin he had to spend almost every night in the basement of the Adlon Hotel. It seems that this unpleasant circumstance greatly influenced the subsequent political decisions. Sunyer writes: “Civil defense in the rear was established as clearly as air defense at the front. Thanks to this, the German people hardly realized how terrible the war was. The organization clearly allowed to prevent the threat. The bomb war in those days was carried out almost without casualties, but from such a milder form it was more difficult for the civilian population to survive in subsequent events.

Meeting Molotov at the train station in Berlin, November 1940

The German foreign minister was also quite annoyed that he had to conduct important political negotiations with his foreign counterpart in an environment where the conversation was interrupted by deafening bomb explosions. Irritation also grew because he had just recently confidently proclaimed that the war was already almost won. During Molotov's negotiations in Berlin, he did not fail to put a hairpin on his German colleague about the British bombings that took place during official conversations. Official records for the period from September 1, 1939 to September 30, 1940 give this picture of the casualties and destruction inflicted on Berlin: 515 dead and about twice as many injured, 1,617 completely destroyed and 11,477 seriously damaged buildings. According to the British Bomber Command winter directive issued in late October 1940, Berlin was fifth on the list of top targets for the RAF, just behind fuel plants, shipyards, transport network facilities and mine laying. It also said that when carrying out attacks on cities, one should look for targets as close as possible to residential areas in order to inflict maximum damage on the enemy. material damage and at the same time demonstrating to the enemy the power of the Royal Air Force. In January 1941, only 195 aircraft took part in the raids on Berlin, and after that the bombing of the two enemy capitals ceased for a while. In January-February 1941, the weather was very bad for flying. In March, activity increased and ports and harbors were now the main target. Then came the last and most difficult stage of the night bombings. In April and May, Coventry was again raided, then Portsmouth and Liverpool. And the peace of London was also disturbed. Then the last terrible chord of the gloomy symphony sounded: on May 10, the anniversary of the German offensive in the West, London was subjected to a powerful raid. 2,000 fires broke out and 150 water mains were destroyed. Five docks were badly damaged and 3,000 people died or were injured. During this raid, the House of Commons (the lower house of the British Parliament) was hit and badly damaged.
London street destroyed by bombing.

In fact, it was the end, then it became quiet in London and the sirens no longer tore the nights with their cries. However, it was an ominous silence, and many in England feared that it indicated some new diabolical plot. They were right, but this time it was not directed against England. During the year of the air war, Great Britain lost 43 thousand people killed and 50 thousand seriously wounded during the bombing. But after that, the tasks of the Royal Air Force changed radically - from defense, British aviation moved on to attack. Only two Luftwaffe fighter squadrons remained on the banks of the English Channel, most of the fighters and bombers were concentrated in the East. The raids on Berlin in the second half of 1941 became more frequent.

From August 8 to early September, the bombing of Berlin was carried out Soviet aviation long range. On July 27, 1941, Stalin's personal order was given to the 1st mine-torpedo aviation regiment of the 8th air brigade of the Baltic Fleet Air Force under the command of Colonel E. N. Preobrazhensky: to bomb Berlin and its military-industrial facilities. The command of the operation was entrusted to Zhavoronkov S. F., Kuznetsov N. G. was appointed responsible for the outcome.
To strike, it was planned to use long-range bombers DB-3, DB-ZF (Il-4), as well as the new TB-7 and Er-2 of the Air Force and the Air Force of the Navy, which, taking into account the maximum range, could reach Berlin and return back. Taking into account the flight range (about 900 km in one direction, 1765 km in both directions, of which 1400 km over the sea) and the enemy’s powerful air defense, the success of the operation was possible only if several conditions were met: the flight had to be carried out at high altitude, to return back along direct course and have only one 500 kg bomb or two 250 kg bombs on board. On August 2, a sea caravan left Kronstadt under high secrecy and under heavy guard, consisting of minesweepers and self-propelled barges with a supply of bombs and aviation fuel, steel plates to extend the runway, two tractors, a bulldozer, an asphalt compactor, a galley and bunks for flight and technical staff special strike group. Having passed through the mined Gulf of Finland and entering Tallinn, already besieged by the Germans, on the morning of August 3, the caravan approached the berths of Ezel Island and unloaded the cargo.

