When the curtain covering a map of Europe was pulled aside to reveal the plan for an attack on the German capital, more than the usual mixture of fear, excitement and anxiety swept over the assembled airmen. Among them was a young Australian air gunner from 10 Squadron, Flight Sergeant Stuart. He was confident in his abilities as a gunner, but this was different, this was Berlin – the Big City! That night Stuart gave his turret an extra polish and made sure his guns were in perfect condition. If he could handle this, he thought, he could handle anything. From the outbreak of war, Berlin loomed large in the imagination of politician, military planner, soldier and aircrew alike. Berlin was unequivocally the cultural, economic and political centre of the Third Reich. Moreover, its war factories, its administrative infrastructure, its rail and canal communications were part of a centralised industrial power base.
The Commander-in- Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, desperate to deliver a crushing blow at the heart of Nazism, actually postponed the battle of Berlin in 1942 because he lacked sufficient numbers of aircraft, and navigation systems were too primitive to tackle such a difficult target. The battle of Berlin was waged in two parts: the first, between late August and early September 1943, and the second – and most intense – between mid-November 1943 and late-March 1944. It was the longest, most sustained and most costly campaign against a single German city in the war. But although battered beyond recognition, Berlin was not destroyed. Why did the bombing of the city prove such a difficult undertaking? What, if any, part did the Berlin raids play in the defeat of Hitler?
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