The Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of three counties: Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester. As of the 2013 U.S. Census, the metropolitan statistical area had a total population of 712,239 people. North Charleston is the second-largest city in the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area and ranks as the third-largest city in the state; Mount Pleasant and Summerville are the next-largest cities. These cities combined with other incorporated and unincorporated areas along with the city of Charleston form the Charleston-North Charleston Urban Area with a population of 548,404 as of 2010. The metropolitan statistical area also includes a separate and much smaller urban area within Berkeley County, Moncks Corner (with a 2000 population of 9,123).


The traditional parish system persisted until the Reconstruction Era, when counties were imposed.[citation needed] Nevertheless, traditional parishes still exist in various capacities, mainly as public service districts. When the city of Charleston was formed, it was defined by the limits of the Parish of St. Philip and St. Michael, now also includes parts of St. James' Parish, St. George's Parish, St. Andrew's Parish, and St. John's Parish, although the last two are mostly still incorporated rural parishes.


After Charles II of England (1630–1685) was restored to the English throne in 1660 following Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, he granted the chartered Province of Carolina to eight of his loyal friends, known as the Lords Proprietors, on March 24, 1663. It took seven years before the group arranged for settlement expeditions. The first of these founded Charles Town, in 1670. Governance, settlement, and development were to follow a visionary plan known as the Grand Model prepared for the Lords Proprietors by John Locke.


The community was established by several shiploads of settlers from Bermuda (which lies due east of South Carolina, although at 1,030 km or 640 mi, it is closest to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina), under the leadership of governor William Sayle, on the west bank of the Ashley River, a few miles northwest of the present-day city center. It was soon predicted by the Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the Lords Proprietors, to become a "great port towne", a destiny the city quickly fulfilled. In 1680, the settlement was moved east of the Ashley River to the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Not only was this location more defensible, but it also offered access to a fine natural harbor.


The first settlers primarily came from England, its Caribbean colony of Barbados, and its Atlantic colony of Bermuda. Among these were free people of color, born in the West Indies of alliances and marriages between Africans and Englanders, when color lines were looser among the working class in the early colonial years, and some wealthy whites took black consorts or concubines. Charles Town attracted a mixture of ethnic and religious groups. French, Scottish, Irish, and Germans migrated to the developing seacoast town, representing numerous Protestant denominations. Because of the battles between English "royalty" and the Roman Catholic Church, practicing Catholics were not allowed to settle in South Carolina until after the American Revolution. Jews were allowed, and Sephardic Jews migrated to the city in such numbers that by the beginning of the 19th century, the city was home to the largest and wealthiest Jewish community in North America—a status it held until about 1830.


The early settlement was often subject to attack from sea and land, including periodic assaults from Spain and France (both of whom contested England's claims to the region), and pirates. These were combined with raids by Native Americans, who tried to protect themselves from so-called European "settlers," who in turn wanted to expand the settlement. The heart of the city was fortified according to a 1704 plan by Governor Johnson. Except those fronting Cooper River, the walls were largely removed during the 1720s.


Africans were brought to Charles Town on the Middle Passage, first as "servants", then as slaves. Ethnic groups transported here included especially Wolof, Yoruba, Fulani, Igbo, Malinke, and other people of the Windward Coast. An estimated 40% of the total 400,000 Africans transported and sold as slaves into North America are estimated to have landed at Sullivan's Island, just off the port of Charles Town; it is described as a "hellish Ellis Island of sorts .... Today nothing commemorates that ugly fact but a simple bench, established by the author Toni Morrison using private funds."


Colonial Lowcountry landowners experimented with cash crops ranging from tea to silkworms. African slaves brought knowledge of rice cultivation, which plantation owners cultivated and developed as a successful commodity crop by 1700. With the coerced help of African slaves from the Caribbean, Eliza Lucas, daughter of plantation owner George Lucas, learned how to raise and use indigo in the Lowcountry in 1747. Supported with subsidies from Britain, indigo was a leading export by 1750. Those and naval stores were exported in an extremely profitable shipping industry.


By the mid-18th century, Charles Town had become a bustling trade center, the hub of the Atlantic trade for the southern colonies. Charles Towne was also the wealthiest and largest city south of Philadelphia, in part because of the lucrative slave trade. By 1770, it was the fourth-largest port in the colonies, after Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with a population of 11,000—slightly more than half of them slaves. By 1708, the majority of the colony's population was slaves, and the future state would continue to be a majority of African descent until after the Great Migration of the early 20th century.


