Текст книги "Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943"

Автор книги: Keith Lowe

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13 Fredy Borck, quoted in Kerstin Hof (ed.), Rothenburgsort 27/28 Juli 1943(unpublished booklet, produced by Stadtteilinitiative Hamm e. V.), pp. 13–14.

14 Herbert Wulff, typescript account, FZH 292–8, T–Z.

15 See Hamburg Police Report, pp. 7–12, for a description of the city’s fire-protection service.

16 Ibid., p. 19.

17 See Zanetti, Fire from the Air, p. 20: ‘On boards, flooring, beams, and other combustible but not easily ignitable material, phosphorus is not only useless but, as a matter of fact, somewhat fire retardant, since it forms a glassy deposit of phosphoric acid on exposed combustible material, thus protecting it from ignition.’ Thermite, on the other hand, which is a mixture of metallic aluminium and iron oxide, burns at much higher temperatures, creating ‘a white hot fluid that flows like water, setting fire to all combustible matter which it comes into contact with’, p. 34.

18 Henni Klank, internet account, http://www.seniorennet-hamburg.de/zeitzeugen/vergessen/klank1.htm (last viewed 1 September 2005).

19 Ibid.

20 Erich Titschak, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 77.

21 Titschak, in ibid., p. 77.

22 Hans Jedlicka, typescript account, FZH 292–8, G–Kra.

23 In June 1953 a reporter for North German Radio interviewed a man who claimed that he and his colleagues often had to force people out of their cellars ‘with kicks and slaps’: see Uwe Bahnsen and Kerstin von Stürmer, Die Stadt, die sterben sollte: Hamburg im Bomberkrieg(Hamburg, 2003), p. 34. Musgrove, Operation Gomorrah, p. 97, also quotes a Herr Bey, who had had repeatedly to stop a woman running back into the cellar from which he’d just rescued her.

24 Wolf Biermann interview, Der Spiegel, 25 July 2003.

25 Ibid.

26 Hamburg Police Report, p. 66. To be safe in an open space that night, the space had to be more than three hundred metres in diameter.

27 Manuscript account by ‘Albert H.’, quoted in Hamburg secondary school project, ‘Als die Bomben fielen: Hamburg vor 40 Jahren’, Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, HaIII 68, pp. 134–43.

28 Günther Severin (ed.), Briefe an einen Pastor(unpublished), letter 12.

29 Brunswig, Feuersturm, pp. 233–4. According to the Hamburg Police Report, the spraying of water upon fugitives as a protective ‘cloak’ while they escaped from burning houses was one of the most important lessons learned that night (p.39).

30 Quoted in Brunswig, Feuersturm, p. 226.

31 Ludwig Faupel, typescript account, FZH 292–8, A–F.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Wolf Biermann interview, Der Spiegel, 25 July 2003.

36 Ernst-Günther Haberland, quoted in Hof (ed.), Rothenburgsort 27/28 Juli 1943, p. 80.

37 See, for example, Heinrich Johannsen’s description of being knocked on to his face by flying timber: Hamburg Police Report, appendix 10. A German transcript of this account is available in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, pp. 84–7.

38 Anonymous letter from 1 August 1943, reproduced by Marcus Petersen, in ‘Den Feuersturm in Hamburg überlebt’, Die Heimat, vol. 94, no. 3/4, March/April 1987.

39 Erika Wilken’s account appears in Appendix 10 of the Hamburg Police Report: see Carl F. Miller (ed.), Appendixes 8 through 19 to the Hamburg Police President’s Report on the Large Scale Air Attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in World War II(Stanford, December 1968), pp. 82–3: this translation differs very slightly from my own. The original German account has been reproduced in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, pp. 80–84.