Pe-8 (TB-7) - Soviet bomber.

On the night of August 3, a test flight was made from the Cahul airfield - several crews, having a supply of fuel to Berlin and full ammunition, flew to reconnoiter the weather and dropped bombs on Swinemünde.
On August 4, a special strike group flew to the Cahul airfield located on the island. From August 4 to 7, preparations were made for the flight, household appliances for the flight and technical staff, and the runway was lengthened.
On the night of August 6, 5 crews went on a reconnaissance flight to Berlin. It was established that the anti-aircraft defense is located in a ring around the city within a radius of 100 km and has many searchlights capable of operating at a distance of up to 6,000 m. On the evening of August 6, the crews of the first group of bombers received a combat mission. At 21.00 on August 7, a special a strike group of 15 DB-3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet Air Force under the command of the regiment commander, Colonel Preobrazhensky E.N., loaded with FAB-100 bombs and leaflets. The units were commanded by captains Grechishnikov V.A. and Efremov A.Ya., Khokhlov P.I. flew as a navigator. The flight took place over the sea at an altitude of 7,000 m along the route: Ezel Island (Saaremaa) - Swinemünde - Stettin - Berlin). The temperature outside reached -35 - -40 ° C, because of which the glass of the aircraft cabins and glasses of headsets froze over. In addition, the pilots had to work all these hours in oxygen masks. To maintain secrecy throughout the flight, access to the radio was strictly prohibited.
Three hours later, the flight reached the northern border of Germany. When flying over its territory, aircraft were repeatedly detected from German observation posts, but, mistaking them for their own, the German air defense did not open fire. Over Stettin, the Germans, believing that it was Luftwaffe aircraft returning from a mission, with the help of searchlights, suggested that the crews of Soviet aircraft land on the nearest airfield.
At 01.30 on August 8, five aircraft dropped bombs on well-lit Berlin, the rest bombed the Berlin suburb and Stettin. The Germans did not expect an air raid so much that they turned on the blackout only 40 seconds after the first bombs fell on the city. The German air defense did not allow the pilots to control the results of the raid, the activity of which became so great that it forced the radio operator Vasily Krotenko to break the radio silence mode and report on the completion of the task on the radio: “My place is Berlin! The task was completed. Let's go back to base!" At 4 am on August 8, after a 7-hour flight, the crews returned to the airfield without loss.

In total, until September 5, Soviet pilots carried out nine raids on Berlin, making a total of 86 sorties. 33 planes bombed Berlin, dropping 21 tons of bombs on it and causing 32 fires in the city. 37 aircraft were unable to reach the capital of Germany and attacked other cities. A total of 311 high-explosive and incendiary bombs were used up with a total weight of 36,050 kg. 34 propaganda bombs with leaflets were dropped. 16 aircraft for various reasons were forced to interrupt the flight and return to the airfield. During the raids, 17 aircraft and 7 crews were lost, with 2 aircraft and 1 crew killed at the airfield when they tried to take off with 1000-kilogram and two 500-kilogram bombs on external slings.

On August 29, 1942, the most massive Soviet bomber air raid on Berlin in all the years of the Great Patriotic War. 100 Pe-8, Il-4 and DB bombers took part in it. On the way back, 7 Pe-8s also dropped bombs on Koenigsberg. This raid was the final chord in a series of bombing raids by Soviet aircraft on large German cities and industrial centers in August 1942 and a prelude to the September raids on Germany's satellite countries.

On November 7, 160 RAF aircraft bombed Berlin; 20 of them were shot down. In 1942, only 9 air raid alerts were issued in Berlin. The British Air Force solved this year the problems associated with the survival of England, namely, all efforts were directed against submarines and against the shipyards that produced these boats. Battle for Berlin. November 1943 - March 1944. Britain had the opportunity to deliver massive strikes against Berlin only in the second half of 1943. The prelude to the air attack on Berlin was two air raids on January 30, 1943. On this day Goering and Goebbels made great speeches. The air raids were timed exactly to the beginning of both performances. This had a great propaganda effect, although the material losses of the Germans were insignificant. On April 20, the British raided Berlin to congratulate Hitler on his birthday.
The Avro 683 Lancaster is a British four-engine heavy bomber.

