On a Nuremberg moon

For many years after the Second World War, when the moon was in its waxing crescent phase, Bomber Command veterans might for a moment be taken back to a single disastrous night in March 1944. Some thirty years after the event, Kevin Bush, a member of the Royal Australian Air Force who served in No. 640 Squadron Royal Air Force, wrote, “Even now, when I see a bright moon, I think of it as a Nuremberg moon.” Bush was one of only three survivors from a crew of seven who escaped their Halifax bomber, shot down that fateful night.

On the night of Thursday 30 March 1944, during a raid on the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, Bomber Command suffered its highest casualties for the entire war. Within just a few hours, Bomber Command lost 96 heavy bombers from a force of 795 dispatched, amounting to 723 casualties, with 545 dead. A total of 48 Australians serving in Bomber Command were killed in the Nuremberg raid. They were part of crews in 5 Halifaxes and 20 Lancasters that were among the 96 bombers that were lost; the men were serving in seventeen different squadrons of the Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, and Royal Canadian Air Force.

This is the eightieth year since the Nuremberg raid, yet despite the horrendous losses to British and Commonwealth aircrews, the event remains little known outside veteran circles. For veterans themselves, Nuremberg was one of the key events of Bomber Command’s war – their war – alongside moments such as the Dambusters, Peenemünde, Hamburg, D-Day, raids on Berlin, and the 1943 battle of the Ruhr. For the wider public, memories of Bomber Command tend to focus on the firestorms of Hamburg (July–August 1943) and Dresden (February 1945) which resulted in mass casualties on the ground. Yet in just a short period of time – in little more than 100 minutes – en route to Nuremberg, Bomber Command lost as many aircrew killed as Fighter Command had lost during more than 100 days in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Voices from below

A major reason that the events of 30–31 March 1944 are not just a faded memory is the work of historian Martin Middlebrook, whose book The Nuremberg raid, published in 1973, was based on accounts he collected from hundreds of participants: British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealanders, as well as German perspectives. Making contact with veterans and recording their accounts, as well as researching official operational records, he produced a narrative based on eyewitness accounts from those on the front lines in the face of battle. 

Perhaps best known for his book The first day of the Somme (1971), Middlebrook is a highly influential historian whose work is based on his “history from below” approach. Before this, the writing of history had largely been the preserve of politicians, generals, senior officers: the narrative being about “great men” and their pivotal choices and decisions. Middlebrook’s approach gave voice to ordinary people, from all walks of life, making them the main actors in a grand cast in the big event. No longer voiceless extras in the grand epic of history, other ranks, non-commissioned officers and junior officers drove the narrative. Not only did it provide new perspectives, it was an approach that made history writing highly relatable to readers.

Without Middlebrook, the events of the night of 30 March 1944 may have remained largely unknown outside veterans’ groups, and regarded as just another of many nights between 1939 and 1945 in which Bomber Command raided cities in Germany. But we know from the Memorial’s Second World War oral history collection of accounts by Bomber Command veterans – most of whom were interviewed in the 1980s and 1990s – that Middlebrook’s work on Nuremberg was widely read by veterans of the raid, and that not all agreed with some of his conclusions.

Target Nuremberg

The end of March 1944 marked the end of a long winter campaign in which Nuremberg would be the last raid. This was a period in the Allied bomber offensive known as the battle of Berlin. From November 1943 until the end of March 1944, Bomber Command had conducted 34 major raids on Germany. Sixteen of these raids were made on the enemy capital: the “big city”, as aircrews called it. The aim of the sustained campaign was to destroy the morale of the German people and their will to continue the war.

The night of 30 March offered a final opportunity, with longer nights and the right moon phase, to strike once more at a long-range target in the heart of Germany. Nuremberg was the chosen target. It was home to wartime industries such as the M.A.N. (Maschinenfabrik Augsberg–Nürnberg) factories producing engines for submarines and tanks; however the plan for the raid on Nuremberg for 30 March 1944 was an area attack. This was in keeping with the Bomber Command directive of destroying large urban areas that would not only damage industries, but destroy workers’ homes in an attempt to undermine the morale of the civilian population. As a target, the city was also symbolic for its ties to the Nazi Party. Nuremberg was the location of the annual Nazi party rally, and the city infamously gave its name to the notorious Nazi racial laws, “the Nuremberg laws” that had been signed into effect in that city in 1935.