40 Italian author Curzio Malaparte propagated a gruesome story in the late 1940s about hundreds of people swimming in the waterways, unable to extinguish the phosphorus burning on their skin, who had to be put out of their misery by German soldiers. The story has been repeated by later historians, most notably the American author Martin Caidin, in The Night Hamburg Died(New York, 1960), pp. 142–7. For a comprehensive refutation of this urban myth, see Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), pp. 328–9 (following Brunswig, Feuersturm, pp. 244–5). Caidin claimed to have found corroborating evidence for the story, but both Middlebrook and Brunswig find this very difficult to believe. See also Bond, Fire and the Air War, p. 121.

41 Ben Witter interview, The World at War, Thames TV, translated by Ben Shephard, IWM Sound Archives 2916/01.

42 Hamburg Police Report, p. 22; Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, p. 55.

43 Heinz Masuch’s letter to his parents, 28 August 1943, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 98–9.

44 Wolf Biermann interview, Der Spiegel, 25 July 2003.

45 Brunswig, Feuersturm, pp. 214 and 216.

46 Ibid., p. 266.

47 See the Hamburg Police Report, p. 16; see also the Fire Department’s chronology of events, reproduced in Brunswig, Feuersturm, pp. 214–17.

48 Ibid., map on pp. 218–19.

49 See the ‘Town Plan of Hamburg’, drawn up by the War Office in 1943, sheet 2.

50 Max Kipke, quoted in Kerstin Rasmuβen and Gunnar Wulf (eds), Es war ein unterirdischer Bunker(Hamburg, 1996), p. 22.

51 Ruth Schramm, in ibid., p. 32.

52 Else Lohse’s letter to Frau Schilske in Kerstin Rasmuβen and Gunnar Wulf (eds.), Juli 1943: Hamburg erinnern sich(Hamburg, 2001), p. 36.

53 Traute Koch, quoted in Middlebrook, Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), p. 274. The description of the bodies being like tailor’s dummies is fairly common: see also, for example, Waltraut Ahrens, in Hof (ed.), Rothenburgsort 27/28 Juli 1943, p. 43.

54 Erich Titschak, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 79.

55 Manuscript account by ‘Maria K.’, quoted in ‘Als die Bomben fielen: Hamburg vor 40 Jahren’, p. 163.

56 Hans Jedlicka, typescript account, FZH 292–8, G–Kra.

57 Herbert Wulff, typescript account, FZH 292–8, T–Z.

58 USSBS Economic Effects of the Air Offensive Against German Cities: A Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Hamburg, Germany, tables on pp. 7a and 7e, UK National Archives, AIR 48/19.

59 Hamburg Police Report, p. 18.

60 Early estimates put the death toll in Hammerbrook at about 36 per cent of the total population. See Hans Rumpf, The Bombing of Germany, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (London, 1963), pp. 83–4.

61 The exact figure quoted in the USSBS, Economic Effects, p. 7a, was 37,439. UK National Archives, AIR 48/19.

62 Hamburg Police Report, p. 22; Klöss (ed.) Der Luftkrieg, p. 56.

63 ‘Maria K.’, quoted in ‘Als die Bomben fielen: Hamburg vor 40 Jahren’, p. 163.

64 See Horatio Bond, ‘Fire Casualties of the German Attacks’, in Bond, Fire and the Air War, pp. 112–121. See also Professor Siegfried Gräff, Tod im Luftangriff(Hamburg, 1955), quoted at length in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, particularly the report on the state of the corpses by ‘W.W.’, a fifty-one-year-old air-raid warden, p. 110.

65 ‘N.N.’, quoted in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 92.

66 This was typical of a heavy incendiary attack. See Rumpf, The Bombing of Germany, p. 157.

67 These bodies became the subject of intense scrutiny by pathologists during and after the war. The Hamburg Police Report Appendixes contain pathologists’ reports into the various causes of death in the firestorm (see Appendix 15, pp. 213–39). See also the exhaustive study made by Professor Siegfried Gräff, quoted in Klöss (ed.) Der Luftkrieg, pp. 122–63, particularly pp. 128–40, on corpses found in basements.

