Operation Gomorrah The Hamburg Firestorm Raids
London: Jane's Publishing Company, 1981. Tall octavo, burgundy hardcover, spine embossed with silver lettering, frontispiece, xiv, 198 pp., illustrated with 16 double-sided black-and-white plates, black-and-white maps and graphs included throughout, four appendices included. Some foxing on endpapers and on inside of dust-jacket, spine of dust-jacket is discoloured, otherwise a very good copy. First edition. An account of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command mission known as "Operation Gomorrah" written by former RAF Bomber Command navigator Gordon Musgrove. Operation Gomorrah was the RAF's 1943 attempt to obliterate Hamburg under the instruction of Sir Arthur Harris's area-bombing policy. During the period of just ten days, over 42,000 people (mostly civilians) died as a direct result of this World War Two operation, and 22 square kilometres of the city was incinerated, partly due to an intense firestorm created by the bombing. Musgrove's work illustrates that in war, terrible actions can be carried out by both sides, good and bad. Item #4511
Price (AUD): $70.00