Catastrophe

From the outset the raid was a gamble. The moon was in its last night of waxing crescent – almost a half moon – and would be at its maximum elevation an hour before sunset, not setting until the early hours of the next morning. This meant the bombers would be flying to Nuremberg in bright moonlight, but would be returning in darkness after the moon had set. The chosen route for the bomber stream, with a long straight leg through the centre of Germany – potentially making it easier for the Germans to predict, plot and intercept – also caused concern for the bomber crews. The forecast hoped that high clouds might cover the bombing force on the outward journey, a prediction that ensured the operation was given the go-ahead; but the high cloud cover had begun to disperse by the time the bomber stream crossed the coastline into Belgium. From this point, under clear skies, it was 103 minutes to the target across enemy territory in brilliant moonlight, passing close by nightfighter beacons (light and radio beacons that guided German fighters). Further problems arose when the unusual weather conditions produced vapour trails – contrails – that marked the path of the bomber stream across the sky.

German nightfighters soon descended onto the bombers, which were further lit up in the night sky by the paths of flares dropped from German aircraft. Adding to the chaos, as recalled by British flight engineer Flight Sergeant Basil Oxtaby of No. 467 Squadron RAAF, “It was common to see four or five Lancasters or Halifaxes going down in flames, sometimes three of four engines on fire, exploding on the ground. That made it even worse because when the aircraft exploded, there was a pool of light for hundreds of yards and the fighters above could see the bombers silhouetted against that light.”

Australian participants

Each of the RAAF squadrons in Bomber Command participated in the raid, as did the many Australian aircrew scattered across British, Canadian and New Zealand squadrons. It was rough going for the attacking force from the moment the bomber stream crossed the coast. As a navigator, Flight Lieutenant Arnold Easton, 467 Squadron, explained his task was not only plotting the course of his Lancaster:

Navigator’s job was to log down everything that happened including logging down aircraft that blew up or went down shot down. I just couldn’t cope with the navigation and log those down … It was all the way to the target from the French coast … Aircraft going down one after another all the way. You just had to press on regardless, you can’t turn around. It was a very hectic trip, we were lucky to get back.

Another 467 Squadron navigator, Flight Lieutenant Milton Smith, counted thirty burning aircraft between Aachen, where they crossed the border into Germany, and Nuremberg.

Seeing such carnage in the sky around them and on the ground below, and being unable to do anything for their fellow crews, was agonising.  Lancaster pilot Squadron Leader Arthur Doubleday, 467 Squadron, had to tell his crew to stop watching “the stream of aircraft burning on the ground”, instructing them to “get your eyes in the sky. There is a quota tonight and your job is to keep us out of that quota. There is nothing in the world you can do for that heap of burning metal on the ground.” It was an attitude, he noted, that needed to be adopted in order to survive. Some pilots, concerned about crew morale, ordered crews to stop reporting losses on the intercom.  

Some had near misses. Squadron Leader Bill Brill, No. 463 Squadron RAAF, described himself as “always getting into tight spots” but none more so than over Nuremberg:

Another aircraft, which I never saw, blew up in front of my nose. Flying pieces from it knocked out our port-outer motor, and our rear turret. One hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition hit our port wing. Then an enemy fighter tested his guns on us, as we were bombing, but it didn’t hit us. For a short time we flew on two engines, but happily the third engine started again, with a blaze of flame and a shower of sparks.

Also counting himself lucky was mid-upper gunner Flying Officer Tom Mortimer of No. 460 Squadron. He was given an almighty scare by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 night fighter that appeared suddenly from the darkness. He “swooped down” Mortimer recalled, from “only about 100 feet or so” away. Fortunately for Mortimer’s Lancaster, the German pilot had another bomber in his sights and was “swooping on them … he went past us like a bat out of hell.”

Among those killed, stories of incredible bravery abound. One of them was Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Brougham from Maroubra, New South Wales, a Halifax pilot with No. 51 Squadron RAF. Brougham’s crew were flying their first mission that night when they were hit by a night fighter. Spiralling into an uncontrollable dive, Brougham stayed at the controls calmly calling off the height at each thousand feet. Three of the crew managed to escape; just two survived. Brougham himself was killed when the Halifax broke up shortly after it passed 4,000 feet.

When cannon fire from a night fighter struck the starboard engines and wing of a Halifax from No. 640 Squadron RAF, the badly wounded pilot – Flying Officer James Laidlaw, a Canadian from Kamloops, British Colombia – just had time to issue orders for the crew to bale out before he died at the controls. The two gunners, one of them Kevin Bush, and the wireless operator managed to escape the aircraft. The flight engineer had been killed in the attack and the navigator, Pilot Officer Frederick Shuttle from London, was badly wounded in his back, and could not move. Although he himself had time to escape, the bomb-aimer – Flying Officer Martin Corcoran, from Canungra in Queensland – chose not to. He was last seen by the side of his injured navigator, refusing to leave his mate behind. In death the Canadian, British and Australian crew are buried side by side in a row of graves at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Berlin.