68 Herbert Wulff, typescript account, FZH 292–8, T–Z.

69 Erich Titschak, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 79; Hans Jedlicka, FZH 292–8 G–Ha; Else Lohse in Rasmuβen and Wulf (eds.), Juli 1943, p. 37.

70 Erika Wilken, quoted in the Hamburg Police Report, Appendix 10. A transcript of her report is available in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, p. 83.

71 Henni Klank, Internet account.

17    The ‘Terror of Hamburg’

1 Adolf Galland, The First and the Last(London, 1955), p. 239.

2 Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. II, ed. Elke Fröhlich (München, 1993), 6 August 1943.

3 Ibid., 29 July 1943.

4 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clare Winston (London, 1970), p. 389.

5 Milch, quoted in David Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe(Boston, 1973), p. 232.

6 Ibid.

7 Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 388–9. From the flurry of meetings that took place around this time, it seems that Hitler was far more concerned about the situation in Italy in the wake of Mussolini’s resignation. See Goebbels, Tagebücher, 24–29 July 1943.

8 The Times, 29 July 1943, pp. 4 and 6.

9 Daily Express, 31 July 1943, p. 1.

10 New York Times, 31 July 1943, p. 6; New York Herald Tribune, 1 August 1943, p. 10; Washington Post, 26 July 1943, p. 2.

11 Propaganda leaflet G61, Royal Air Force Museum.

12 Herr K. St., quoted in Volker Böge and Jutta Deide-Lüchow, Eimsbüttler Jugend im Krieg(Hamburg, 1992), p. 28.

13 See, for example, unpublished transcript of local-history group conversation, Galerie Morgenland/Geschichtswerkstatt, ‘Klöntreff “Eimsbüttel im Feuersturm”’, Sprecher 6, p. 13: ‘Das habe ich von Frontsoldaten gehört, die haben mehrmals gesagt, an der Front sei es nicht so schlimm.’ Contemporary reports agree. Directly after the attacks, for example, a reporter for the Stockholm Aftonbladetclaimed that ‘what the German people have been experiencing… is an ordeal by fire without example in history, which, in certain respects, is more horrible than the gigantic fight on the Eastern Front’, quoted in Daily Express, 2 August 1943, p. 1.

14 Martha Bührich, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Unternehmen Gomorrha(Hamburg, 1993), p. 25. Significantly, the soldier was talking about the first British night raid, which was not nearly so devastating as the second. Others also compare Hamburg to Stalingrad: see ‘N.N.’ and Adolf Freydag’s accounts in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten, pp. 189 and 215.

15 Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (London, 1943), p. 159.

16 For the official description of the evacuation that follows see the Hamburg Police Report, pp. 62 and 70–72, and appendices 7 and 14. See also Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), p. 278.

17 These figures are Middlebrook’s, but unfortunately he does not give his source. Goebbels says in his diary that 300,000 loaves of bread were sent from Berlin (29 July 1943), and Georg Ahrens claimed that as many as 1,600,000 loaves were handed out; see Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 226.

18 See, for example, Ilse Grassmann’s description of trying to leave Hamburg, in Ausgebombt: Ein Hausfrauen-Kriegstagebuch von Ilse Grassmann(Hamburg, 2003), pp. 43–6; and the story told by a woman who found it almost impossible to hitch a lift out of the city even though she was heavily pregnant, in Uwe Bahnsen and Kerstin von Stürmer, Die Stadt, die sterben sollte: Hamburg in Bombenkrieg, Juli1943 (Hamburg 2003), p.35.

19 Heino Merck, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 114–16.

20 Grassmann, Ausgebombt, p. 48.

21 Letter to Pastor Jürgen Wehrmann, in Günther Severin (ed.), Briefe an einen Pastor(unpublished).

22 Helmuth Saβ, FZH 292–8, Ri–S.

23 Hans J. Massaquoi, ‘Operation Gomorrha’, in Volker Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943: Literarische Zeugnisse zum Feuersturm(Frankfurt am Main, 2003), p. 265.

