Word: ruhr
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...Arthur, General Eaker and the airmen working with them never intended 1942 to be decisive; they intended it only to be a test. The measure of this test was the extent and nature of the German target-a scattered conglomeration of cities, varying from the industrial concentrations of the Ruhr to the ports of Hamburg and Bremen, the naval bases of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. The R.A.F. and the U.S. Air Forces have calculated the minimum damage necessary to bring a decision. This calculation is secret. Unofficially, the view of airmen is that one-third to one-half of Germany...
...England again. They were the necessary sacrifice for one of the most daring and profitable exploits of the air war against Germany. What the big four-motored planes did that night was worth the loss of a division: they dealt a blow which German industry in the Ruhr would feel for many months...
...Waters' Destruction. British reconnaissance the same day brought photographs which told some of the story. In the valleys of the Eder and Ruhr, where the dams were blasted by the mines, there was terrible destruction. The waters of the Eder, released by the breaching of the Eder Dam, had swept the valley bare, flooding the airfield at Fritzlar, sweeping through farms and villages beyond the industrial town of Kassel, which was partly inundated (see map). The Ruhr, swollen as if by a tidal wave from the blasting of the Möhne and the Sorpe dams, had flooded town...
...specialized training and study of the target (bombing the dams was pinpoint work from the lowest altitude); 3) for maximum effect, flood disaster had to be carefully timed in the Allies' general bombing program. Experts considered that the best moment was when really heavy bombing had already disorganized Ruhr industry to a substantial extent, and when rescue and construction services were already overstrained...
...British heavy bombers, grounded for several days, returned to the punishing round-the-clock schedule at week's end. In a raid unparalleled in its force they beat down the Ruhr's defenses and loosed 2,000 tons of bombs over the rail and water transport center of Dortmund, already heavily damaged in previous raids. With such attacks the weight of bombs dropped on Germany was soaring to astronomical figures: after Dortmund, the R.A.F. figured that its Bomber Command had reached the 100,000-ton mark. German retaliation to the air war was, by comparison, infinitesimal-nuisance raids...