Bomber Command commander in chief Sir Richard Peirse at Bomber Command headquarters in 1941 with his deputy, Air Vice Marshal Robert Saundby. This image is more familiar with the figure of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris at the desk.
A flight of Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers in 1940. The Whitley was one of the mainstays of Bomber Command in the early months of the RAF campaign against Germany, though its performance was limited and it was poorly armed.
Political warfare leaflets are loaded onto an RAF bomber for delivery over occupied Germany. During the war, more than 1.4 billion leaflets were dropped by aircraft in the propaganda war against the Axis, and a further 95 million by balloon.
An RAF bomb store in October 1940. Rows of 500-pound bombs are waiting to be loaded onto Bomber Command aircraft for another night raid against Germany after five months of almost uninterrupted operations against German targets.
The Combined Bomber Offensive in action. The picture shows British and American air leaders at dinner in 1943. Seated facing the camera from left to right are Carl Spaatz, Charles Portal, Frederick Anderson, Ira Eaker (standing), Arthur Harris, and James Doolittle. In the center foreground is Trafford Leigh-Mallory.
Though relations between the RAF and the U.S. Eighth Air Force could be strained, publicity stunts, like this one on an RAF base, were designed to ease the tension. Here, members of a U.S. aircrew write messages on a British bomb destined for Germany.
Women workers at a Boeing plant in Seattle assemble electrical components for the B-17 bomber. As men were recruited to the services, women came to play a vital part in American war production.
In the United States, the outbreak of war brought active civilian defense regulations. Here, the head of the Office of Civilian Defense, Professor James Landis (seated left), is shown a demonstration stirrup pump designed to douse house fires caused by incendiaries.
Two RAF crewmen after their return from a combat mission. The strain from operations that resulted in the death of almost half the men who flew is evident. Fear was the emotion most commonly remembered by those who survived, and courage their chief characteristic.
The dangers faced by bomber crews came from enemy fighters, antiaircraft fire, and the weather. Here, a stricken B-24 Liberator bomber in the Eighth Air Force, on fire and damaged by antiaircraft shells, struggles to keep flying.
The “Battle of Germany.” The U.S. strategic air forces aimed to destroy German aircraft production and defeat the German fighter force in the air. Here, two German officials survey the smoking ruins of the Fieseler aircraft plant at Kassel.
A rare image of a fighter kill in the air battle over Germany. A German fighter crashes into fields, as photographed by the pursuing aircraft. By May 1944, German fighter pilot losses were running at more than 50 percent a month.
An artist’s impression of RAF Lancaster bombers flying low over the Ruhr city of Essen to destroy industrial targets. The caption claimed that this would “ensure accuracy.” In reality, raids were made from safer heights against whole cities rather than factories.
The reality of inaccurate bombing can be seen in the ruins of this farm, bombed during a raid on the Ruhr city of Dortmund on May 23–24, 1943. German farmers were under instructions to douse lights at night and to keep civil defense equipment at hand.
A Boeing B-17 bomber over the German city of Ludwigshafen, where an oil facility has been attacked. During 1944, German aviation fuel production was cut by 95 percent.
While the Eighth Air Force attacked from bases in Britain, the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces struck from Italy. Here a B-24 Liberator in RAF markings waits to be bombed up on a field in southern Italy for a raid on German-occupied Europe.
Two German women, surrounded by civil defense personnel and fire engines, wander through the haze and devastation of a raid on Ebenfurth in September 1943. Nine million Germans eventually joined the stream of evacuees from the stricken cities.
Women and girls played a large part in the German civil defense effort. Here, a young member of the German Girls’ League (BDM) works alongside civil defenders during a raid on Düsseldorf in July 1943.
A rare photograph of the Hamburg firestorm on the night of July 27–28, 1943. The fire consumed more than twelve square miles of the city area and killed over 18,000 people.
Male and female German civil defense workers rescue a man from the ruins of his house during the bombing of Hamburg. Soldiers, firemen, and air raid wardens worked together in German cities to cope with the rising scale of casualties.
Two circus elephants recruited in the aftermath of Operation Gomorrah against Hamburg help to move a car destroyed in the raids, which killed an estimated 37,000 people over a week of heavy bombing.
Concentration camp workers, wearing the familiar striped suits, work to clear the piles of rubble left in the aftermath of the bombing of Hamburg. Prisoners came to play an important part in the emergency repair services and the clearing of debris. By summer 1944, there were over half a million camp prisoners in Germany.
The Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in his role as coordinator for air raid emergencies, visits the ruined city of Kassel after the firestorm of October 22–23, 1943.
The grisly aftermath of the Kassel firestorm. Incinerated bodies and body parts have been laid out among the ruins. An estimated 6,000 died in the raid, a higher proportion of the city’s population than in the heavy raids on Hamburg.
Girls of the Italian civil defense organization (UNPA) pose for the camera in the northern Italian city of Brescia in 1939. Volunteers were hard to find, and when war broke out many disappeared.
The ruins of a railway marshaling yard in Rome after the American raid of July 19, 1943. Though the damage was extensive, rail communications were soon reestablished, and Rome did not fall to the Allies for almost a year. The Fascist Party symbol can clearly be seen on the front wall of the ruined station.
Workers watch as the Fiat plant at Lingotto goes up in flames in March 1944. Although Italy had surrendered in September 1943, the bombing of industry and communications continued in the German-occupied north.
Two Italian Fascist propaganda posters show Stalin and Roosevelt as the malign instigators of city bombing in Italy. The image of Stalin gloats over British and U.S. bombs on the Vatican, while Roosevelt grins over a well-known slogan from an Italian toothpaste advertisement: “. . . to tell of my virtues, a smile is enough . . .”
One of many ex-voto paintings put up in Italian churches to thank local saints or the Madonna for surviving a raid. This one at the Basilica Madonna della Consolata in Turin dates from April 28, 1945, just before the end of the war.
French opinion turned against the bombing of urban targets in 1943–44 because of high-flying and inaccurate raiding. This image of bombs falling on Paris shows the impossibility of hitting a small target with any accuracy.
An ironic image from among the ruins of the French port city of Le Havre, devastated by heavy raids in September 1944. The monument to the dead of the First World War still stands erect between lampposts decorated with the flags of the Allies from the Second.
Improvised shelter for the homeless in liberated Naples in 1944, following years of bombing. Shantytowns like this grew up all over Europe to cope with the large numbers of homeless, refugees, and displaced persons.