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Posts tagged with RAF

  1. The Fifth Raid: 3/4 September

    2023-12-13 19:52:00 UTC

    BERLIN BOMBED AGAIN Power stations and armament works attacked – The Times, September 5, 1940 – Photo: © IWM (CH 15644) With the arrival of the new month of September a new phase in the air war was about to begin between Berlin and London. The invasion menace…


  2. The First Raids On Berlin

    2023-08-30 18:02:00 UTC

    Our numbers were small and there is no claim that much damage… resulted from our bombing but it’s very likely these raids had a consequential effect; triggering a most profound change of strategy by the enemy.’ Photo: 115 Squadron Association/ Scottish Saltire Aircrew Association. On the 83rd anniversary of…


  3. Razzles - Firing the Grunewald Forest

    2023-06-26 09:02:00 UTC

    R.A.F. Fires German Forests – The New York Times, September 5, 1940 – Photo: John Frost newspapers. In the late summer of 1940, while the Battle of Britain was raging overhead, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command Air Marshal Charles Portal directed a new strategy to his squadrons. So,…


  4. August summary - The early days

    2023-01-09 13:54:00 UTC

    In case there is an attack on the centre of Government in London, it seems very important to return the compliment the next day upon in Berlin. I understand you will have by the end of this month a respectable party of Stirlings ready. Perhaps the nights are not


  5. Wittenbergplatz im Krieg

    2022-11-18 16:30:15 UTC

    Crashed at Wittenbergplatz, Berlin Photo: akg-images (AKG55275). Located between Nollendorfplatz and Auguste Viktoria Platz (today’s Breitscheidplatz), Wittenbergplatz is one of the best known plazas of the city of Berlin. It was laid out between 1889 and 1892 in the course of urban development in the western suburbs of…


  6. Crashed at Wittenbergplatz, Berlin

    2022-10-18 18:17:00 UTC

    Tonight you are going to the Big City.  You will have the opportunity to light a fire in the belly of the enemy that will burn his black heart out’– Sir Arthur Harris, Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command – Photo: Wings Aviation Museum. At around 03:20 hrs, amongst a…


  7. Luftangriff – 1 September 1940

    2022-09-02 10:45:00 UTC

    ‘Berlin has Alarm in new R.A.F. raid’  British Formation Reported Broken Up at Elbe Before Reaching the Capital.’ The New York Times, Sunday, September 1, 1940 – Photo: ullstein bild. On the night of 31 August / 1 September, 1940, RAF Bomber Command aircraft overflew…


  8. Four in a row: 31 August 1940

    2022-07-01 16:48:00 UTC

    ‘R.A.F. planes renew attack on Berlin… …Sirens Sound in Capital After Heavy Bombing of Previous Night.’ – The New York Times, Sunday, September 1, 1940 – Photo: Fotosearch/Getty Images. Following the attacks made on three previous nights, the British air bombing offensive didn’t stop: on the last night of the…


  9. Heart of Berlin Bombed

    2022-04-28 15:18:00 UTC

    ‘British Bombs set Big Fires in Berlin. Nazis Blast London’  – New York Journal-American, Saturday, 31 August, 1940 – Photo by UMBO/ ullstein bild. On the night of August 30/31, 1940, the air alarm sirens and the anti-aircraft bursts woke up Berliners from their sleep again, who hurried…


  10. British third raid on Berlin

    2022-04-03 14:56:00 UTC

    ‘Two nights later we returned to Berlin… …to be met by numerous searchlights and well directed and intensive flak. The raids must have destroyed the myth of German invincibility, thus causing considerable anger to Hitler and Goering who had boasted that such raids would never happen.’ – Squadron Leader Andrew…


  11. Der Hansaplatz-Bezirk

    2022-03-14 15:31:00 UTC

    [Severe devastation can be seen in this aerial picture of the northern Tiergarten and Hansaviertel district after the war, taken in winter 1945.] Photo: Senatsverwaltung für Bau- und Wohnungswesen Berlin Luftbildstelle. Located in the northwestern Tiergarten, the Hansaviertel was built from the intersection of three main streets in a star-shaped…


  12. Bomben auf die Kottbusser Straße

    2021-11-30 11:51:00 UTC

    The photogallery we shared here show the damage inflicted by RAF Bomber Command air raid on the night of 28/29 August 1940 on Berlin, all captured in the Kottbusser Tor area within Berlin-Kreuzberg district. These pictures were taken on the following days of this second bombing, an air attack which…


