While the exodus of civilians accelerated, there was also significant movement in the opposite direction. Not only were the emergency services pouring men and equipment into Hamburg, but the Luftwaffe was doing all it could to bolster the city’s defences. Mobile flak units were brought to the outskirts of Hamburg by train from all around, and huge numbers of searchlights arrived. Fire-fighters worked ceaselessly to control the flames before the Allies could return to stoke them, certain that the bombers would indeed be back. It was now merely a matter of time.
Whenever the air-raid alarm sounded, everyone made directly for their shelters. The relaxed atmosphere that had prevailed a week ago was now a thing of the past, and there was a new, frightened urgency to everyone’s actions. On Wednesday night, not even twenty-four hours after the firestorm, the sirens sounded and there was an immediate rush for the bunkers. It was a false alarm – the RAF were resting their crews, and had merely sent four Mosquitos over the city on a nuisance raid – but it meant that the remnants of Hamburg’s exhausted population were deprived of sleep for a fifth night in a row. The next day there were no fewer than five major alarms, which repeatedly threw the rescue and evacuation effort into chaos. Some were caused by British reconnaissance planes, but the most serious one was brought about by a large force of American B-17s heading for the area. It turned out that the USAAF were flying on to Kiel, so Hamburg was spared for another few hours, but its people remained in a state of high anxiety for the rest of the day.
Although it was aimed at a different city, this last American raid had an unforeseen effect on Hamburg. Afraid that disaster was about to overtake Kiel, the authorities suddenly withdrew all the motorized Air Protection battalions that had been drafted into Hamburg and sent them northwards. In their absence, fires that had been half extinguished flared up, and the Hamburg fire service was hopelessly stretched again. The authorities had allowed panic to get the better of them, and for several hours in the middle of the day confusion reigned before the units were sent back to where they were most needed. 2
That the Nazi authorities were so worried about this daytime raid on Kiel is a measure of how seriously they were beginning to take the new American threat. However, for the moment at least, the USAAF was a spent force. General Eaker had been fighting a desperate battle over the past few days. On Wednesday he had lost twenty-two planes in two ill-fated missions over Kassel and Oschersleben. On Thursday he lost a further ten planes over Kiel and Warnemünde. By the end of that week alone the total loss would be a hundred planes, with the equivalent of ninety crews killed, wounded or missing; he was forced to ground his shaken and exhausted crews for the next two weeks to give them time to rebuild their strength. 3
As dusk approached on Thursday, 29 July, the few people who remained in Hamburg headed straight for the bunkers – or at least made certain they were within immediate running distance of somewhere safe, should the alarm sound. Most no longer cared whether the shelters were comfortable or convenient: the only criterion now was how safe they were. The huge Hochbunkers, like those at Dammtor and the Heiligengeistfeld, had become popular because of the way they had withstood the previous attacks. Few people trusted their cellars now – there was no longer any sense in taking risks.
As darkness fell, the streets were quickly deserted. A stillness descended on Hamburg unlike anything it had experienced in all its 750-year history. Almost a million people had fled, leaving whole districts empty, and soon there was nothing to disturb the silence but the wind that whistled through the glowing ruins. The city on the Elbe was little more than a ghost town.
* * *
While the remnants of Hamburg’s population was seeking refuge for the night, the British were preparing to attack. For most of the day it had seemed doubtful that another raid on Hamburg would be worthwhile: Harris was worried that smoke would obscure the target, making it impossible for the bomber force to locate it properly. But that afternoon a reconnaissance flight over the city had returned with the news that a light wind was blowing the smoke inland, leaving the skies above Hamburg relatively clear. He gave the order to proceed as planned.
For the 5,500 men who attended briefings that evening it was a case of déjà vu. Not only was the target the same, but the route there and back was similar too. They would be taking off at the same time (around 10.00 p.m.), bombing at approximately the same time (shortly before 1.00 a.m.), and returning to base at the same time (at around 4.00 a.m.). The first and last turning points were identical to Tuesday night’s, and the final approach to Hamburg would be almost the same line they had taken on Saturday night. 4In fact, everything was so similar to what had gone before that some crews felt they were tempting Fate. On the whole, however, most airmen seemed to think that it would be an easy ride, as the previous Hamburg raids had been.
The RAF planners at High Wycombe knew that it was dangerous to cross into northern Germany so close to the points they had chosen on the two previous nights, but such was their faith in Window that they believed it was a risk worth taking. The route they had chosen was as short as they could practically make it, so that the 777 planes could carry heavier bomb loads. In short, they believed that it was worth sacrificing a little security to deal Hamburg the hardest blow possible.
They knew exactly where the danger zones would be. As the British Pathfinders crossed the German coast they were supposed to drop red route markers to show the way for the rest of the bomber stream. But the flares would be just as useful to the German night fighters in their search for prey – as soon as they were dropped, every night fighter in the area would flock to them like moths to a flame, certain that the British planes would pass through that one point.
The only way to protect the bombers against ambush was to create a diversion. With this in mind, four Mosquitos were sent to drop bundles of Window along an alternative route, to make it look as though a second bomber stream was approaching Hamburg from the direction of Bremen. To add to the deception they would also drop decoy route markers about sixty miles south-west of the bombers’ real landfall. 5The idea was that the Germans would have to split their defences in two, making it twice as likely that the real bomber stream would slip through unmolested.
This, then, was the plan of attack for the night of Thursday, 29 July 1943, and, with Window still working wonders, nobody had any reason to suspect that it would be anything but a milk run.
There were a few mishaps on take-off, and a small percentage of early returns due to technical problems. By and large this was nothing to be concerned about, although a 100 Squadron Lancaster collapsed on the runway at Grimsby, blocking it so badly that the twelve aircraft behind it could not take off. 6While ground staff tried to sort out the mess, the rest of the bomber stream was gathering over the North Sea and heading towards Germany. They flew largely undisturbed until they reached their first turning point, about sixty miles north-west of Heligoland.
The problems started shortly after the Pathfinders began to drop the first route markers. As predicted, all the German fighters in the area headed straight for them, knowing that this was the one place they were guaranteed to find their prey. What the British had notanticipated was how strong the German response would be. Over the past five days there had been a radical change in German tactics of which the introduction of Wilde Saufighters was only a part. Now that the Luftwaffe could no longer rely on radar they had been forced to give their individual fighters a much freer rein. No longer were they expected to stick to their allocated boxes along the coast, they were now allowed to amass wherever they were most likely to find the British. German fighter controllers still gave a running commentary over the radio about the height and general position of the bomber stream, but it was up to individual fighters to find and kill their prey, using nothing more technical than their eyes. 7