| Conflict: | Nordhausen World War II bombings |
| Place: | Nordhausen (district), Nazi Germany |
| Combatant1: |  Eighth Air Force RAF Bomber Command |
| Combatant2: | Luftwaffe |
| Commander1: | Carl Spaatz Arthur Harris |
See main article: Nordhausen (district) and Strategic bombing during World War II. The Allies bombed Nordhausen during World War II in a series of strategic attacks against targets in the Nordhausen district and city.
Targets around Nordhausen included Gustloff factory, Mittelwerk and Nordhausen airfield
| width=10% | Date | width=13% | Target | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Of 453 B-17s, 114 hit Leipzig/Taucha, 79 hit Leipzig/Mockau, 35 hit Leipzig/Heiterblick and 15 hit Leipzig/Abtnaundorf oil plants, 46 hit Leipzig bearing industry, 35 hit Kolleda Airfield, 19 hit Leipzig Station and seven hit Nordhausen.[1] | |||||
| airfield & Gustloff factory | 11 B-17s bombed Nordhausen airfield (the 511th Bombardment Squadron bombed Buchenwald/Nordhausen).http://www.usaaf-noseart.co.uk/misslist-31238.htm In 1943, a Gustloff factory (in addition to one at Weimar) had been built at Buchenwald, and an August 1944 bombing destroyed the Buchenwald factory, killing many forced laborers. Salvaged equipment was moved to an underground salt mine in Billroda to resume production.[2] One aircraft hit by wingman's gunfire crashed 8 miles North of Nordhausen.https://web.archive.org/web/20090729045332/http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/1944_1.htmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20090217004003/http://starduststudios.com/John_T_Godfrey.htm The 336th Fighter Squadron strafed the airfield.https://books.google.com/books?id=58t8XZx5pz8C&pg=PT81 | ||||
| airfield | Mission 669: 24 B-17s bombed. | ||||
| Mission 748: 10 B-17s bombed the secondary target of Nordhausen. | |||||
| Mittelwerk | The Combined Chiefs of Staff discussed a proposed Allied attack on the Nordhausen plant with a highly flammable petroleum-soap mixtureHLW:188 which, having been used in the Pacific theatre, filled the tiniest crevices and burned with intense heat. Instead, Nordhausen was subsequently lightly attacked with conventional bombers, but the vulnerable convict barracks (Camp ‘Dora’) were untouched. | ||||
| marshalling yards | Mission 841: 41 B-24s bombed the marshalling yards and targets of opportunity. | ||||
| Three-quarters of the town of Nordhausen was destroyed and ~8,800 people died, including 1500 sick prisoners at the Boelcke Kaserne barracks.[3] | |||||
| A Canadian armoured column cut the final supply line of V-2 rockets from the assembly plants near Zutphen. | |||||
| Allied capture | "The U. S. First Army reached Nordhausen."[4] | ||||
| airfield | The Allies used the Nordhausen airfield.http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/world_war2/usaaf_european_airfields.pdf | ||||
Web site: McKillop . Jack . Combat Chronology of the USAAF . 2007-05-25 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070610115615/http://www.usaaf.net/chron/index.htm . 2007-06-10 .
1944:January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December
1945:January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September
. Yves Béon . (translated from the French La planète Dora by Béon & Richard L. Fague). Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust and the Birth of the Space Age. 1997. Westview Press, Div. of Harper Collins. 0-8133-3272-9. XIX,XXI,XXII,XXIV.