London’s Longest Night Part 2
The Blitz was the Luftwaffe’s sustained strategic bombing of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ninety thousand sorties were flown, and over 60,000 tons of bombs were dropped on British targets. For 57 nights straight, 200 or more German bombers dropped high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the British capital, London, targeting the “Square Mile,” the heart of the city. Across the country many civilian and industrial targets faced similar murderous onslaughts—Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol, Manchester, Belfast, Coventry, and Glasgow to name a few. More than one million London residences were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London.
(By contrast the Allied bombing raid on just one German city, the large port and industrial center of Hamburg, during the last week of July 1943 (Operation Gomorrah) killed 42,600 civilians, wounded 37,000, and practically leveled the city.)
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