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The operation was originally formulated by British Air Marshall Arthur Travers Harris and was actually a joint effort between the RAF Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force(specifically 8th Air Force Bomber Command), who combined to create an "around-the-clock" bombing mission spanning 3 days and 2 nights--the Americans conducting the daylight raids with the British following after nightfall. In the night of July 27/28, owing to unusually warm weather, along with the deliberate planning of the raids (which trapped the city's firefighters in the bombed-out center of the city by following-up with incendiary bombing of the periphery), the bombings culminated in the spawning of the so-called "Feuersturm" ( firestorm). Quite literally a tornado of fire, this phenomenon created a huge outdoor blast furnace, containing winds of up to 150 mph (240 km/h) and reaching temperatures of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius). It caused street asphalt to burst into flame, cooked people to death in air-raid shelters, sucked pedestrians off the sidewalks like leaves into a vacuum cleaner and incinerated some eight square miles (21 kmē) of the city. Operation Gomorrah occasioned at least 50,000 deaths and left over one million German civilians homeless.
| RAF strategic bombing in World War II |
| Overview Documents |
| RAF Bomber Command | Bomber Command | Strategic bombing | Aerial bombing of cities |
| Prominent People |
| Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris | Professor Lindemann | Wing Commander Guy Gibson |
| Bombing Campaigns and Operations |
| Battle of Berlin | Bombing of Dresden | Bombing of Hamburg | Bombing of Kassel |
| Aircraft and Technology |
| Lancaster | Halifax | Mosquito | Stirling | Wellington |
| Window | H2S | GEE | Oboe |
| Other |
| USAAF | Luftwaffe |