The Valour and the Horror

Thousand&endash;bomber raids, mounted in May-June 1942 against German cities by RAF Bomber Command using the bomber&endash;stream technique for the first. They were ordered by Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command, to publicize-at a time when Roosevelt wanted to cut back on the delivery of US-built aircraft - the importance of the Strategic air offensive against Germany. The raids, employing the area bombing technique, used four or five times more aircraft than normal and Harris had to use training units to increase his serviceable bombers, then numbering 400, to the required figure. The first raid, on 30 May 1942, used 1,050 bombers which caused massive damage to Cologne. A second used 956 bombers and the new Shaker technique to bomb Essen two nights later.

This, from the British point of view, was less successful, and a third, on 25 June, using 1,006 aircraft (including some from Coastal Command) to bomb Bremen, was also disappointing to Harris, with 49 aircraft being lost. The strain on resources, and the poor results of the last two operations, led to the size of raids being scaled down.

Barker, R. The Thousand Plan (London, 1965).

Courtesy of The Oxford Companion to World War II