Third-year UoP history student Rebekah Money describes the research she carried out for her dissertation on the allied bombing campaign against German cities during World War II. Rebekah’s supervisor was Dr Rob James.
Most people learn in school about the blitzkrieg tactics and the fear that the Nazis brought to the countries of Europe at the start of the Second World War. However, outside of a specialist focus we, as a country, rarely take the time to consider how damaging our own bombing campaign was. This was one of my thoughts when I was considering my dissertation topic in February 2024. I wanted to focus on a part and side of history I had not looked at before.
I have always had a keen interest in Second World War aircraft, when coming up with an idea for my dissertation, I set out to locate debates that could be linked to this topic. I wanted to spend the next year focusing on something I would feel passionate about and not hate half-way through. When completing some background research, I came across debates that have existed over the last 80 plus years on the allied bombing of Germany and in particular the bombings of the cities Hamburg and Dresden. These cities have been subjects of the bombing campaign debates because of the damage that was inflicted on them by the allies and how extreme the bombing raids were. In particular, Dresden, since the city was bombed in February 1945, there have been many critical debates as to why the city was targeted and if bombing on that scale was necessary at the end of the war. Each of these areas was something that I wanted to understand when conducting my own research for this project. While Hamburg and Dresden were bombed two years apart, they both saw the deaths of up to 40,000. They also faced severe fires that became firestorms – harsh weather conditions that mixed with the fires caused in the bombing and swept through the cities creating devastation.
The process of planning and writing my dissertation was a slice of organised chaos. I saw the challenge of the dissertation as a collection of three 2500-3000 word essays that all connected together. This made it easier to complete each one without having to worry too much about the next. However, it did mean that the Christmas period became a time of stress as I needed to focus on my second chapter and essays for my other modules.
The use of marker bombs during a raid on Berlin. The marker bomb is shown on the right. Source: Imperial War Museums photo C 4925.
When I started writing it in October 2024, I had an idea of where I wanted to take this project, but it would rely on the primary sources that I would be able to locate further down the line. This is a normal part of the process as with such a large time span to plan to write a dissertation it can morph into many different forms before its final one. Once my first chapter had been sent off to my supervisor, the helpful Dr Robert James, I embarked on a great journey up to the National Archives in Kew for a day researching my topic more. I found this day useful but stressful as you do not know what you will find, or not find, during an archive visit. It is almost like a lucky dip of information. Luckily for me, I came away from the archives with useful information such as the views of the head of Bomber Command, Sir Arthur Harris, and reports on how well the RAF perceived the bombing to be going from as early as 1941. These gave a sense of how the campaign evolved over time. Originally aircraft were sent over Germany during the day which was a highly risky operation. When it changed to night-time raids, there were fears for the crew’s lives and there were worries that the aircraft would not be able to bomb accurately. Because of this, Bomber Command decided that they needed to drop marker bombs, also known as Target Indicators, flares used to illuminate targets. This included incendiary bombs which would create fires and lead to the mass destruction that was seen in the Hamburg and Dresden raids.
One of the most interesting pieces of information that I found out when completing my archive trip was the fear that was created amongst Nazi leadership after the firestorms in Hamburg in the summer of 1943. In Arthur Harris’ war despatches, he highlights an interview with Albert Speer that happened at the end of the war. Speer was Hitler’s architect and armaments minister that made it more significant when he said that had there been a combined 6 more raids like the one in Hamburg on other major cities and industrial areas, the war would have come to an end sooner. It shows how much destruction British and allied aircraft were able to inflict over Germany.
For those who are about to start their dissertation, remember that you do not need to stress about it being perfect the first time. Working on it little and often will allow you to have time at the end to make it perfect for the final deadline. It can be a stressful time with other assessments that will need to be done as well, but with enough planning and time management it is do-able. I struggled to come up with a title from the start and that was okay. With help from my supervisor, we came up with one that fitted what I had written well.
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