24 Ibid., p. 262.

25 Lore Bünger, ‘Operation Gomorrha’, in Claus Günther (ed.), erlebt – erkannt – erinnert: Zeitzeugen schreiben Geschichte(n) 1932–1952(Hamburg, 2003), p. 134.

26 Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang(Hamburg, 1981), pp. 63–4.

27 Ibid., p. 64.

28 Galland, The First and the Last, p. 239.

29 Margret Klauβ, in Uwe Bahnsen and Kerstin von Stürmer, Die Stadt, p. 60.

30 Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, in Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943, p. 160.

31 Hannah Hyde (née Voss) interview, IWM Sound Archive 10380/5.

32 New York Times, 6 August 1943, p. 4.

33 Friedrich Reck, Tagebuch eines Verzweifelten(Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 20 August 1943, p. 216.

34 Ernst-Günter Haberland, in Kerstin Hof (ed.), Rothenburgsort 27/28 Juli 1943(unpublished booklet), Stadtteilinitiative Hamm e. V., p. 80.

35 See, for example, W. G. Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction(London, 2003), p. 89. Sebald interviewed a woman who had been a volunteer helper at Stralsund railway station when a train full of refugees arrived. Several of the women on it brought their dead children with them.

36 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 26.

37 For the difficult relationships that developed between refugees and their hosts, see ibid., pp. 26–9. For an example of one of the rare exceptions to the general charity extended to refugees, see FZH 292–8, T–H: when Herbert Wulff and his family knocked on a door in Lauenburg to ask if they could have some water to brew coffee the door was slammed in their faces with the words ‘We are not a hotel!’

38 Story recounted by Luise Solmitz, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 62.

39 Erich Titschak, in ibid., pp. 78–9.

40 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 62.

41 ‘Berlin Given “3 Weeks to Live” by U.S.’, Daily Mail, 4 August 1943, p. 1; RAF press conference, in New York Herald Tribune, 6 August 1943, p. 3.

42 Quoted in Daily Express, 2 August 1943, p. 1. See also Daily Mail, 2 August 1943, pp. 1 and 4; The Times, 2 August 1943, p. 4; New York Times, 2 August 1943, pp. 1 and 3; Washington Post, 2 August 1943, pp. 1 and 2.

43 See, for example, ‘Stampede Out of Berlin Is Reported’, Washington Post, 7 August 1943, pp. 1 and 2; ‘German Life is Badly Disrupted by Air War’, New York Times, 8 August 1943, p.E3; ‘Evacuation of Berlin’, Manchester Guardian, 7 August 1943, p. 5; ‘Berlin Evacuates: Official’, Daily Express, 2 August 1943, pp. 1 and 4.

44 While Harris firmly believed that the key to winning the war was the destruction of the Reich capital, it seems he thought this would happen by bombing the target in isolation, rather than by destroying it in quick succession with other cities. See his letter to Churchill, 3 November 1943: ‘We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USA will come in on it. It will cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.’ Quoted in Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 1939–1945, vol. II (London, 1961), p. 48.

45 See Sir Arthur Harris’s own memoirs, Bomber Offensive(London, 1947), p. 180.

18    Coup de Grâce

1 William Shakespeare, Complete Works, ed. Peter Alexander (London 1951), Macbeth, III, iv, 136–8.

2 See Hamburg Police Report, p. 34; and Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 2003), p. 248.

3 Statistics taken from Roger Freeman, The Mighty Eighth(London, 1986), p. 66, and Roger Freeman, The Mighty Eighth War Diary(London, 1990), pp. 80–82.

