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Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943 by Keith Lowe (view source)
Revision as of 12:19, 27 February 2018
, 12:19, 27 February 2018no edit summary
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|title=Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943
|author=Keith Lowe
|reviewer=Jill Conor Murphy
|genre=History
|summary=Much more than a military history, this is an accessible, clear-sighted and riveting account of the devastation of Hamburg by the Allied Forces in 1943. The sensitive unravelling of the ethical issues mark it many more than several cuts above the rest.
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=512
|publisher=Viking
|date=February 2007
|isbn=978-0670915576
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0670915572</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0670915572|aznus=<amazonus>0670915572</amazonus>
}}
As a German city, port and industrial centre, Hamburg was very heavily bombed many times by the RAF and USAAF over the course of World War II. During the main series of raids in July 1943, a firestorm was created that killed about thirty thousand people. In that dreadful week in July, probably forty-five thousand Hamburgers died, although we shall probably never know the full tally. The series of raids was codenamed Operation Gomorrah and its architect was the RAF's Air Chief Marshall, Arthur "Bomber" Harris. It was the biggest assault in aerial warfare that had ever been attempted. Over 9,000 tons of bombs were dropped, many of them incendiaries rather than high explosives, and with the weather conditions on the night of the firestorm, they created a furnace in which temperatures reached over 800 degrees centigrade. People were literally cooked inside air raid shelters and even the roads burst into flame.
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{{commenthead}}
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= 'Slaughterhouse 5', born of similar but even more morally dubious experience of Dresden firestorm used to be my most favourite novel of all time at the age of about 16. I might re-read it one day though it's always scary to go back to youthful book loves.
I am very tempted by this, though 512 pages scare me.
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{{comment
|name=Jill
|verb=replied
|comment= Oh, the narrative is about 300 pages. The rest are notations and various explanatory appendices, which are more for the serious student than the interested lay reader.
}}
{{comment
|name=Colin Bruce
|verb=said
|comment= Excellent work. Mr Lowe deserves great success with this fine book. My cousin F/O Machin 103 Sqd was lost July 25 on first raid .I clearly remember the family anguish at this time and for years afterwards although of course no details were fully known until much later.(Panel 125 Runneymede Memorial) Yours Colin Bruce Wallington Surrey.
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{{comment
|name=Jill
|verb=replied
|comment= It's good that he's remembered.
}}
{{comment
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= I have just read it (in one evening, because I skipped the airmen recallections recollections and generally most of the British side part apart from the overall thinking behind the operation) and I completely agree with your review. It's an excellent book from all sides, and the last chapter picking the ethics issues is particularly good.
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