The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

them and from that get a fix. Larry Donnelly had been promoted from tailend
Charlie to Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and on 24 July had set off for
his first raid in his new role with his crew to bomb Hamburg. The weather
had been terrible and with absolutely no visual fixes possible and with the
weather worsening, Larry switched on the receiver and managed to get a
good bearing from the Texel shipping beacon off the Dutch coast.
Eventually, they had to abandon the mission, but Larry had managed to find
two other German beacons, which had been perfect for making a crossbearing
to pinpoint their position. This he repeated as they droned over the
Low Countries and finally headed back over the Channel. Larry was
delighted when they landed safely. His radio navigation had proved far
more effective than dead reckoning could ever have been.
Yet however inaccurate these night-time bombing missions were, there
was no denying the effort. On 27 July, for example, Andrew Jackson and
his Wellington crew bombed Hamburg; two days later, it was Mannheim.
On 2 August, it was Hamburg again, and this time Andrew saw his bombs
explode over the docks and fires raging where other bombers had already
struck. Three days later, they hit Kiel, where the battleship Gneisenau was
in dock. All this bombing – from the combined efforts of Bomber
Command – was most definitely having an effect, not least upon the
German High Command. Göring was incensed and urged Hitler to allow
him to give the British ten bombs back for every one they dropped on
Germany. Hitler, however, expressly forbade any such retaliation for the
time being. Nonetheless, he referred to British bombing in his Reichstag
speech. ‘About six weeks ago,’ he said of Churchill, ‘he began to fight in
the sphere in which he seems to think he is particularly strong, namely the
air war against the civilian population, though under the pretence that the
targets are important for the war effort.’
Goebbels was also quick to emphasize the loss of civilian life caused by
British bombing. ‘Churchill’s answer – cowardly murdering of a
defenceless population!’ ran a headline in a Berlin paper following the
rejection of Hitler’s peace offer. Few civilians were being killed but air
raids were becoming a feature of life in the industrial and Baltic cities of
Germany. Ulrich Steinhilper’s mother wrote to him towards the end of July
telling him of two raids over three nights. She even heard the drone of the
aircraft overhead. Yet when the American press claimed that Hamburg had
been ‘pulverized’, he was livid and hastily arranged a press trip to the city,