4 While Zero Hour that night was fifteen minutes earlier than before, at 0045, the slightly shorter route meant that take-off and return times did not vary much from previous operations on Hamburg. The first turning point was at 54.30N 07.00E, exactly as it had been on 27 July. The second was at 54.03N 09.44E, very close to that of 24 July (53.55N 09.45E), which meant that the approach into Hamburg was only slightly more northerly than it had been on that night. After leaving the target their next turning point was at 53.23N 09.38E, which was about midway between those used on the two previous attacks (53.15N 10.00E on 24 July, and 53.20N 09.30E on 27 July). Once out at sea again, their final turning point was identical to that used on Tuesday, 27 July: 54.20N 07.00E. See the various operational plans of attack in UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

5 The decoys were dropped at 53.33N 07.33E, about thirty miles along the coast west from Cuxhaven. For the route of these four Mosquitos see Interceptions/Tactics document no. 155/43 for 29/30 July, UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

6 UK National Archives, AIR 27/796.

7 For a discussion of how the advent of Window changed German nightfighter tactics, see Peter Hinchliffe, The Other Battle(Shrewsbury, 2001), pp. 154–61.

8 The Hamburg Police Report mentions a ‘second strong wave of bombers approaching from the direction of Bremen’. Martin Middle-brook also mentions that one of the Mosquitos attracted the attention of a German night fighter, but there is no record of this in the official summary of combats and enemy aircraft encountered: Interceptions/Tactics document no. 155/43, 29/30 July, UK National Archives,

AIR 24/257. See Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), p. 286.

9 The losses around the route markers were as follows: a 78 Squadron Halifax piloted by Sergeant R. Snape, a 61 Squadron Lancaster (Phillips), a Halifax from 51 Squadron (Fletcher), and a Halifax from 102 Squadron (Gaston) went down in the sea (the last one a long way from the route markers, as far south as Heligoland); a 7 Squadron Stirling (Forbes) and a 467 Squadron Lancaster (Park) were lost without trace, presumably also at sea; a Halifax from 158 Squadron (MacDonald) was shot down just after crossing the coast.

10 See Interceptions/Tactics document no. 155/43, 29/30 July, UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

11 UK National Archives, AIR 27/796. Middlebrook also interviewed Pickles’s navigator on this operation: The Battle of Hamburg, pp. 285–6.

12 These were probably Sutton’s Halifax from 77 Squadron, Macquarie’s Halifax from 102 Squadron and Fraser’s Halifax from 78 Squadron. See W. R. Chorley, Bomber Command Losses vol. 4 (1943)(Hersham, 2004), pp. 247–51.

13 These were: a 9 Squadron Lancaster piloted by Flight Lieutenant C. W. Fox, a Wellington of 166 Squadron (Birbeck), and a Lancaster of 57 Squadron (Parker), which was one of those that arrived late on the target (see p. 256).

14 Six bombers were shot down by fighters in this area: a 460 Squadron Lancaster piloted by Flight Sergeant H. L. Fuhrmann, a 428 Squadron Halifax (Bates), a 432 Squadron Wellingon (Kerby), a 35 Squadron Halifax (Spooner), a 97 Squadron Lancaster (Schnier) and a 57 Squadron Lancaster (Allwright, who arrived late on target – see p. 256). Those hit by both flak and fighters were a Stirling of 218 Squadron, piloted by Sergeant J. Clark, a Halifax of 35 Squadron (Pexton) and a Stirling of 218 Squadron (Pickard).

15 Quoted by Middlebrook, Battle of Hamburg, p. 289.

16 According to the 1 Group summary. Fifty-eight of 1 Group’s Lancasters were in the final wave of the attack so saw the fires when they were approaching their brightest. See UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

17 Bill McCrea, A Chequer-Board of Nights(Preston, 2003), pp. 80–81.

18 All statistics quoted are from the RAF Operations Record Book Appendices, UK National Archives, AIR 24/257. The last four planes to be destroyed were probably from 76 Squadron (Bjercke), 460 Squadron (Johnson), 214 Squadron (Shann) and 97 Squadron (Marks).

19 Generaloberst Weise was originally sceptical of the worth of Herrmann’s Wilde Saufighters, but was won over by their successes in this period. For a discussion of this, and for the text of his order on 30 July 1943, see Hinchliffe, Other Battle, pp. 131 and 159–160.

