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Posts tagged with RAF

Diver’s footage of RAF Hampden P2123
2024-12-19 16:40:00 UTC
‘I pancaked the aircraft on to the surface… …about 1/4 mile from the coast.’ – P. O. Romans, September 1, 1940 – Photo: Rob Spray/BBC Last week surfaced that remains of Hampden P2123 of 44 Squadron were filmed for the first time off the north Norfolk coast by sealife diver…

S-Bahn-Symbole
2024-10-10 14:51:00 UTC
Photo: still from film, Chronos Media Walking around the modern buildings at Potsdamer Platz and the immensity of the Sony Center in Berlin, few visitors notice a display case placed a few steps from the access hall of the underground station. Inside the glass façade, an old metal signal stands…

The Marks of War
2024-09-11 19:42:00 UTC
‘Miss U.S. Embassy, Hit Brandenburg Gate… …Germans Say.’ – The New York Times, Wednesday, September 11, 1940 – Photo: Süddeutsche Zeitung. On September 10/11, 1940 (OTD 84 years ago last night), RAF fliers raided the centre of Berlin again. First air-alarms sounded starting at 23.54 hrs[1] with searchlights and…

Bombenschäden August 1940 - 2024
2024-08-29 08:26:00 UTC
‘Berlin night raid lasts for 3 hours… …British bomb populous section of the city - other damage also reported.’ – The New York Times, Thursday, August 29, 1940 – Photo: Archiv Sobotta/ AKG-images (5438572) Last night 84th years ago (28/29 August 1940), Berlin tasted the bloody and…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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