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Destruction
Whitleys
and Wellingtons
Frankfurt
was bombed from late 1941 on, at first of
course only by the
Royal Bomber Command,
which in the early stages of the war used two
bomber aircraft. One was the Armstrong Whitworth
Whitley, a five-seat heavy bomber first put into
service in March 1937 and able which could carry
almost 34,000 pounds. The other bomber used
early on by the British was the Vickers
Wellington. It had a six-member crew, was put
into service in October 1938, could carry almost
26,000 pounds, and about the same cruising speed
as the Whitley. They carried and dropped
high-explosive bombs,
weighing from 250 to 1,000 pounds, and
incendiary bombs -- thermite or magnesium
bombs that burned at 1200o F or higher. The
latter were relatively light compared to the
high-explosive bombs and were often dropped in
clusters. They were effective, and reports back
from raids on Frankfurt in September 1941 noted
"Large Fires started," "some fierce burning,
"many large and small fires in the target area,"
and the like.
Day into Night
The
British at first attacked in daytime, but by
mid-1949 driven by heavy losses of bombers to
German fighters switched to night bombing and
also abandoned the so-called "private property"
rule against indiscriminate bombing of cities.
These early night bombings were notoriously
inaccurate, given that the crews flying at night
had to resort to dead reckoning to tell them
when they were supposedly over the target; and
even when correctly targeted about 40 percent of
the dropped bombs didn't explode. That changed
as heavier bombers were used, and as navigation
skills were both sharpened by better training
and strengthened through the debut of electronic
aids, including early radar.
Bombing
Survey
Frankfurt, setting aside
industrial targets, was bombed more heavily by
the Royal Bomber Command than by the US Army Air
Force, principally the Eighth Air Force. Quite
predictably, the bombings intensified in 1944 -
in number, ferocity, and devastation. A rather
remarkable collection of documents, the US,
Strategic Bombing Survey, which includes both
British and American assessments of the impact
(with the British much more meticulous and
assertive in writing up the results). Thus, the
British assessments report that:
* In a series of
attacks on Frankfurt by both the Bomber Command
and the US 8th Air force between 8th February
-- 24th March 1944, about 33% of all buildings
in town were seriously damaged. Of the
population of 543,000, [it is] estimated that
173,500 lost their homes in this series of
attacks. The calculated number of casualties was
between 2200 and 4400 killed, and the same range
seriously injured. The attack was heavy and
concentrated over the entire build area of the
town. Densities of 50 to 250 tons per square
mile. "[Overall], heavy attacks were made on
Berlin and Frankfurt, and by the end of the
month [March '44], the combined efforts of the
two air forces had put Frankfurt near the head
of Germany's devastated cities." (emphasis
added)
* "The cumulative effects of Allied air attacks
on Frankfurt indicate that about 45 % of all
buildings in the city have been seriously
damaged. About 73,000 dwelling units are
estimated to have been rendered uninhabitable,
equivalent to about 40% of the dwelling units in
town."
Somewhat oddly, Frankfurter's West End, where I
lived with my mother, was spared. That included
the Palmengarten and the headquarters of IG
Farben, the German chemical conglomerate. The IG
Farben building later became the headquarters
for the US occupation authority, which only
intensified
suspicions about its survival throughout
the bombings.
[See
Speedbird
for
a historical follow-up by one of the bomber
pilots.]
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