20 See Hamburg Police Report, pp. 17, 35–6; and Erhard Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg über Deutschland 1939–1945: Deutsche Berichte und Pressestimmen des neutralen Auslands(München, 1963), p. 43. For a picture of which areas were hit, see Plot of Night Photographs No. 172, taken 29/30 July 1943, UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

21 Helmuth Saβ, FZH 292–8, Ri–S.

22 Ibid.

23 See Carl F. Miller (ed.), Appendixes 8 through 19 to the Hamburg Police President’s Report on the Large Scale Air Attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in World War II(Stanford, December 1968), Appendix 19, sheet 28, pp. 405–7. See also Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 2003), p. 257.

24 A monument to these 370 people stands today in the central reservation of Hamburgerstrasse, close to a huge new shopping centre.

25 In Günther Severin (ed.), Briefe an einen Pastor(unpublished), letter 43.

26 Ibid.

27 Hans J. Massaquoi, ‘Operation Gomorrha’, in Volker Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943: Literarische Zeugnisse Zum Feuersturm(Frankfurt am Main, 2003), p. 261.

28 Horatio Bond, who handled fire-damage analysis for the Physical Damage Division of the USSBS, estimated 800 died – see his Fire and the Air War(Boston, 1946), p. 86. Uwe Bahnsen and Kerstin von Stürmer estimate 1,000–5,000, in Die Stadt, die sterben sollte: Hamburg im Bombenkrieg, Juli 1943(Hamburg 2003), p. 54.

29 Adolf Pauly, in Severin (ed.), Briefe an einen Pastor, Letter 43.

19    The Tempest

1 William Shakespeare, Complete Works, ed. Peter Alexander (London, 1951), Julius Caesar, I, iii, 46–52: Cassius tries to convince Casca that the terrible thunderstorm over Rome is a good omen.

2 Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang(Hamburg, 1981), p. 69.

3 See Hamburg Police Report, pp. 70–72. The four special hospital trains were destroyed in the night raid of 29 July.

4 Wanda Chantler (née Wanziunia Cieniewska-Radziwill), interview with the author, 5 July 2004.

5 Hamburg Police Report, p. 21. The German text is reproduced in Erhard Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg über Deutschland 1939–1945: Deutsche Berichte und Pressestimmen des neutralen Auslands(München, 1963), p. 53.

6 Franz Termer, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 175.

7 On 30 July 1943 Harris split his force into three for raids on Turin and Genoa in northern Italy, and Remscheid in the Ruhr valley. The Italian raids were called off by the Air Ministry at short notice, so only the Remscheid raid went ahead. See UK National Archives, AIR 24/257.

8 Night Raid Report no. 391, UK National Archives, AIR 14/3410.

9 Operations Record Book of 1409 Met. Flight, UK National Archives, AIR 29/867.

10 Operations Record Book of 83 Squadron, Pathfinder Force, UK National Archives, AIR 27/687.

11 UK National Archives AIR 27/538.

12 These were a 7 Squadron Stirling, piloted by Pilot Officer W. E. Stenhouse, whose undercarriage collapsed on landing; and a 300 Squadron Wellington of the Polish Air Force, which burst into flames when Flight Lieutenant J. Spychala was forced to crash-land in a field in Nottinghamshire. See UK National Archives, AIR 27/1657 and AIR 27/100. See also W. R. Chorley, Bomber Command Losses vol. 4 (1943)(Hersham, 2004), pp. 254 and 258.

13 Bill McCrea, A Chequer-Board of Nights(Preston, 2003), p. 82.

14 Typescript diary of Major J. K. Christie, 2–3 August 1943, RAF Museum Hendon, MF10016/5. Christie’s rank was a Norwegian one.

15 McCrea, Chequer-Board, p. 82.

16 Colin Harrison, interview with the author, 8 December 2004. James Sullivan, interview with the author, 9 December 2004.