Charles Town was a hub of the deerskin trade, the basis of its early economy. Trade alliances with the Cherokee and Creek nations insured a steady supply of deer hides. Between 1699 and 1715, colonists exported an average of 54,000 deer skins annually to Europe through Charles Town. Between 1739 and 1761, the height of the deerskin trade era, an estimated 500,000 to 1,250,000 deer were slaughtered. During the same period, Charles Town records show an export of 5,239,350 pounds of deer skins. Deer skins were used in the production of men's fashionable and practical buckskin pantaloons, gloves, and book bindings.


As Charles Town grew, so did the community's cultural and social opportunities, especially for the elite merchants and planters. The first theatre building in America was built in 1736 on the site of today's Dock Street Theatre. Benevolent societies were formed by different ethnic groups, from French Huguenots to free people of color to Germans to Jews. The Charles Towne Library Society was established in 1748 by well-born young men who wanted to share the financial cost to keep up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. This group also helped establish the College of Charles Towne in 1770, the oldest college in South Carolina. Until its transition to state ownership in 1970, this was the oldest municipally supported college in the United States.


On June 28, 1776, General Sir Henry Clinton along with 2,000 men and a naval squadron tried to seize Charles Towne, hoping for a simultaneous Loyalist uprising in South Carolina. When the fleet fired cannonballs, they failed to penetrate Fort Sullivan's unfinished, yet thick, palmetto-log walls. No local Loyalists attacked the town from the mainland side, as the British had hoped they would do. Col. Moultrie's men returned fire and inflicted heavy damage on several of the British ships. The British were forced to withdraw their forces, and the Americans renamed the defensive installation as Fort Moultrie in honor of its commander.


Clinton returned in 1780 with 14,000 soldiers. American General Benjamin Lincoln was trapped and surrendered his entire 5,400-man force after a long fight, and the Siege of Charles Towne was the greatest American defeat of the war. Several Americans who escaped the carnage joined other militias, including those of Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox"; and Andrew Pickens. The British retained control of the city until December 1782. After the British left, the city's name was officially changed to Charleston in 1783.


Although the city lost the status of state capital to Columbia in 1786, Charleston became even more prosperous in the plantation-dominated economy of the post-Revolutionary years. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized the processing of this crop, making short-staple cotton profitable. It was more easily grown in the upland areas, and cotton quickly became South Carolina's major export commodity. The Piedmont region was developed into cotton plantations, to which the sea islands and Lowcountry were already devoted. Slaves were also the primary labor force within the city, working as domestics, artisans, market workers, and laborers.


The city also had a large class of free people of color. By 1860, 3,785 free people of color were in Charleston, nearly 18% of the city's black population, and 8% of the total population. Free people of color were far more likely to be of mixed racial background than slaves. Many were educated, practiced skilled crafts, and some even owned substantial property, including slaves. In 1790, they established the Brown Fellowship Society for mutual aid, initially as a burial society. It continued until 1945.


By 1820, Charleston's population had grown to 23,000, maintaining its black (and mostly slave) majority. When a massive slave revolt planned by Denmark Vesey, a free black, was revealed in May 1822, whites reacted with intense fear, as they were well aware of the violent retribution of slaves against whites during the Haitian Revolution. Soon after, Vesey was tried and executed, hanged in early July with five slaves. Another 28 slaves were later hanged. Later, the state legislature passed laws requiring individual legislative approval for manumission (the freeing of a slave) and regulating activities of free blacks and slaves.


In Charleston, the African American population increased as freedmen moved from rural areas to the major city: from 17,000 in 1860 to over 27,000 in 1880. Historian Eric Foner noted that blacks were glad to be relieved of the many regulations of slavery and to operate outside of white surveillance. Among other changes, most blacks quickly left the Southern Baptist Church, setting up their own black Baptist congregations or joining new African Methodist Episcopal Church and AME Zion churches, both independent black denominations first established in the North. Freedmen "acquired dogs, guns, and liquor (all barred to them under slavery), and refused to yield the sidewalks to whites".