"Battle for Berlin" began with a raid on the night of November 18-19, 1943. The raid involved 440 Lancasters, accompanied by several Mosquitos. The heaviest damage to Berlin was inflicted on the night of November 22-23. Due to the dry weather, numerous buildings, including foreign embassies, were damaged as a result of severe fires. The largest raid took place on the night of February 15-16. The raids continued until March 1944. The total losses of Berlin amounted to almost 4,000 people killed, 10,000 wounded and 450,000 people left homeless. 16 raids on Berlin cost England more than 500 aircraft lost. Bomber aircraft lost 2,690 pilots over Berlin and almost 1,000 became prisoners of war. In England, it is generally accepted that the Battle of Berlin was unsuccessful for the RAF, but many British historians argue that "in the operational sense, the Battle of Berlin was more than a setback, it was a defeat." Beginning March 4, the United States launched an air war of attrition in advance of the landings in France. Believing that the Luftwaffe would not be able to avoid fighting while defending the capital, the Americans organized a series of devastating bombardments of Berlin. Losses were heavy on both sides, with the US losing 69 B-17 flying fortresses and the Luftwaffe 160 aircraft. But the United States could make up for the losses, and Germany no longer.

Berlin, autumn 1944, bombing victims.

Then, until the beginning of 1945, Allied aviation switched to supporting the landing troops in France. And a new major raid on Berlin took place only on February 3, 1945. Nearly 1,000 Eighth Air Force B-17 bombers, under the cover of long-range Mustang fighters, bombed the railway system in Berlin. According to intelligence data, the German Sixth Panzer Army was transferred through Berlin to the eastern front. This was one of the few cases when the US Air Force carried out a massive attack on the city center. James Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force, objected. But Eisenhower insisted, since the attack on Berlin was given great political significance that this raid was carried out to help the offensive Soviet troops on the Oder, east of Berlin, and was essential to the unity of the Allies. The bombing caused great destruction and fires that continued for four days. The boundaries of the fire were localized only by water barriers and green areas of parks. German air defense by this time was very weakened, so that out of 1600 aircraft participating in the raid, only 36 were shot down. A large number of architectural monuments were destroyed. Government buildings were also damaged, including the Reich Chancellery, the office of the NSDAP, the headquarters of the Gestapo and the building of the so-called "People's Court". Among the dead was the infamous Ronald Freisler, head of the "People's Court". The central streets: Unter den Linden, Wilhelmstrasse and Friedrichstrasse were turned into heaps of ruins. The death toll was 2,894, the number of injured reached 20,000 and 120,000 lost their homes.
Strategic bomber B-17, "Flying Fortress".

Another major raid on 26 February 1945 left 80,000 people homeless. Anglo-American air raids on Berlin continued until April, while the Red Army was outside the city. In the last days of the war, the Soviet Air Force also bombed Berlin, including with the help of Il-2 attack aircraft. By this time, the air defense, infrastructure and civil defense of the city were on the verge of collapse. Later, statistics calculated that for every inhabitant of Berlin there were almost thirty-nine cubic meters rubble. Until the end of March 1945, there were a total of 314 air raids on Berlin, 85 of them during the last twelve months. Half of all the houses were damaged and about a third were uninhabitable, as many as 16 km² of the city were just piles of rubble. Estimates of the total death toll in Berlin from air raids range from 20,000 to 50,000. For comparison, the number of deaths in one attack on Dresden on February 14, 1945 and on Hamburg in one raid in 1943 amounted to about 30,000 and 40,000 people, respectively. The relatively low number of casualties in Berlin is indicative of excellent air defense and good bomb shelters.

Air defense tower "Zoo", April 1942.