17 Sergeant C. C. Leeming, 620 Squadron, quoted in Martin Middle-brook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), p. 310.

18 Ted Groom, 460 Squadron, interview with the author, 11 November 2004.

19 Manuscript diary of Sergeant Dennis George Eli Brookes, RAF Museum Hendon, X001–3536/010.

20 UK National Archives, AIR 27/203. See also Gordon Musgrove, Operation Gomorrah(London, 1981), p. 153.

21 Sergeant A. Stephen, in Middlebrook, Battle of Hamburg, pp. 312–13.

22 These were: a 35 Squadron Halifax, piloted by Sergeant E. Solomon (of which Sergeant Stephen was a crew member), a 214 Squadron Stirling (McGarvey), a 300 Squadron Wellington (Smyk), and a 419 Squadron Halifax (Sobin). All these planes had survivors to testify to the fact that ice brought them down. Several others were lost without trace, and it is likely that some were also victims of the conditions.

23 This was a Lancaster of 115 Squadron piloted by Pilot Officer R. J. Mosen. See Chorley, Bomber Command Losses, p. 257.

24 I.e. 3rd Gruppeof 1st Nachtjagdgeschwader. There are no accurate equivalents to German units in the RAF or the USAAF; however, this can be loosely translated into British terms as 3 Squadron of No. 1 Night Fighter Group, or in American terms as 3rd Group of 1st Bombardment Wing. See Appendix D, page 367.

25 Wilhelm Johnen, Duel Under the Stars(Manchester, 1994), p. 73.

26 There are several instances of this happening on that night. For example, Leonard Cooper’s 7 Squadron plane was attacked five times by a pair of night fighters before his pilot managed to lose them (interview with the author, 19 November 2004); Flight Lieutenant C. M. Shannon’s 76 Squadron plane was approached three times by the same Messerschmitt before losing it – see Gordon Musgrove, Operation Gomorrah(London, 1981), p. 151.

27 See Chorley, Bomber Command Losses, p. 256.

28 These four are: a 12 Squadron Lancaster piloted by Flight Officer S. Norris, a 158 Squadron Halifax (Davie), and two 405 Squadron Halifaxes (Phillips and Gregory). Ibid., pp. 255–8.

29 Rudolf Schurig, quoted in Rudolf Wolter, Erinnerung an Gomorrha(Hamburg, 2003), pp. 125, 131–2; Schurig corroborates both the figures and the sentiments in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen’s Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 200.

30 For Peter Swan’s own description of his ordeal, see Kevin Wilson, Bomber Boys(London, 2005), pp. 276–8.

31 Trevor Timperley, interview with the author, 17 November 2004.

32 Colin Harrison, interview with the author, 8 December 2004.

33 Bill McCrea, interview with the author, 8 December 2004.

34 This figure does not include the 57 Squadron Lancaster written off on take-off, but it does include a Wellington of 166 Squadron (Burton) that was lost while laying mines in the Elbe estuary. See Chorley, Bomber Command Losses, pp. 254–9.

35 UK National Archives, AIR 14/3410.

36 Hamburg Police Report, p. 17; Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, pp. 43–4.

37 See, for example, Waldemar Hansen’s, Friedrich Sparmann’s, Helene Hadenfeldt’s and N.N.’s accounts in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 169, 182, 183–4, 186–8.

38 Hamburg Police Report, pp. 36–7.

Part Three

20    City of the Dead

1 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, vol I: Inferno, canto 28, lines 1–3, trans. and ed. Robert M. Durling (New York, 1996). This canto describes the beginning of Dante’s final descent through the ninth circle of hell to its frozen core. Dante goes on to say, ‘It is no task to take in jest, that of describing the bottom of the universe’ (canto 32, lines 7–8); sentiments that I could not help but keep with me as I wrote this chapter.