On the ground

Most of those who survived being shot down and parachuted to safety became prisoners of war. Before he was captured by the Germans, Flying Officer Keith Bowly from Quirindi, NSW, spent several days evading. A Halifax pilot with No. 429 Squadron RCAF, Bowly was shot down near Luxembourg City. At one point while he was hiding near the edge of a German airfield he considered stealing a parked Junkers Ju 87 and flying back to England, but he abandoned the plan for fear of being shot down by friendly fire. Bowly thought his dark blue uniform was similar to some German units, so he took off his badges and casually began walking in the direction of the French border. In the city of Metz, he feared the game was up when he was shouted at by a woman in German uniform – but apparently his offence was having his hands in his pockets and not wearing a cap. He was later captured by German troops on a roadside near Verdun. After a spell in the Dulag Luft in Frankfurt for interrogation, he was sent to Stalag Luft I at Barth in north-east Germany.

Such was the onslaught of German night-fighter attack en route to Nuremberg that veterans of Bomber Command developed the suspicion that the Germans had laid an ambush, knowing they were coming. Middlebrook ruled out this possibility, yet many of the Memorial’s oral history accounts by veterans interviewed in the 1980s and 1990s – such as Flying Officer Mervyn Stafford of No. 460 Squadron RAAF – while acknowledging Middlebrook’s finding, maintained the Germans must have known. “They knew where we were going and followed us all the way.” Perhaps, having lived through such a disaster, for these men the story of a leak to the Germans remained a more comforting scenario (rather than a failure of planning by Bomber Command headquarters) to explain the devastating night-fighter assault they endured that night.

Assessing the losses

The following morning, bomber stations across north-east England were sombre, as the calamitous results of the previous night’s raid sank in. At Dunholme Lodge, home to No. 44 Squadron RAF, the morning coincided with the arrival to the squadron of Flying Officer Peter O’Connor. After a two-year journey from enlistment in Australia to finally joining an operational squadron, O’Connor’s mood of excitement and anticipation soon turned to one of dread:

We arrived there … and I remember saying to one of the guards, “What’s the story here?” There’s blokes’ belongings everywhere. And the guard said: “Well they went off, they went last night, they won’t be back. They’re your beds.” We walked out and had a look around the aerodrome. Instead of about twenty-eight aircraft scattered around, there only seemed to be about ten. So I said to the skipper, “What goes on?” He said: “This is fair dinkum, this is ops” … It was a pretty traumatic beginning to our operational life … For the people there, their pals had gone, there were WAAFs crying all over the place, because their boyfriends didn’t come back. The place was stunned and dazed … we were [like] strangers at a funeral.

Similar scenes were recounted at Ludford Magna, home to No. 101 Squadron RAF, where Pilot Officer Edwin Holland, one of many RAAF men in the squadron, recalled:

We waited and waited. We were an experienced crew accustomed to losing the odd one or two aircraft … but, with nearly a third of our squadron missing, this was a big kick in the guts to us all. We waited until nearly mid-day before going to our huts – stunned, shocked and silent, each crew member wrapped in his own mental anguish.

In the final count, No. 101 Squadron had lost seven Lancasters, with 47 men killed, eight becoming prisoners of war, and one evading capture.

Nuremberg was only lightly damaged that night. Many bombs missed the city entirely, landing in fields, nearby villages, and some as far away from the target as Schweinfurt, about 100 km away. Eleven German aircrew were killed defending the Reich, and casualties on the ground amounted to around 70 people killed. The city would be the target for American and British bombers on several more occasions, with Nuremberg suffering severe damage when the historic city centre was destroyed by a returning RAF force on 2 January 1945.

For Bomber Command, the raid of 30 March 1944 was the worst night of the war, coming as it did at the end of a disappointing battle of Berlin campaign which the British official historian described as “more than a failure. It was a defeat.” The sustained bombing campaign against Berlin and other major cities did not prevent Germany fighting on, and the losses to Bomber Command were unsustainable. Nuremberg marked the final raid in a campaign lasting from November 1943 to March 1944, in which Bomber Command had lost over 1,128 aircraft: more than its average front-line strength.

For the next six months the bombing force was assigned to preparing for and supporting the D-Day landings in Normandy. Attention turned to the ground campaign that, in conjunction with the massive Soviet offensive in the East, would eventually prove a decisive factor in ending the war in Europe. The world quickly moved on from the Nuremberg raid. But for those who lived through one of the most intense air battles the world has known, the events of 30–31 March 1944 would never be forgotten, especially on a bright moonlit night.