The Nazi regime was well aware of the political necessity of protecting the Reich's capital from aerial destruction. Even before the war, work began on an extensive system of public bomb shelters, but by 1939 only 15% of the planned 2,000 shelters had been built. By 1941, however, the five huge state bomb shelters were complete and could hold up to 65,000 people. Other shelters were built under government buildings, the most famous being the so-called bunker under the Imperial Chancellery. In addition, many metro stations were used as bomb shelters. The rest of the population was forced to take refuge in their cellars. In 1943, the Germans decided to evacuate people whose presence in Berlin was not dictated by the needs of the war. By 1944, 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of the city's population, had been evacuated to the countryside. An attempt was made to evacuate all the children from Berlin, but this met with resistance from the parents, and many of the evacuees soon returned to the city (as was also the case in London in 1940-41). Growing shortage work force meant that it was important to preserve women's labor for the industry of Berlin, so the evacuation of all women with children failed. At the end of 1944, the city's population began to grow again, due to refugees fleeing the Red Army. Although the refugees were officially denied permission to stay in Berlin for more than two days, at least 50,000 managed to stay in Berlin. By January 1945 the population was around 2.9 million, although the German military's demands were limited to only 100,000 men aged 18-30. The other 100,000 needed to clear the city were mainly French "fremdarbeiters" ("foreign workers") and Russian "Ostarbeiters" ("Eastern Workers"). Three huge towers were the key to Berlin's air defense. , on the which contained searchlights and 128mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as a system of shelters for civilians. These towers were in the Berlin Zoo in the Tiergarten, Humboldtshain and Friedrichshain. The towers were increasingly completed by teenagers from the Hitler Youth, as older men were called to the front.

Ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin; destroyed by Allied bombing and preserved as a monument.

June 13, 1944 - the first combat use of the German V-1 cruise missiles, a strike was made on London.
The Germans for the first time in history began air bombardments, they were also the first to launch rocket attacks on cities. In total, about 30,000 devices were manufactured. By March 29, 1945, about 10,000 had been launched against England; 3,200 fell in her territory, of which 2,419 reached London, causing a loss of 6,184 killed and 17,981 wounded. The Londoners called the V-1 "flying bombs" (flying bomb), as well as "buzz bombs" (buzz bomb) because of the characteristic sound emitted by a pulsating air-jet engine.
About 20% of the missiles failed at launch, 25% were destroyed by British aircraft, 17% were shot down by anti-aircraft guns, 7% were destroyed in a collision with barrage balloons. The engines often failed before reaching the target, and also the vibration of the engine often disabled the rocket, so that about 20% of the V-1 fell into the sea. A British report published after the war showed that 7,547 V-1s had been launched into England. The report indicates that of these, 1,847 were destroyed by fighters, 1,866 were destroyed by anti-aircraft artillery, 232 were destroyed by barrage balloons and 12 by the artillery of ships of the Royal Navy.
A breakthrough in military electronics (the development of radio fuses for anti-aircraft shells - shells with such fuses turned out to be three times more effective even when compared with the latest radar fire control for that time) led to the fact that the loss of German shells in raids on England increased from 24% up to 79%, as a result of which the effectiveness (and intensity) of such raids has significantly decreased.

Commemorative plaque on Grove Road, Mile End in London at the site of the fall of the first V-1 shell on June 13, 1944, which killed 11 Londoners

In late December 1944, General Clayton Bissell submitted a report pointing to the V1's significant advantages over conventional aerial bombardment.

They prepared the following table:

V-1 on launch catapult.

