While the stricken plane was making its long descent to the ground, something unusual happened in the skies above. As the fifty or so remaining bombers were making their way back to the coast they were joined by nine strange B-17s, which tried to slot themselves into the American formation. They had none of the usual markings of an American plane, such as the call and identification letters, and their waist-gun windows were closed. When one tried to join 351st BG the other crews became suspicious and fired a few warning rounds at it. It turned immediately and headed back into Germany. Presumably they were captured planes that the Luftwaffe hoped to slot into the American formation either to gather intelligence or to attack it – German records for that day are somewhat patchy and do not mention what they were hoping to achieve. Whatever the case, the strange B-17s turned away after the Americans had crossed the coast and returned to Germany, accompanied by two twin-engined fighters. 12
There was only one other loss for the Hamburg force. On the way home a second plane from 91st BG ran out of fuel and had to land in the sea. Its pilot, Lieutenant Jack Hargis, took the plane down gently, and the crew got into their dinghies without much trouble. They were eventually brought home by an RAF rescue launch (which also had to tow home the two Walrus seaplanes that had originally come to rescue them, but which were unable to take off again due to rough seas).
The Hamburg wings had been incredibly lucky. Their loss of just two planes and one crew made this one of the cheapest bombing raids the Eighth Air Force had ever flown over Germany. The wings that had flown to Hanover that day were not so lucky. Like the Hamburg force on the previous day they had attracted most of the German fighters, and sixteen B-17s had been shot down. A further six had been lost by a wing that never made it to Hanover, but bombed Wilhelmshaven, Wesermünde and a convoy off the Frisian Islands. The huge losses took the shine off the Hamburg ‘milk run’: the loss rate was still 12 per cent of the effective planes, well over twice what was considered sustainable.
Over the coming days such losses continued. On Wednesday, 28 July, twenty-two American planes were shot down over Kassel and Oschersleben. Another ten were lost on Thursday, and twelve more on Friday. By the end of the week eighty-eight Flying Fortresses had gone, with another dozen so badly damaged that they had to be scrapped. Nearly nine hundred American airmen were dead, wounded or missing. The following weekend VIII Bomber Command retired to lick their wounds, and for the next two weeks the American B-17s ceased flying. Despite some good bombing results, including those at Hamburg, their attempts to make their mark in the skies over Germany had only left them depleted and demoralized. This was one battle that the Luftwaffe seemed to have won.
14. The Eye of the Storm
First the left and then the right!… But he’s held to his feet, held to the ropes, looked to his corner in helplessness!
Clem McCarthy 1
The attacks by the USAAF on 25 and 26 July shocked Hamburg. The city had not seen a daylight raid since the beginning of the war, and it had certainly never seen American planes fly over it: that formations of Flying Fortresses were now daring to approach Hamburg in broad daylight suggested that Germany’s enemies felt a new confidence.
Despite their losses in the air, the Americans had been able to do considerable damage to the port. The Blohm & Voss works had suffered quite badly, with severe hits on the construction, the ship-fitters’ and engine-erecting shops, the boiler-house, power station, foundry and tool stores. Two of the dry docks had also been heavily damaged. In the Howaldtswerke factory several furnaces were now out of action, as were the shipbuilding and machinery sheds, and the diesel engine works. The USAAF had also scored direct hits on the power station at Neuhof, the oil stores beside Rosshafen and many of the nearby railway sidings. 2
While none of this would have directly affected most people in Hamburg, the effect on their morale is incalculable. They were still seriously shaken by the Saturday-night bombing, and that they would now have to endure daylight attacks as well was alarming. Rudolf Schurig was out in the centre of Hamburg when the alarm went off for the first American raid, and remembers how frightened everyone suddenly was: ‘The sirens sounded once more – the Fliegeralarm. Terror and dismay played across people’s faces all over again. Women grabbed their children, men grabbed their wives, and they hurried to the nearest air-raid shelter where whole crowds were gathering. I have never seen the people of Hamburg running in such panic because of an air-raid siren!’ 3
Hiltgunt Zassenhaus remembered sheltering the next day during the second American attack. In the shelter everyone was even more nervous than usual because of the destruction they had already witnessed:
Shortly after ten we heard a distant hum over the clouds; the sound came nearer, became a roar. The sirens had failed, but the doom-laden drone in the heavens was warning enough. We hurried down to the cellar of the Institute. Professors, students, women and children, men in blue work overalls, covered with dust from labouring in the debris. The room had no windows. The power had failed. We stood pressed up close to one another in the dark and listened to the noise outside. It sounded like they were attacking the harbour. Then there was a crash nearby. We huddled together in breathless silence. Even the children said nothing. 4
It was the incessant nature of the attacks that made them so difficult to bear. By attacking so soon after the British raid, the Americans had seriously hampered the rescue effort – and since the entire city was engaged in putting out the old fires there was nobody to deal with the new ones caused by the B-17s. To make things worse, the RAF had sent six Mosquito bombers to Hamburg on Sunday night, and again on Monday, with the sole purpose of causing as much nuisance as possible. After what had happened on Saturday night, nobody was taking any risks, and the entire city had huddled inside its air-raid shelters for several hours on both nights. Among their obvious material woes, the whole population was now suffering from severe sleep deprivation.
It was not until Tuesday that the people of Hamburg got any peace. In the lull that day, the city authorities were finally able to get a clear picture of the damage that had been done. It was not a pretty one. Worst hit were the areas around Altona and Eimsbüttel in the west of the city where whole districts had been burned to the ground. Barmbek was also fairly heavily damaged, and the port area on the south shore of the Elbe had been hit by all three raids in succession. With the damage to power lines, and the destruction of Neuhof power station, electricity was now limited. The gas and water mains had been breached in countless places, which hindered the fire services’ efforts to extinguish the fires. The transport systems in the worst hit areas were now non-existent, although the main train lines in and out of the city were still functioning. There was major disruption to the telephone network within Hamburg, and after the destruction of the long-distance exchange in Rotherbaum all lines to the rest of Germany were defunct. 5
Almost all of the fires had been brought under control, which had required a Herculean effort. However, according to Hamburg’s chief of police, by the evening of Tuesday, 27 July, there were still fifty large fires burning across the west of Hamburg, and a further 1,130 smaller ones that the fire-fighters had been unable to put out. Despite heavy reinforcement from other northern German fire units, the sheer number of fires had been overwhelming. At the height of the crisis eighty-seven kilometres of street frontage had been ablaze in the west of the city alone. There were several singlefires that covered an area of four square kilometres or more: such conflagrations were simply too big to deal with. The best the firemen could do was put out smaller outbreaks at the edges, and stop the blaze spreading. By nightfall on 27 July, almost every fire-fighter in Hamburg was still working in the west of the city. Most had had no rest and little food for three days. But the situation, broadly speaking, was stable. 6