By the time the last groups of bombers began to arrive over the target, the fires could be seen from a distance of 100 miles.

Assembling 1000 bombers, in the dark, without mishap, was an enormous undertaking.īritish bombers began taking off from 53 bases at 10:30 P.M. Harris eventually crewed enough planes with instructors and pupils to get to the number. But, before the raid, the Admiralty, after having initially agreed, refused to allow Coastal Command’s planes to participate, reasoning that the publicity was not worth risking an important part of its U-boat defense system. Air Marshal Harris had also expected to use 250 bombers from Coastal Command, which was under the command of the Royal Navy. Most of the balance came from Operational Training Units. Since British Bomber Command only had 416 'first-line' bombers, it had to really scrap to get to the magic number. There is plenty more to come.' The Prime Minister told Harris that, '.this proof of the growing power of Britain’s Bomber Force is also a herald of what Germany will receive, city by city, from now on.' Roosevelt, saying, 'I hope you were pleased with our mass air attack on Cologne. Churchill, telegraphed President Franklin D. The day following the raid, British Prime Minister, Sir Winston S. it is impossible! That many bombs cannot be dropped in a single night!' Author Daniel Swift described the result: 'Cologne was perfectly ruined, and what survived, like the front of the great Cathedral, stood only to mark the loss.' Of the 469 deaths, most were civilians. Luftwaffe Chief, Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, who had guaranteed that the Reich would never be bombed, refused to believe the reports saying, '. The RAF dropped 1455 tons of bombs, of which 2/3 were incendiaries. Within 90 minutes, downtown Cologne was utterly destroyed, together with 13,000 residences and 36 factories. On the night of May 30, 1942, 1046 British bombers delivered 2,000 tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs. With a population of 700,000, Cologne was the Reich’s third largest city. Hamburg would get its due from Bomber Command a year later when it was firebombed and virtually destroyed, killing more than 42,000. Originally, the target had been Hamburg, but weather considerations forced Bomber Command to switch targets.

The first target had been the ancient city of Cologne. It was thought that a headline-grabbing operation such as Operation Millennium would save the command. There had been calls to break up Bomber Command, because of studies showing a paucity of accuracy in its missions, and divert its resources to other areas, such as the antisubmarine campaign. For this and other schemes, Harris would earn the sobriquet, 'Bomber.' The impetus for these raids was publicity-fueled revenge for the damage done to London, Coventry and other southern English cities by the Luftwaffe. These raids were the brainchild of newly appointed - February - head of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris. This week, 70 years ago, the Royal Air Force launched its third, and last, 'Thousand Plane Raid' - codenamed Operation Millennium - against the Fatherland.

The thousand plane raid full movie