page_title: Blitz Week
section_title: Bombing of Hamburg
hierarchical_section_title: Blitz Week / Bombing of Hamburg
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Oblique aerial view of ruined residential and commercial buildings south of the Eilbektal Park (seen at upper right) in the Eilbek district of Hamburg, Germany. These were among the 16,000 multi-storeyed apartment buildings destroyed by the firestorm which developed during the raid by Bomber Command on the night of 27/28 July 1943 (Operation GOMORRAH). The road running diagonally from upper left to lower right is Eilbeker Weg, crossed by Rückertstraße.
context_page_description: Blitz Week was a period of United States Army Air Forces aerial bombardment during the 1943 Combined Bomber Offensive of World War II. Air raids were conducted on six of seven days as part of Operation Gomorrah, against targets such as the chemical plant at Herøya, Norway, which produced nitrates for explosives; and the AGO Flugzeugwerke AG plant at Oschersleben, Germany that assembled Focke-Wulf 190s. The Kassel mission on July 28, 1943 was the first use of P-47 Thunderbolt auxiliary fuel tanks.
context_section_description: During the last week of July in 1943, The Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces(USAAF) launched an offensive against Germany in the form of air raids in which 1,000 combatants were either killed, injured, or went missing. The United States of America launched these air raids alongside the United Kingdom, which they called Operation Gomorrah. Hamburg was deemed an important strategic target due to its housing of U-boats and oil refineries in the region. Because of the fact that the Nazis knew and understood the importance of Hamburg, the city was rigged with anti-aircraft weapons and 1,700 shelters were provided for its 230,000 citizens. To counter the radar use in Hamburg, British bomber crews applied strips of tin foil, known as Chaff, to the bomber which would be dropped to confuse the radar screen and would appear as a cluster of targets on the screen. Britain's first attack came on the 24th, with the USAAF to follow the next day, but they ran into difficulties navigating the city due to the large amount of smoke the RAF had caused on the night before.
caption: Hamburg after being bombed by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force in 1943
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