On September 8, 1944, the first combat launch of a V-2 rocket was made in London. The number of missile combat launches carried out was 3225. The missiles hit mainly the civilian population (about 2700 people died. Hitler did not leave the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bproducing a heavy missile that was supposed to bring retribution to England. By his personal order, from the end of July 1943, a huge production potential was directed to create a rocket, which later received the propaganda name "V-2".
Third Reich Armaments Minister Albert Speer later wrote in his memoirs:
Ridiculous idea. In 1944, for several months, armadas of enemy bombers were dropping an average of 300 tons of bombs a day, and Hitler could rain down on England three dozen rockets with a total capacity of 24 tons per day, which is the equivalent of a bomb load of just a dozen Flying Fortresses. I not only agreed with this decision of Hitler, but also supported it, having made one of my most serious mistakes. It would be much more productive to concentrate our efforts on the production of defensive surface-to-air missiles. Such a rocket was developed back in 1942 under the code name "Wasserfall" (Waterfall).
The first rocket with a combat charge was fired at Paris. The next day they began shelling London. The British knew about the existence of a German rocket, but at first they did not understand anything and thought (when a strong explosion was heard in the Chiswick area at 18:43 on September 8) that the gas main had exploded (since there was no air raid alert). After repeated explosions, it became clear that the gas pipelines had nothing to do with it. And only when, near one of the funnels, an officer from the air defense troops lifted a piece of a pipe frozen with liquid oxygen, it became clear that this was a new Nazi weapon (called by them "weapon of retaliation" - German Vergeltungswaffe). The effectiveness of the combat use of the V-2 was extremely low: the missiles had low hit accuracy (only 50% of launched missiles fell into a circle with a diameter of 10 km) and low reliability (out of 4,300 launched missiles, more than 2,000 exploded on the ground or in the air during launch, or failed in flight). Data on the number of missiles launched and reached their targets vary. According to various sources, the launch of 2,000 rockets, sent in seven months to destroy London, led to the death of over 2,700 people (each rocket killed one or two people).
To drop the same amount of explosives that was dropped by the Americans with the help of four-engine B-17 (Flying Fortress) bombers, 66,000 V-2s would have to be used, the production of which would take 6 years.

The German government announced that London was being bombarded only on November 8th. And on November 10, Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons, informed Parliament and the world that London had been under rocket attacks in the past few weeks. According to British estimates, 2,754 civilians were killed and 6,523 wounded by V-2 rockets in London. The accuracy of hits has increased over the years of the war and rocket strikes sometimes caused significant destruction, accompanied by many deaths. So on November 25, 1944, a department store in southeast London was destroyed. 160 people died and 108 were seriously injured. After such annihilating strikes, British intelligence organized a "leak" of falsified information that the missiles were flying over London by 10-20 km. This tactic worked and most of the missiles began to fall in Kent without causing much damage.

The last two rockets exploded on March 27, 1945. One of them killed Mrs. Ivy Millichump, 34, in her own home in Kent.

And this is a V-2 victim in Antwerp, Belgium, 1944.

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London survived, despite the fact that the city had no really safe havens besides the underground - there were very few basements and cellars that could withstand direct hits.

In vast areas, Churchill later admitted, there was nothing left to burn and destroy. Despite the ordeals that befell the Londoners, they did not lose heart. Skilled and unskilled workers, men and women, stood at the machines and worked in the shops under the bombs of the enemy, as if they were in "forward positions".

Essentially they were in the trenches of the "Battle of England". London, Churchill recalled bitterly, was like some huge historical animal, capable of enduring terrible wounds, mutilated and bleeding, and yet retaining the ability to live and move.

On the night of November 03, for the first time after an almost continuous two-month bombardment, no air alert was announced in the capital. It turned out that the next day Goering ordered the Luftwaffe strikes to be dispersed throughout the island, again changing the tactics of the German offensive.

Although London was still considered the main target of attack, the main efforts were directed at the destruction of other industrial centers of the country. In November, German pilots fiercely bombed the largest cities in England - Birmingham and Coventry, Sheffield and Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol, Plymouth and Glasgow, Hull and Nottingham, Cardiff and Portsmouth.

Particularly difficult trials fell on the lot of the inhabitants of Coventry. On the night of November 14, 1940, 500 German bombers flying in waves dropped 600 tons of highly destructive bombs and thousands of incendiary bombs on the city. There were almost no shelters in a city of 350,000 people.

People fled to the huge Gothic cathedral. But with a direct hit by a heavy bomb, hundreds of people were buried under the vaults of the cathedral. More than 2,000 fires blazed in the city. The central part of Coventry, except for the lonely bell tower sticking out, was swept off the face of the earth.

