39 See the description of Mission no. 53 on 303rd Bomb Group Association’s CDRom, The Molesworth Story(2nd edition). Yankee Doodle Dandywas Aircraft 42–5264.
40 Ibid. Grimm’s DFC was awarded in 1992, forty-seven years after the paperwork requesting it had been lost.
41 According to Paul Gordy, quoted in Middlebrook, Battle of Hamburg, p. 219.
13 The Americans Again
1 William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power – Economic and Military(New York, 1925), p. 163. Mitchell argued that to face such dangers required extraordinary moral qualities, so the fledgling US Air Force should only accept men of the highest calibre.
2 For all the statistics in the following paragraphs, except where otherwise stated, see VIII Bomber Command Report of Operations, and the 1st Bombardment Wing Report of Operations, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 941. Statistics for missions other than those to Hamburg are taken from Roger A. Freeman, The Mighty Eighth War Diary(London, 1990).
3 As always, there is some discrepancy in the statistics. These numbers are taken from the 1st Bombardment Wing Report of Operations for 25 July; but the VIII Bomber Command ‘Analysis of Enemy Aircraft Encounters’ for the day lists forty-four destroyed, six probables and twenty-eight damaged (a copy of this is available in the UK National Archives, AIR 40/425). Either way, the figures are greatly exaggerated.
4 These figures for German fighters lost are Martin Middlebrook’s, in The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), p. 218. His figures are not always reliable (for example, he says the Americans claimed forty-one enemy aircraft destroyed when the 1st Bombardment Wing Report of Operations lists thirty-eight), but the main point still stands: American claims were vastly inflated.
5 See Freeman, Mighty Eighth War Diary, pp. 78–83 for exact figures: between 24 and 31 July 1943, the USAAF despatched 1672 B-17s and 261 B-26s to twenty-three different target areas.
6 See 303rd BG Report on Mission, 26 July 1943, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 729, Folder 2. See also VIII Bomber Command Narrative of Operations, Mission No. 77, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 941, Folder 1; and Middlebrook, Battle of Hamburg, pp. 223–4.
7 See VIII Bomber Command Narrative of Operations, Mission No. 77, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 941, Folder 1.
8 See 1st Bombardment Wing Narrative of Operations, 26 July 1943, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 941, Folder 1. For 351st BG reasons for abortive missions, see their Mission Summary Report, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 1002, Folder 22.
9 The flak, though intense, was ‘somewhat lighter than that experienced in the raid of 25 July’. In 351st BG, for example, only a quarter of the planes were damaged by flak, compared with three-quarters the day before. See Group Leader’s Narrative, and Mission Summary Report, 351st BG, 26 July 1943, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 1002, Folder 22.
10 See Immediate Interpretation Report, No. S.A.417, UK National Archives, AIR 40/426.
11 Martin Middlebrook claims wrongly that this plane was called Local Girlby her crew (see Battle of Hamburg, p. 231), but the 91st BG website is adamant that it was called Nitemare. See Lowell L. Getz’s 2001 article ‘Mary Ruth Memories of Mobile… We Still Remember’ on the 91st Group website:http://www.91stbombgroup.com/maryruth4.htm (last viewed 22 June 2005). The name is backed up by Roger Freeman and David Osborne, The B-17 Flying Fortress Story(London, 1998), p. 88.
12 See US Bomber Command Narrative of Operations, and 351st BG’s Teletype Field Order No. 172 A, Narrative, US National Archives RG18, E7, Box 1002, Folder 22.
14 The Eye of the Storm
1 Clem McCarthy, radio commentator, describing boxer Max Schmeling seconds before the ‘Brown Bomber’, Joe Louis, knocked him out in the famous 1938 world heavyweight title fight; quoted by David Margolick, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink(London, 2005), p. 298.
2 These are British reconnaissance observations; see Immediate Interpretation Report Nos S.A. 410, and S.A. 417, UK National Archives, AIR 24/257; and Supplement to Immediate Interpretation Report No. K.1626, UK National Archives, AIR 40/426. American intelligence reports agree, but are slightly less detailed: see US Immediate Interpretation Report Nos 9 and 10, US National Archives, RG18, E7, Box 1040, Folder 3.
3 Rudolf Schurig, quoted in Rudolf Wolter, Erinnerung an Gomorrha(Hamburg, 2003), p. 125.
4 Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, quoted in Volker Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943: Literarische Zeugnisse Zum Feuersturm(Frankfurt am Main, 2003), p. 165.
5 See Hamburg damage report, UK National Archives, AIR 40/426; Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 2003), pp. 198–9, 202–6; Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), pp. 153 and 155–9. See also eyewitness reports by, among others, Ilse Grassmann, Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg; and Erwin Garvens, Heinrich Reincke, Franz Termer and Vilma Mönckeberg-Kollmar, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993).
6 Hamburg Police Report, pp. 32–3, UK National Archives, AIR 20/7287.
7 Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, in Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943, p. 162.
8 Ibid., pp. 161–2.
9 Franz Termer, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophepp. 51–2.
10 ‘Klöntreff “Eimsbüttel im Feuersturm”’, unpublished transcript of local-history group conversation, Galerie Morgenland/Geschichtwerkstatt, Sprecherin 2, p. 12.
11 Indeed, Goebbels himself had insisted that taxes on cinema and theatre tickets would not be raised for this very reason. See Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, trans. and ed. Louis P. Lochner (London, 1948), 20 March 1943, p. 241.
12 Many eyewitness reports from the time attest to how much the loss of these buildings distressed people. See, for example, the testimonies by Franz Termer and Vilma Mönckeberg-Kollmar, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 50–51 and 54.
13 Official report, ‘Bericht über die Katastrophennacht am 25.7.43 im Tierpark Carl Hagenbeck’, sent to the author by Klaus Gille, Hagenbeck Tierpark.
14 Middlebrook claims the animals were killed by American bombs (see Battle of Hamburg, p. 201), but he misinterprets the account in the Hamburg Police Report: when it says they died in the ‘second attack’, it means the second largeattack – i.e., the British night raid of 27/28 July.
15 For witnesses to the destruction of these churches, see Ilse Grassmann, Ausgebombt: Ein Hausfrauen Kriegstagebuch von Ilse Grassmann(Hamburg, 2003), p. 22; and Otto Johns and Heinrich Reincke, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 28 and 39.
16 Hauptpastor Simon Schöffel in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 23.
17 Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, in Hage (ed.), Hamburg 1943, p. 166; Erwin Garvens, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 37.
18 Erwin Garvens, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 37.
19 In the chaos that followed the first night of attacks, all the city’s newspapers had been forced to merge into one: the Hamburger Zeitung. However, since there was only enough paper to print this on a single sheet, it was really only an emergency organ for getting essential messages to the people about where they could find rations and water, who could leave the city, and so on.