HIST 388 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Strategic Bombing, Carpet Bombing, Mein Kampf
Document Summary
After his english cities will be erased" speech he still refused to terror-bomb cities. On the 15th of september 56 german planes and 26 british planes were lost british forces were victorious. On the 16th raeder (commander in chief of the navy) told hitler that invasions of the british isles couldn"t be supported and hitler postponed sealion on 12th october he postponed it to spring. Night-time raids continued on many british cities (against military targets and armament industries) and had the appearance of terror raids. On the 14th of november the raid on coventry took place 17 aircraft engine works and thompson-houston works (electric motors and equipment) were targeted civil population was badly hit (siemens in berlin was also attacked) There were 23,000 civilian deaths in july-december 1940. The british and the germans regarded the straightforward terror raids (carpet bombing of civilian areas) as legitimate terror operations.