  13. Luftangriffe auf Pergamon

    2021-10-08 18:19:00 UTC

    Photo: ©Zentralarchiv/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (ZA 1.1.6./04906). During the research work about Berlin city, its streets and its inhabitants during the war and the air bombings, it is quite common to come across photos that show the ruined state and the damage caused by the war, most of them taken…


  14. Britische Luftangriffe über Berlin

    2021-05-14 15:59:00 UTC

    ‘Ten killed in Berlin raid’. ‘Berlin gets a taste of bombs… …British bombers took a toll of ten killed and about thirty wounded in a workers’ section less than two miles from the Government offices in Wilhelmstraße. All the casualties were civilians. Preliminary reports gave no word of death or


  15. 𝐅𝐫𝐨̈𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐢𝐡𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐧, 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬

    2020-12-24 16:32:00 UTC

    It was a few years ago, December in Berlin and I was with some friends at a celebration at Alexanderplatz next to the typical Weihnachtsmarkt. When the fireworks began, explosions of colour, noise and lights fell in the middle of the intense cold and the first snowflakes. Around me, everyone…


  16. The last visit by a Mosquito

    2020-04-23 19:48:00 UTC

    [Photo: © raf-pathfinders.com.] [An unidentified air- and groundcrew of RAF No 627 Squadron posing for the camera in front of a Mosquito wooden bomber in Britain. Note the mission bomb log painted on the nose of the aircraft.] This week marks the 75th anniversary of the last strategic air raid


  17. Berlin unter Bomben • Steglitz

    2019-10-28 19:46:00 UTC

    ‘steht nichts’ [Photo: Trustees of the IWM / Tony Redding. Life and Death in Bomber Command. Fonthill Media, 2013.] [Berlin 1/2 March 1943: this night oblique taken by an RAF bomber during the raid shows smoke drifting from fires in the Steglitz area (A) and a concentration of fires around


  18. Yanks!

    2019-07-06 17:20:21 UTC

    On July 4th, 1942, RAF Bomber Command sent 12 Boston Mk III light bombers (American built Douglas A-20s bearing British roundels) to bomb in a daylight raid four German Luftwaffe airfields on Holland: De Koog, Bergen/Alkamaar, Haanstede and Valkenberg air bases. Half of these bombers were assigned to the…


  19. Bombers over Berlin!

    2019-05-20 09:43:00 UTC

    Bombers over Berlin, London… while Hitler’s bombers were making another raid on the London area early today, R.A.F. bombs shook Berlin.’ – Daily Mirror, Tuesday, August 26, 1940 – Photo: Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung (00011855). So far in the war, Berlin has not been attacked; there have been…


  20. “Back from Berlin”

    2019-05-02 20:04:32 UTC

    ‘The sporadic raiding of London towards the end of August was promptly answered by us in a retaliatory attack on Berlin. The War Cabinet were much in the mood to hit back, to raise the stakes, and to defy the enemy. I was sure they were right…’ – Winston S…


  21. The first one: August 25th, 1940

    2019-05-01 17:50:00 UTC

    They had bombed London, whether on purpose or not, and the British people and London especially should know that we could hit back. It would be good for the morale of us all’. – Winston S Churchill –  Photo: © IWM (H-3514). The prelude: LondonDuring the early…


  22. Big X!

    2019-03-24 19:49:00 UTC

    • THE GREAT ESCAPE •Tonight marks the 75th anniversary of the famous Great Escape’, the massive jailbreak from a German prisoners camp by Allied airmen in Poland [Squadron Leader Richard Churchill, RAF bomber pilot, seen here through the entrance of one of the three tunnels digged. He


  23. ‘Cookie’ delivery to Berlin

    2019-03-11 17:17:00 UTC

    26 million of German people lost their homes during the war, just in Berlin 600,000 apartments were destroyed, half of all houses were damaged and around a third uninhabitable, as much as 16 km² of the city was simply rubble. When the war came to an end in May 1945…


  24. Bombensturm! (Part IV)

    2019-02-05 20:18:00 UTC

    HC Bombs: [RAF ground crew push a 4,000-lb blast-bomb towards the bomb-bay of a Vickers Wellington of No 75 (NZ) Squadron at RAF Feltwell in May, 1942.] Photo: Imperial War Museums © IWM (TR 11). The strategic method to destroy German cities employed by Bomber Command in area bombings was…


  25. The RAF strikes the Opera

    2019-01-08 19:26:00 UTC

    9 / 10 APRIL 1941 On that night, Wednesday, RAF Bomber Command launched an operation against ‘the Big City’. The mixed attacking force comprised 80 bombers - 36 Wellingtons, 24 Hampdens, 17 Whitleys and 3 of the new Short Stirling heavy bomber. This was the first raid on…


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