Industries slowly brought the city and its inhabitants back to a renewed vitality and jobs attracted new residents. As the city's commerce improved, residents worked to restore or create community institutions. In 1865, the Avery Normal Institute was established by the American Missionary Association as the first free secondary school for Charleston's African American population. General William T. Sherman lent his support to the conversion of the United States Arsenal into the Porter Military Academy, an educational facility for former soldiers and boys left orphaned or destitute by the war. Porter Military Academy later joined with Gaud School and is now a university-preparatory school, Porter-Gaud School.


In 1875, blacks made up 57% of the city's population, and 73% of Charleston County. With leadership by members of the antebellum free black community, historian Melinda Meeks Hennessy described the community as "unique" in being able to defend themselves without provoking "massive white retaliation", as occurred in numerous other areas during Reconstruction. In the 1876 election cycle, two major riots between black Republicans and white Democrats occurred in the city, in September and the day after the election in November, as well as a violent incident in Cainhoy at an October joint discussion meeting.


Violent incidents occurred throughout the Piedmont of the state as white insurgents struggled to maintain white supremacy in the face of social changes after the war and granting of citizenship to freedmen by federal constitutional amendments. After former Confederates were allowed to vote again, election campaigns from 1872 on were marked by violent intimidation of blacks and Republicans by white Democratic paramilitary groups, known as the Red Shirts. Violent incidents took place in Charleston on King Street in September 6 and in nearby Cainhoy on October 15, both in association with political meetings before the 1876 election. The Cainhoy incident was the only one statewide in which more whites were killed than blacks. The Red Shirts were instrumental in suppressing the black Republican vote in some areas in 1876 and narrowly electing Wade Hampton as governor, and taking back control of the state legislature. Another riot occurred in Charleston the day after the election, when a prominent Republican leader was mistakenly reported killed.


On August 31, 1886, Charleston was nearly destroyed by an earthquake. The shock was estimated to have a moment magnitude of 7.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). It was felt as far away as Boston to the north, Chicago and Milwaukee to the northwest, as far west as New Orleans, as far south as Cuba, and as far east as Bermuda. It damaged 2,000 buildings in Charleston and caused $6 million worth of damage ($133 million in 2006 dollars), at a time when all the city's buildings were valued around $24 million ($531 million in 2006 dollars).


Investment in the city continued. The William Enston Home, a planned community for the city's aged and infirm, was built in 1889. An elaborate public building, the United States Post Office and Courthouse, was completed by the federal government in 1896 in the heart of the city. The Democrat-dominated state legislature passed a new constitution in 1895 that disfranchised blacks, effectively excluding them entirely from the political process, a second-class status that was maintained for more than six decades in a state that was majority black until about 1930.


On June 17, 2015, 21-year-old Dylann Roof entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a Bible study and killed nine people. Senior pastor Clementa Pinckney, who also served as a state senator, was among those killed during the attack. The deceased also included congregation members Susie Jackson, 87; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Ethel Lance, 70; Myra Thompson, 59; Cynthia Hurd, 54; Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; and Tywanza Sanders, 26. The attack garnered national attention, and sparked a debate on historical racism, Confederate symbolism in Southern states, and gun violence. On July 10, 2015, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the South Carolina State House. A memorial service on the campus of the College of Charleston was attended by President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Jill Biden, and Speaker of the House John Boehner.


Charleston is known for its unique culture, which blends traditional Southern U.S., English, French, and West African elements. The downtown peninsula has gained a reputation for its art, music, local cuisine, and fashion. Spoleto Festival USA, held annually in late spring, has become one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi (the Festival of Two Worlds) in Spoleto, Italy.


Charleston's oldest community theater group, the Footlight Players, has provided theatrical productions since 1931. A variety of performing arts venues includes the historic Dock Street Theatre. The annual Charleston Fashion Week held each spring in Marion Square brings in designers, journalists, and clients from across the nation. Charleston is known for its local seafood, which plays a key role in the city's renowned cuisine, comprising staple dishes such as gumbo, she-crab soup, fried oysters, Lowcountry boil, deviled crab cakes, red rice, and shrimp and grits. Rice is the staple in many dishes, reflecting the rice culture of the Low Country. The cuisine in Charleston is also strongly influenced by British and French elements.


