Bombing Campaigns:
London:
The London Blitz – from the German word “blitzkrieg,” meaning “lightning war” – is, for British citizens, at least, the scene of some of the defining images of the Second World War. The capital of the United Kingdom was subjected to a sustained strategic bombing campaign carried out by the German Luftwaffe that is said to have lasted for 76 consecutive nights and was directly responsible for the deaths of 20,000 people. It is estimated that more than one million homes were damaged or flattened during the bombing. Despite such devastation, Britain’s resolve and unwillingness to succumb to the German show of strength helped changed the course of the war, and provided a launch pad for the Allied fight back of 1942-1945.
Dresden :Dresden, Germany’s seventh biggest city at the time of the Second World War, and an extremely important industrial center, experienced one of the most severe bombing campaigns seen anywhere during World War II. During the most intense period, from 13 to 15 February 1945, 1,300 bombers from a combined RAF and USAAF force dropped more than 3,900 tons of high explosives and firebombs upon the beleaguered city. Fifteen square miles of the city center were utterly destroyed by the devastating firestorm that swept through the streets. The hot winds driving people back into the deathtraps that were their houses. The death toll was publicized to be as high as 200,000 by the Nazi-controlled German press in 1945, but subsequent estimates, including one supported by the city authorities in 2010, put the figure at 25,000.
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Berlin :
The German capital endured a prolonged period of strategic bombing that lasted for almost the entire duration of the war. In total, Berlin was the target of 363 air raids between 1940 and 1945, from the airplanes of the British, the Americans and the Soviets. From 1939 to 1942, the RAFÕs policy of only bombing buildings of direct military importance was slowly supplanted by the new strategy of “area bombing” – that is, the bombing of housing and civilian centers. While the death of civilians was never explicitly recognized as its aim, the results of area bombing were inevitable. Between 20,000 and 50,000 Berliners lost their lives in the sustained bombing of World War II, and many times more people were left homeless.
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Tokyo:
The major strategic bombing of Japan by the USAAF began in November 1944 and continued until Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945. The US had previously executed a minor bombing raid on the Japanese capital in April 1942; this early effort gave America a victory in terms of morale, but the bombing did not begin in earnest until more than two years later. In fact, nearly 90% of the bombs that fell on Japanese home soil were dropped by B-29s. Operation Meetinghouse, was the most significant, and indeed is considered the most destructive bombing ever. Around 1,700 tons of bombs fell on the city, destroying an estimated 286,358 buildings deposited lots of wood and paper, and killing an estimated 100,000 citizens or more in the resulting firestorms.
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