It was the most devastating raid that England had to endure, although the Air Ministry was warned of it two days in advance through reconnaissance 1 .

German radio announced that all English cities would face the sad fate of Coventry: they would be "coventrated", that is, mercilessly wiped off the face of the earth. Twenty years after the end of the war, the author of this monograph happened to visit Coventry. In the center of the city there are still ruins, overgrown with thick grass.

Lady Godiva, the patroness of Coventry, looked at them with sadness, miraculously surviving on her granite pedestal during a fierce bombardment. In the center, only the remains of a Gothic cathedral have been preserved, a mournful monument reminiscent of the days of hard trials that befell the long-suffering city.

Behind London and Coventry came the turn of Birmingham, the second largest industrial center in England with a million inhabitants, the birthplace of the "hardware kings" of the Chamberlain family - the colonialist minister Joseph Chamberlain, his eldest son Austin and the unlucky youngest, Neuville from Munich.

True, while feeding the fascist beast, helping to create German aviation, Neville Chamberlain and other Munich residents were deeply convinced that German bombs would not fall on London and other cities. However, in 1940 alone, fascist vultures dropped more than 36,000 bombs on the heads of British subjects and more than 21,000 bombs in 1941 2 .

Even during the life of N. Chamberlain, who retired at the beginning of October 1940 and lived out his last days (he died on November 09, 1940), history cruelly laughed at the unreasonable politician who became a political criminal in relation not only to the English people, but and to other peoples of Europe enslaved by the German fascists.

From November 19 to November 22, German aircraft launched three consecutive strikes on Birmingham, causing great destruction to the city. After these barbarian raids, about 800 citizens of the city, including children, were buried in a large mass grave in the beautiful square of the city - Victoria Square near the monument to Queen Victoria.

The loss of the civilian population of England from German bombing from June 1940 to July 1941, when the German air attack on England ceased, amounted to 146,777 people, of which 60,595 people were killed. Across England, 7,736 children under the age of 16 died from Nazi bombs 3 .

1 Winterbotham F. Decree, op., pp. 81, 82.

2 Second World War 1939-1945. M., 1958, p.95.

3 Strength and Casualties of th "e Armed Forces and Auxiliary Services

of the United Kingdom 1939 to 1945. London, 1946, p.9.

The myth of the strategic bombing of Germany by Anglo-American aircraft

The main myths of the Anglo-American strategic bombing of Germany in 1943-1945 are that they played a decisive role in the collapse of German resistance in World War II. This thesis was actively disseminated during the war years by American and British propaganda, and in the postwar years it became widespread in Anglo-American historiography. An opposite and equally mythological thesis was reinforced in Soviet historiography, which asserted that the Anglo-American bombing of Germany only slightly reduced its military and economic potential.

In January 1943, at the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill decided to begin strategic bombing of Germany with a joint Anglo-American force. The targets of the bombing were to be both objects of the military industry and the cities of Germany. The operation was codenamed Point Blank. Prior to this, British air raids on German cities were of more moral than strategic importance. Now the main hopes were placed on the American B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine strategic bombers. Initially, German aircraft factories, as well as factories for the production of engines and ball bearings, were identified as priority targets. However, on April 17, 1943, an attempt to attack the Focke-Wulf plant near Bremen with 115 bombers ended in failure. 16 aircraft were shot down and 48 damaged. Since the main aircraft factories were located in the south of Germany, bombers were forced to fly there without fighter escort. This made daytime raids too risky due to insufficient fighter cover, and targeted bombing was ruled out during night raids. A raid on Schweinfurt, where there was a plant that produced almost 100% of German ball bearings, and on the center of the aircraft industry Regensburg in Bavaria on August 17, 1943, led to the loss of 60 B-17s out of 377 and 5 Spitfire fighters and P-47 Thunderbolts. The Luftwaffe lost 27 Me-109, Me-110 and FV-190 fighters. About 200 civilians were killed.