2 For statistics on damage to the harbour installations, see USSBS, Economic Effects of the Air Offensive against German Cities: A Detailed study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Hamburg, Germany(November 1945), p. 12.

3 Hamburg Police Report, p. 37.

4 Interview with Annegret Hennings, in Kerstin Rasmuβen and Gunnar Wulf (eds), Es war ja Krieg(Hamburg, 1993), p. 94.

5 Gretl Büttner, in Carl F. Miller (ed.), Appendixes 8 through 19 to the Hamburg Police President’s Report on the Large Scale Attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in World War II(Stanford, December 1968), Appendix 10, pp. 119–20, although my translation differs very slightly. Erhard Klöss (ed.) Der Luftkrieg über Deutschland 1939–1945: Deutsche Berichte und Pressestimmen des neutralen Auslandsgives the original German, pp. 104–5.

6 Hamburg Police Report, p. 43.

7 Ibid., pp. 72–3, 75.

8 Ludwig Faupel, typescript account, FZH 292–8, A–F, p. 8.

9 See Luise Solmitz’s diary, 17 August 1943, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 343; see also Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 99.

10 Hamburg Police Report, p. 74.

11 Jan Melsen, quoted in Ulrike Jureit and Beate Meyer (eds), Verletzungen: Lebensgeschichtliche Verarbeitung von Kriegserfahrungen(Hamburg, 1994), pp. 149–50.

12 Ibid., p. 150.

13 Hamburg Police Report, p. 22.

14 Die Zeit, 30 July 1993.

15 Ben Witter interview for Thames Television’s The World at War, IWM Sound Archive 2916/01. This quote has been lightly edited, but only to remove repetition of the same phrases.

16 Jan Melsen, in Jureit and Meyer (eds), Verletzungen, p. 151.

17 Ben Witter interview for Thames Television’s The World at War.

18 Hamburger Zeitung, 29 July, 1 August and 15 August 1943. See also Hamburg Police Report, pp. 4, 82–3; and Miller (ed.), Appendixes, Appendix 17.

19 See Hamburg Police Report, p. 82.

20 Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, On the Other Side, pp. 76 and 80.

21 Nossack, Der Untergang, pp. 99–100.

22 See, for example, Herman Sieveking, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 299.

23 Gretl Büttner, in Miller (ed.) Appendixes, Appendix 10, p. 119. The original German account has been reproduced in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, p. 104.

24 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 68.

25 Ibid., pp. 72–3.

26 Hamburg Police Report, p. 79.

27 Ibid., p. 76.

28 USSBS, Economic Effects, p.7a.

29 See contemporary photographs of Gothenstrasse.

30 There is perhaps some truth in this rumour – the Hamburg Police Report mentions it, and Liselotte Gerke, whom I interviewed, said that this happened to her. She was convinced for months that it was a sort of divine punishment for entering the forbidden area.

31 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 99. According to police pathologists this was unlikely to be true, at least in the early days (Miller (ed.), Appendixes, Appendix 15, p. 211), and I have not come across any first-hand accounts describing such scenes.

32 See Martin Caidin, The Night Hamburg Died(London, 1966), pp. 142–7, and the refutation of this myth in Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), pp. 328–9 and Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 244–5.

33 See Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 98 for rumours. See USSBS, Economic Effects, p. 7a for probable number of deaths.

21    Survival

1 The words of the angels to Lot, as they saved him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife did look back, and as a consequence was turned into a pillar of salt.

2 Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang(Hamburg, 1981), p. 136.

3 René Ratouis, Mémoires de guerre d’un non-combattant(Paris, 2003), p. 117.

4 According to the situation report of the head welfare officer at the end of September 1943, cellars everywhere were overflowing with people, and families were often forced to sleep six to a room. See Monika Sigmund et al. (eds), ‘ Man versuchte längs zu kommen, und man lebt ja noch…’: Frauenalltag in St Pauli in Kriegs– und Nachkriegszeit(Hamburg, 1996), p. 25.