Pen and Sword Publishing

The Nuremburg Raid – March 30-31, 1944

by  Martin Middlebrook

Reviewed By  Marc Blackburn, IPMS# 42892

MSRP: $39.99 ISBN: 978-1-84415-875-1 Website: www.casematepublishing.com Review Sample Provided by Casemate Publishing 366 pages; 16 pages of b&w illustrations Martin Middlebrook has written a number of monographs concerning the individual missions conducted by the RAF bomber command. Included are maps and a sampling of photographs that are valuable in recounting the path of the raid, and what the major players looked like. The Nuremberg Raid was originally published in 1973 and has been re-published 3 times, the most current in 2009. The book, however, has not been revised to reflect current scholarship; even though the author added a chapter in the 1982 edition. The book looks at the Nuremburg mission and closely examines the 24 hour period in the context of the Allies strategic bombing offensive. In the first couple chapters of the book Middlebrook quickly sketches the evolution of British strategy and tactics, with a particular focus on the period after Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris takes control of RAF bomber command in 1942. After Harris takes command, his presence is felt by the officers and crews of the various wings and squadrons scattered about Britain. With an emphasis on area bombing, Harris’ approach is a marked contrast to the American approach of day light bombing to increase accuracy. To make up for the difficulties of precision navigation, and the scattered nature of German manufacturing, Harris planned to ‘dehouse’ the German population by carpet-bombing urban areas. Middlebrook makes it clear that Harris was a man who thought strategic bombing could win the war, and in late 1943 and early 1943, he attempts to do that with sustained attacks on Berlin. When the Nuremburg raid was planned, it came at the tail end of the campaign to destroy Berlin from the air and it is from this context that Middlebrook plunges into his narrative on the raid. Several chapters speak to the state of the British and German forces and is one of the strong points of the book in that it tells the story of the raid from the point of view of the crews. Using published sources and interviews, Middlebrook does a good job of summarizing the tactics and preparations of the British and the Germans up to this point in the war. There are several chapters on the flight to and from Nuremberg and these are perhaps the most riveting in the book. The mission planners decided on a direct route through Germany to get to Nuremburg which resulted in flying through some very contested airspace. In the resulting melee, German night fighters had their best night of the war. This was the first major encounter the RAF had with Schräge Musik or Jazz Music – 20 mm cannons that allowed for oblique firing on bombers from below, usually undetected. Despite the heavy losses, the British bomber stream was able to make it to Nuremburg. Unfortunately, due to these high winds, a majority of the bombers loads fell on the suburbs of Nuremberg rather than the city center. These same winds also caused a percentage of the bombers to drop their loads on Schweinfurt, the secondary target of the mission. The story of the raid winds up with a brief but thorough discussion of the fate of RAF POWs in missions like Nuremburg. By far the most dissatisfying part of this book are the final chapters, which offer some reflection on the raid specifically and on strategic bombing in general. The raid was certainly not a success and temporarily marked the end of missions against population centers in Germany. With D-Day just four months away, strategic bombers were regulated to disrupting transportation to the beachheads, diverting them from raids on cities and industrial areas. The success of the German night fighters, destroying 13% of the bombers, was also never replicated again. In summing up the strategic bombing campaign, Middlebrook becomes an apologist for Harris’ approach to bombing Germany. While agreeing that area bombing was not a panacea as envisioned by pre-war theorists, Middlebrook seems to suggest that if Harris had more resources, he could have played a more decisive role. Since the 1970s, there is a general agreement among historians that the strategic bombing campaign did little to impede the German war effort until close to the end of the war. Moreover, Middlebrook seems to take Harris’ success and controversial strategy at face value without any critical review. The book provides a compelling narrative of a day in life of a RAF bombing mission. My thanks to Casemate Publishing for the chance to review this book