Inferno - Max Hastings [311]
Between 1943 and 1945, such scenes were repeated day after day, night after night, in Germany’s cities. Beyond the sufferings of the civilians, the morale of their menfolk on distant battlefields suffered grievously from hearing the tidings from home—and eventually from seeing the destruction for themselves. “What a homecoming it was!” wrote a German soldier who returned from the Russian front in 1944. “We had heard, of course, about the Allied air attacks on the German cities. But what we saw from our [train] windows was far beyond what we had expected. It shocked us to the very core of our being. Was this what we had been fighting for in the east? … The faces of the civilians were grey and tired, and in some of them we could even see resentment, as if it was our fault that their homes had been destroyed and so many of their dear ones burnt to cinders.” Italy was not spared. Lt. Pietro Ostellino wrote home from North Africa: “I heard today that enemy aircraft have once more bombed our great and beautiful Turin … The bombing of an open city is horrible. When aircraft vent their fury on us in the front line, so be it. We are soldiers and must bear the consequences of war. But for the defenceless civilians it is an act of subhuman cruelty and savagery.”
IN 1944–45, the Anglo-American bomber offensive became the supreme expression of the two nations’ industrial might and technological prowess. Much of eastern and southern England was transformed into a chequerboard of air bases overlaid on farmland, ringed by concertina wire, and variously designated for training, transport, fighters or bombers. There were 110 USAAF and RAF airfields in Norfolk alone, each occupying 600 acres of flatland; a Bomber Command station was manned by some 2,500 ground personnel, around 400 of them women, and a revolving cast of 250 airmen. This was war conducted by timetable, in accordance with a deadly daily routine sustained for years.
In the last months of the war, USAAF and RAF losses over Europe fell steeply, but operational flying never became a safe activity. Alan Gamble’s crew, a characteristic national mix of the period—Australian pilot, American tail gunner, Scots navigator and mid-upper gunner, the rest English—began operations in February 1945 eager to be “in at the finish … We hoped to make a name for ourselves.” All had completed earlier tours with Bomber Command. On 7 February, they took off with a force of a hundred Lancasters for a daylight attack on an oil refinery at Wanne-Eickel. Crossing the French coast, they saw ahead of them an angry black cloud, and climbed to maximum altitude in an attempt to avoid it. Instead, the plane began to ice up dramatically. It was soon “waffling about like a drunken duck,” in Gamble’s words.
They pressed on, but after a debate on the intercom decided to make for nearby Krefeld, in the Ruhr. The plane was at 8,500 feet and they had just released their bombs when there was a violent lurch as the starboard wing began to buckle “as if it was going to wrap itself around us.” The Lancaster rolled over and began to spin. “Prepare to abandon aircraft!” called Geoff, the pilot, as he struggled to regain stability. Gamble, convinced of imminent death, thought, “Dear God, this is it—I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.” Suddenly, the plane momentarily righted itself. The crew seized parachutes and one by one leapt from the forward hatch. Gamble was alarmed to find himself descending towards a turbulent river, but managed to steer away onto land. His crew was unusually lucky: all landed alive and survived the ensuing three months as prisoners.
Until the end, cities were pounded mercilessly. A woman in Braunschweig