The traditional Charleston accent has long been noted in the state and throughout the South. It is typically heard in wealthy white families who trace their families back generations in the city. It has ingliding or monophthongal long mid-vowels, raises ay and aw in certain environments, and is nonrhotic. Sylvester Primer of the College of Charleston wrote about aspects of the local dialect in his late 19th-century works: "Charleston Provincialisms" (1887)  and "The Huguenot Element in Charleston's Provincialisms", published in a German journal. He believed the accent was based on the English as it was spoken by the earliest settlers, therefore derived from Elizabethan England and preserved with modifications by Charleston speakers. The rapidly disappearing "Charleston accent" is still noted in the local pronunciation of the city's name. Some elderly (and usually upper-class) Charleston natives ignore the 'r' and elongate the first vowel, pronouncing the name as "Chah-l-ston". Some observers attribute these unique features of Charleston's speech to its early settlement by French Huguenots and Sephardic Jews (who were primarily English speakers from London), both of whom played influential roles in Charleston's early development and history.[citation needed]


Charleston annually hosts Spoleto Festival USA founded by Gian Carlo Menotti, a 17-day art festival featuring over 100 performances by individual artists in a variety of disciplines. The Spoleto Festival is internationally recognized as America's premier performing arts festival. The annual Piccolo Spoleto festival takes place at the same time and features local performers and artists, with hundreds of performances throughout the city. Other festivals and events include Historic Charleston Foundation's Festival of Houses and Gardens and Charleston Antiques Show, the Taste of Charleston, The Lowcountry Oyster Festival, the Cooper River Bridge Run, The Charleston Marathon, Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE), Charleston Food and Wine Festival, Charleston Fashion Week, the MOJA Arts Festival, and the Holiday Festival of Lights (at James Island County Park), and the Charleston International Film Festival.


As it has on every aspect of Charleston culture, the Gullah community has had a tremendous influence on music in Charleston, especially when it comes to the early development of jazz music. In turn, the music of Charleston has had an influence on that of the rest of the country. The geechee dances that accompanied the music of the dock workers in Charleston followed a rhythm that inspired Eubie Blake's "Charleston Rag" and later James P. Johnson's "The Charleston", as well as the dance craze that defined a nation in the 1920s. "Ballin' the Jack", which was a popular dance in the years before "The Charleston", was written by native Charlestonian Chris Smith.


The Jenkins Orphanage was established in 1891 by the Rev. Daniel J. Jenkins in Charleston. The orphanage accepted donations of musical instruments and Rev. Jenkins hired local Charleston musicians and Avery Institute Graduates to tutor the boys in music. As a result, Charleston musicians became proficient on a variety of instruments and were able to read music expertly. These traits set Jenkins musicians apart and helped land some of them positions in big bands with Duke Ellington and Count Basie. William "Cat" Anderson, Jabbo Smith, and Freddie Green are but a few of the alumni from the Jenkins Orphanage band who became professional musicians in some of the best bands of the day. Orphanages around the country began to develop brass bands in the wake of the Jenkins Orphanage Band's success. At the Colored Waif's Home Brass Band in New Orleans, for example, a young trumpeter named Louis Armstrong first began to draw attention.


As many as five bands were on tour during the 1920s. The Jenkins Orphanage Band played in the inaugural parades of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft and toured the USA and Europe. The band also played on Broadway for the play "Porgy" by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, a stage version of their novel of the same title. The story was based in Charleston and featured the Gullah community. The Heywards insisted on hiring the real Jenkins Orphanage Band to portray themselves on stage. Only a few years later, DuBose Heyward collaborated with George and Ira Gershwin to turn his novel into the now famous opera, Porgy and Bess (so named so as to distinguish it from the play). George Gershwin and Heyward spent the summer of 1934 at Folly Beach outside of Charleston writing this "folk opera", as Gershwin called it. Porgy and Bess is considered the Great American Opera[citation needed] and is widely performed.


The City of Charleston Fire Department consists over 300 full-time firefighters. These firefighters operate out of 19 companies located throughout the city: 16 engine companies, two tower companies, and one ladder company. Training, Fire Marshall, Operations, and Administration are the divisions of the department. The department operates on a 24/48 schedule and had a Class 1 ISO rating until late 2008, when ISO officially lowered it to Class 3. Russell (Rusty) Thomas served as Fire Chief until June 2008, and was succeeded by Chief Thomas Carr in November 2008.


