[phylo_roadking]

Lubeck was chosen as it had plenty of ancient timber-framed buildings that would burn easily.

...AND the fact that it was a relatively important North German port - and supported a number of u-boat building yards in the area The Battle of the Atlantic was anything but won in 1942....

It stems from an alleged comment by Baron Gustav Braun von Stumm, although whether this is exactly how the cities were selected is up for debate.

...except for the fact that the raids do correlate with the three-star ratings in the Baedecker guide! The fuzziness in the concept comes from the second group of raids, after the attack on Cologne, which included places like Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft etc. - although these were important to the Navy's war effort, with "The Nest", the extensive HMS Europa at Lowestoft, being the headquarters of the RN Patrol Service, while Great Yarmouth was an important RN anchorage in both world wars, and Ipswich a stop on the East Coast convoy route.

But a lot of historians say that this group of raids shouldn't really be grouped under the "Baedecker Blitz"...although traditionally they are.

[DMN1968]

I also believe the Germans had an advantage from a navigation point of view in that many of our bombed cities were on or near the coast, or in London's case at a major estuary, making these cities much easy to find compared to our (and our allies) navigation to German cities which were mostly a few hundred miles inland.

[phylo_roadking]

That's why both sides had various "blind bombing" aids - X-gerat and Knickenbein for the Germans, Gee and Oboe for Bomber Command Baisically just ride the radio beams down to the target...UNTIL the enemy worked out a method of circumventing them

As I noted before - the land/water boundary IS the easiest feature to pick out by night - which is why Bomber Command (each RAF bomber carried a dedicated navigator to confirm route, windage etc.) could use major rivers and canals to check navigation points and distances...

...but it could also lead to disasters; during the 1941 "Fire Raid" on Belfast, for instance, the German bombers were to swing into the city from the north, and reckon their target locations by distance back from the shore of Belfast Lough ahead of them for some targets, on the other side of the Lough for others...

..but one bomber had missed its turn overland in cloud...came out of cloud, saw what it thought was its target marked by the coast ahead and dropped its bombs; unfortunately it had passed over Belfast Lough in cloud, and what it saw ahead was Strangford Lough. It dropped its bombload on what turned out to be Newtownards airfield...and hit a hut where fourteen underage Army Cadets were sleeping, killing them all

Visual navigation, despite intensive training, remained very problematical; hence the RAF not actually performing well at night until 1942 and after when their new blind bombing aids came in.

[blitzben85]

Originally Posted by dip_transfer

Kingston-upon-Hull was the most bombed City apart from london between 1940-45, With over 95% of the City housing damaged or destroyed.

Still looks like there clearing up from the raids everytime i drive through

[dsimiller]

Originally Posted by fat controller

Anyone else able to see the wee red dots, but not able to get the info about the bombs? I take it that its simply a website load problem?

Yes,hope so,there are red dots on my old street,but no info when clicked.

[Fireball XL5]

I'm fascinated by the bombsight website, and this thread. I tried to get on the site today and although I can connect I'm finding that the search function is not working.

When you type a street name in the search box what usually happens is that some drop-down suggestions appear, but now it just says 'searching' and nothing happens. I've tried it in a few different browsers. Anyone else have this problem? If it works for other people I'll check my security settings.