Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg, 1943In the summer of 1943, British and American bombers launched an attack on the German city of Hamburg that was unlike anything the world had ever seen. For ten days they pounded the city with over 9,000 tons of bombs, with the intention of erasing it entirely from the map. The fires they created were so huge they burned for a month and were visible for 200 miles. The people of Hamburg had no time to understand what had hit them. As they emerged from their ruined cellars and air raid shelters, they were confronted with a unique vision of hell: a sea of flame that stretched to the horizon, the burned-out husks of fire engines that had tried to rescue them, roads that had become flaming rivers of melted tarmac. Even the canals were on fire. Worse still, they had to battle hurricane-force winds to escape the blaze. The only safe places were the city's parks, but to reach them survivors had to stumble through temperatures of up to 800C and a blizzard of sparks strong enough to lift grown men off their feet. "Inferno" is the culmination of several years of research and the first comprehensive account of the Hamburg firestorm to be published in almost thirty years. Keith Lowe has interviewed eyewitnesses in Britain, Germany, and America, and gathered together hundreds of letters, diaries, firsthand accounts, and documents. His book gives the human side of an inhuman story: the long, tense buildup to the Allied attack; the unparalleled horror of the firestorm itself; and the terrible aftermath. The result is an epic story of devastation and survival, and a much-needed reminder of the human face of war. Includes nineteen maps and thirty-one photographs, many never seen before |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 84
... Fighters in the West Air Force Casualties Tables Aircraft Specifications Financial Cost of the Hamburg Bombings Notes Archives Consulted Select Bibliography Index 215 228 245 265 277 284 293 303 321 323 327 333 337 339 343 345 347 361 ...
... 24–August 3 33 82 92 120 135 138 143 147 154 156 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 164 172 178 204 233 238 242 256 296 introduction He who fights with monsters should look to it vii Lowe_Inferno_0i-xvi_PTR 3/21/07 10:10 AM Page vii.
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Contents
1 | 24 |
Part II | 39 |
The Grand Alliance | 54 |
The British Plan | 65 |
Contents | 88 |
The Devastation Begins | 97 |
The Americans Join the Fray | 117 |
The Luftwaffe Strikes Back | 126 |
Survival | 277 |
97 | 280 |
Famine | 284 |
The Reckoning | 293 |
Redemption | 303 |
Acknowledgments | 321 |
B Chronology of World War II | 327 |
Chronology of Operation Gomorrah | 333 |
The Americans Again | 150 |
The Eye of the Storm | 160 |
Concentrated Bombing | 170 |
Firestorm | 183 |
20 | 191 |
41 | 201 |
54 | 208 |
The Terror of Hamburg | 215 |
Coup de Grace | 228 |
The Tempest | 245 |
Part III | 263 |