Nuremberg

10 August 1943 — Nuremberg

Date
10 August 1943
Target
Nuremberg, Germany
Force dispatched
653 aircraft

Narrative

This was the heaviest raid yet on Nuremberg, with 653 four-engined bombers sent against the city in the high summer of 1943. The load was correspondingly large — on the order of 878 tons of high explosive and a like weight of incendiaries — and it caused massive destruction, with around 585 people killed. The attack showed how the scale of Bomber Command’s operations had grown: a force of this size, ranging far into southern Germany, would have been unthinkable a year before. Nuremberg’s defences and distance still made it a costly and uncertain target, and the marking over such a range was never as sure as over the Ruhr, but the sheer weight now available meant that even a partially successful attack could devastate large districts. The city’s worst ordeal, however, still lay ahead in the great old-town raid of January 1945.

Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.

The fallen

257 airmen in this archive died on 10 August 1943 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.

See all 257 who died on 10 August →

Source: Wikipedia — Bombing of Nuremberg in World War II →