The second attack on Schweinfurt on October 14, 1943, led to even more deplorable results. Of the 291 B-17s, 77 were lost. Another 122 vehicles were damaged. Of the 2,900 crew members, 594 were missing, 5 were killed and 43 were wounded. After that, the bombing of targets deep in Germany was postponed until the availability of escort fighters, which could accompany the bombers all the way from the airfield to the target and back.

On January 11, 1944, during the attack of Oschersleben, Halberstadt and Braunschweig, 60 Flying Fortresses were irretrievably lost.

The third raid on Schweinfurt on 24 February 1944 was successful. Thanks to the escort of the P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt fighters with external tanks, only 11 of the 231 B-17s participating in the raid were lost. "Mustangs" were able to fly to Berlin and back. The raid on Schweinfurt was part of the air battle over Germany, which later became known as "Big Week" and lasted from 20 to 25 February. During it, the Anglo-American Air Force, which attacked aircraft industry facilities, lost 378 bombers and 28 fighters, while the Luftwaffe lost 355 fighters and about a hundred pilots. This damage forced the Germans to sharply increase the production of fighters. From now on, they could not even dominate the skies over Germany. This guaranteed the success of the allied invasion of France. From the end of April 1944, the theater of operations was moved to France and the bombing was aimed at disabling the transport infrastructure in order to make it difficult to transfer German reinforcements. As a result of the raids, the total productivity of synthetic fuel plants from April to July decreased from 180,000 tons to 9,000 tons per month. Despite the fact that 200 thousand workers were specially allocated for the restoration of these enterprises, productivity in August was only 40 thousand tons per month, and this level was not raised until the end of the war. Also, as a result of raids, the production of synthetic rubber decreased by 6 times.

Strategic bombing resumed in full in September 1944 and was now focused on synthetic fuel plants and transport infrastructure. As a result, fuel production dropped sharply, and since September 1944 the German army and the Luftwaffe were on starvation rations. Now the German air defense had little to oppose to the Anglo-American bombing. From the end of 1944, due to the depletion of synthetic fuel, German aircraft very rarely took to the air. Arms production in Germany grew until September 1944, and then began to decline due to the impact of strategic bombing. And in 1944, the Luftwaffe consumed 92% of synthetic gasoline and only 8% of conventional, and in the land army, the share of synthetic fuel was 57%. By the time the Anglo-American troops surrounded and occupied the Ruhr in March 1944, its industry was practically paralyzed due to the destruction of the transport infrastructure.

When it turned out that it was not possible to permanently disable aircraft factories and other key industrial facilities in Germany with the help of aerial bombardments, the Anglo-American command decided to switch to area bombing (the so-called "carpet bombing") of large cities in order to undermine the morale of the German population and army. A series of such bombardments hit Hamburg between 25 July and 3 August 1943. More than 50 thousand people died, about 200 thousand were injured. Such big number casualties was due to the fact that a fiery tornado arose in the city. Berlin, Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg and other cities were also subjected to carpet bombing.

"Carpet bombing" also continued until almost the end of the war. The largest was the bombing of Dresden on February 23–25, 1945. At least 25 thousand people died then. There are also higher estimates - up to 135 thousand dead. Many of the approximately 200,000 refugees could have perished in the city, although there was no exact count.

The last raid of the Flying Fortresses was made on April 25, 1945. In the future, due to the lack of targets in connection with the occupation of all major German cities by the Allied troops, strategic bombing was stopped.

In total, 593 thousand people became victims of the bombing of Germany within the borders of 1937, including about 32 thousand prisoners of war. About 42 thousand people died in Austria and the Sudetenland. About half a million people were injured. In France, the victims of the Anglo-American bombing were 59 thousand killed and wounded. In England - 60.5 thousand people died as a result of German bombing and shelling with V-1 and V-2 rockets.

In general, the strategic bombing of German cities did not play a decisive role in the outcome of the war, but it must be admitted that their role was significant. They significantly slowed down the growth of the German military industry, forced the Germans to spend significant resources on the restoration of destroyed factories and cities. In the last six months of the war, thanks to the constant destruction of the main factories for the production of synthetic fuel, the Luftwaffe was practically chained to the ground, which, perhaps, brought victory over Germany closer by several months.