Norwich Blitz by Martin W. Bowman

Author:Martin W. Bowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027140: HISTORY / Military / Aviation
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781783039098
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2012-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

26/27 June 1942

The ‘Alert’ sounded at 2.05am on a brilliantly moonlit Saturday morning. With 12 mile visibility and only sporadic AA fire and searchlights, thirty raiders made a determined attempt to raze Norwich to the ground. Balloons were raised well in advance and remained at 6,500 feet. At 2.10am flares ignited NW of Norwich and the assault began. While casualties were proportionately light (16 killed and 70 persons injured – 15 of these serious hospital cases) some devastating fires resulted and defied the reorganised and reinforced Fire Service in this, the last of the Luftwaffe’s major raids on Norwich. This was the largest fire-bomb raid mounted against an East Anglian target in WW2, remembered as the ‘firebomb blitz’. Only 33 HE bombs (11 tonnes) were reported, but something like 9½ tonnes of incendiary bombs were dropped and for the first time the Cathedral was hit. Although some bombers flew as low as 300 feet elsewhere, there was clear evidence of the height forced on the enemy crews by the balloon barrage, most remaining at about 8,000 feet. So many incendiaries rained down on districts in the space of 35 minutes that no accurate count was ever apparently made. The Air Warfare Analysis Section of the RAF made an initial conservative estimate of 8,597 but Police reports following the raid make it quite clear that the true figure was much higher; at least 15,000 and possibly as many as 20,000 individual fire-bombs. Norwich air raid historian Norman Bacon recalled:

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