As the tide of WW2 fortunes turned in favor of the Allies in 1943, a series of bombing raids was carried out by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces against the German city of Hamburg. The operation, which took place in July and August of that year, was intended to disrupt German war production and weaken the morale of the civilian population.
However, the bombing raids did far more than disrupt production and damage morale. The repeated attacks caused widespread destruction and death, resulting in one of the deadliest bombing campaigns of the war.
The Allies’ defense of such an attack was that it was necessary, and proportionate, and that the targets were legitimate. However it was clear that the Allies knew exactly how much wanton destruction they were about to cause in their naming of the raids: they called it Operation Gomorrah, after the Biblical city destroyed by God.
