That the Nazi authorities were so worried about this daytime raid on Kiel is a measure of how seriously they were beginning to take the new American threat. However, for the moment at least, the USAAF was a spent force. General Eaker had been fighting a desperate battle over the past few days. On Wednesday he had lost twenty-two planes in two ill-fated missions over Kassel and Oschersleben. On Thursday he lost a further ten planes over Kiel and Warnemünde. By the end of that week alone the total loss would be a hundred planes, with the equivalent of ninety crews killed, wounded or missing; he was forced to ground his shaken and exhausted crews for the next two weeks to give them time to rebuild their strength. ³

As dusk approached on Thursday, 29 July, the few people who remained in Hamburg headed straight for the bunkers – or at least made certain they were within immediate running distance of somewhere safe, should the alarm sound. Most no longer cared whether the shelters were comfortable or convenient: the only criterion now was how safe they were. The huge Hochbunkers, like those at Dammtor and the Heiligengeistfeld, had become popular because of the way they had withstood the previous attacks. Few people trusted their cellars now – there was no longer any sense in taking risks.

As darkness fell, the streets were quickly deserted. A stillness descended on Hamburg unlike anything it had experienced in all its 750-year history. Almost a million people had fled, leaving whole districts empty, and soon there was nothing to disturb the silence but the wind that whistled through the glowing ruins. The city on the Elbe was little more than a ghost town.

* * *

While the remnants of Hamburg’s population was seeking refuge for the night, the British were preparing to attack. For most of the day it had seemed doubtful that another raid on Hamburg would be worthwhile: Harris was worried that smoke would obscure the target, making it impossible for the bomber force to locate it properly. But that afternoon a reconnaissance flight over the city had returned with the news that a light wind was blowing the smoke inland, leaving the skies above Hamburg relatively clear. He gave the order to proceed as planned.

For the 5,500 men who attended briefings that evening it was a case of déjà vu. Not only was the target the same, but the route there and back was similar too. They would be taking off at the same time (around 10.00 p.m.), bombing at approximately the same time (shortly before 1.00 a.m.), and returning to base at the same time (at around 4.00 a.m.). The first and last turning points were identical to Tuesday night’s, and the final approach to Hamburg would be almost the same line they had taken on Saturday night. ⁴In fact, everything was so similar to what had gone before that some crews felt they were tempting Fate. On the whole, however, most airmen seemed to think that it would be an easy ride, as the previous Hamburg raids had been.

The RAF planners at High Wycombe knew that it was dangerous to cross into northern Germany so close to the points they had chosen on the two previous nights, but such was their faith in Window that they believed it was a risk worth taking. The route they had chosen was as short as they could practically make it, so that the 777 planes could carry heavier bomb loads. In short, they believed that it was worth sacrificing a little security to deal Hamburg the hardest blow possible.

They knew exactly where the danger zones would be. As the British Pathfinders crossed the German coast they were supposed to drop red route markers to show the way for the rest of the bomber stream. But the flares would be just as useful to the German night fighters in their search for prey – as soon as they were dropped, every night fighter in the area would flock to them like moths to a flame, certain that the British planes would pass through that one point.

The only way to protect the bombers against ambush was to create a diversion. With this in mind, four Mosquitos were sent to drop bundles of Window along an alternative route, to make it look as though a second bomber stream was approaching Hamburg from the direction of Bremen. To add to the deception they would also drop decoy route markers about sixty miles south-west of the bombers’ real landfall. ⁵The idea was that the Germans would have to split their defences in two, making it twice as likely that the real bomber stream would slip through unmolested.

This, then, was the plan of attack for the night of Thursday, 29 July 1943, and, with Window still working wonders, nobody had any reason to suspect that it would be anything but a milk run.

There were a few mishaps on take-off, and a small percentage of early returns due to technical problems. By and large this was nothing to be concerned about, although a 100 Squadron Lancaster collapsed on the runway at Grimsby, blocking it so badly that the twelve aircraft behind it could not take off. ⁶While ground staff tried to sort out the mess, the rest of the bomber stream was gathering over the North Sea and heading towards Germany. They flew largely undisturbed until they reached their first turning point, about sixty miles north-west of Heligoland.

The problems started shortly after the Pathfinders began to drop the first route markers. As predicted, all the German fighters in the area headed straight for them, knowing that this was the one place they were guaranteed to find their prey. What the British had notanticipated was how strong the German response would be. Over the past five days there had been a radical change in German tactics of which the introduction of Wilde Saufighters was only a part. Now that the Luftwaffe could no longer rely on radar they had been forced to give their individual fighters a much freer rein. No longer were they expected to stick to their allocated boxes along the coast, they were now allowed to amass wherever they were most likely to find the British. German fighter controllers still gave a running commentary over the radio about the height and general position of the bomber stream, but it was up to individual fighters to find and kill their prey, using nothing more technical than their eyes. ⁷

That the British took such a predictable route into Germany can only have helped the Luftwaffe. They were expecting the RAF to arrive at a similar point to last time, and had deployed their forces accordingly; the British decoy further south did not do much to divert their attention. With hindsight this is hardly surprising: no matter how many bundles of Window the four decoy Mosquitos dropped, the image on German radar screens could never have been as strong as that produced by the bomber stream. While there is some evidence that the Germans thought a second bomber stream was approaching from the south-west, it must have been obvious that it was simply a diversion. ⁸So, most of the coastal night fighters seem to have remained in the areas where they expected the British to arrive. And as soon as the route markers went down, they pounced.

The first British bomber to be shot down was probably a Halifax from 78 Squadron piloted by Sergeant R. Snape, which crashed into the sea. Six other British planes soon suffered the same fate, all but one within a few miles of the first route markers. ⁹The area around the Pathfinder flares had suddenly become the most dangerous part of the sky. Six other bomber crews were attacked there too, but were lucky enough to come back and tell the tale. ¹⁰Out of the forty-nine crewmen shot down, only one survived – Flight Officer A. H. Boyle parachuted out of his 158 Squadron Halifax shortly before it crashed into German countryside between Heide and Tellingstedt.

Veterans of the bomber war all agree on this fact: an attack from a night fighter came so quickly that there was little time to react, and certainly no time to feel fear. Within moments it was all over, one way or the other. An attack on one Lancaster about this time showed what might happen. Flight Sergeant E. L. Pickles of 100 Squadron was approaching the German coast when a burst of fire came from nowhere, blowing away the whole of the mid-upper turret and killing the gunner. The flight engineer, who had been dispensing Window, was also killed, and the rear gunner wounded in the face. Pickles took immediate action, and dived away fast, but without his gunners to protect him it was plain that he would have to turn back. After instructing the bomb-aimer to jettison his bombs, he turned and headed home. At no point during the attack had he seen the enemy aircraft that was attacking him; and since none of the crew warned him it seems they had been equally surprised. ¹¹The mid-upper gunner in particular had probably died without knowing he was even in danger.