The City of Charleston Police Department, with a total of 452 sworn officers, 137 civilians, and 27 reserve police officers, is South Carolina's largest police department. Their procedures on cracking down on drug use and gang violence in the city are used as models to other cities to do the same.[citation needed] According to the final 2005 FBI Crime Reports, Charleston crime level is worse than the national average in almost every major category. Greg Mullen, the former Deputy Chief of the Virginia Beach, Virginia Police Department, serves as the current Chief of the Charleston Police Department. The former Charleston police chief was Reuben Greenberg, who resigned August 12, 2005. Greenberg was credited with creating a polite police force that kept police brutality well in check, even as it developed a visible presence in community policing and a significant reduction in crime rates.


Charleston is the primary medical center for the eastern portion of the state. The city has several major hospitals located in the downtown area: Medical University of South Carolina Medical Center (MUSC), Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, and Roper Hospital. MUSC is the state's first school of medicine, the largest medical university in the state, and the sixth-oldest continually operating school of medicine in the United States. The downtown medical district is experiencing rapid growth of biotechnology and medical research industries coupled with substantial expansions of all the major hospitals. Additionally, more expansions are planned or underway at another major hospital located in the West Ashley portion of the city: Bon Secours-St Francis Xavier Hospital. The Trident Regional Medical Center located in the City of North Charleston and East Cooper Regional Medical Center located in Mount Pleasant also serve the needs of residents of the city of Charleston.


The City of Charleston is served by the Charleston International Airport. It is located in the City of North Charleston and is about 12 miles (20 km) northwest of downtown Charleston. It is the busiest passenger airport in South Carolina (IATA: CHS, ICAO: KCHS). The airport shares runways with the adjacent Charleston Air Force Base. Charleston Executive Airport is a smaller airport located in the John's Island section of the city of Charleston and is used by noncommercial aircraft. Both airports are owned and operated by the Charleston County Aviation Authority.


Interstate 26 begins in downtown Charleston, with exits to the Septima Clark Expressway, the Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge and Meeting Street. Heading northwest, it connects the city to North Charleston, the Charleston International Airport, Interstate 95, and Columbia. The Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge and Septima Clark Expressway are part of U.S. Highway 17, which travels east-west through the cities of Charleston and Mount Pleasant. The Mark Clark Expressway, or Interstate 526, is the bypass around the city and begins and ends at U.S. Highway 17. U.S. Highway 52 is Meeting Street and its spur is East Bay Street, which becomes Morrison Drive after leaving the east side. This highway merges with King Street in the city's Neck area (industrial district). U.S. Highway 78 is King Street in the downtown area, eventually merging with Meeting Street.


The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge across the Cooper River opened on July 16, 2005, and was the second-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Americas at the time of its construction.[citation needed] The bridge links Mount Pleasant with downtown Charleston, and has eight lanes plus a 12-foot lane shared by pedestrians and bicycles. It replaced the Grace Memorial Bridge (built in 1929) and the Silas N. Pearman Bridge (built in 1966). They were considered two of the more dangerous bridges in America and were demolished after the Ravenel Bridge opened.


The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston Office of Education also operates out of the city and oversees several K-8 parochial schools, such as Blessed Sacrament School, Christ Our King School, Charleston Catholic School, Nativity School, and Divine Redeemer School, all of which are "feeder" schools into Bishop England High School, a diocesan high school within the city. Bishop England, Porter-Gaud School, and Ashley Hall are the city's oldest and most prominent private schools, and are a significant part of Charleston history, dating back some 150 years.


Public institutions of higher education in Charleston include the College of Charleston (the nation's 13th-oldest university), The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and the Medical University of South Carolina. The city is also home to private universities, including the Charleston School of Law . Charleston is also home to the Roper Hospital School of Practical Nursing, and the city has a downtown satellite campus for the region's technical school, Trident Technical College. Charleston is also the location for the only college in the country that offers bachelor's degrees in the building arts, The American College of the Building Arts. The Art Institute of Charleston, located downtown on North Market Street, opened in 2007.


Charleston has one official sister city, Spoleto, Umbria, Italy. The relationship between the two cities began when Pulitzer Prize-winning Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti selected Charleston as the city to host the American version of Spoleto's annual Festival of Two Worlds. "Looking for a city that would provide the charm of Spoleto, as well as its wealth of theaters, churches, and other performance spaces, they selected Charleston, South Carolina, as the ideal location. The historic city provided a perfect fit: intimate enough that the Festival would captivate the entire city, yet cosmopolitan enough to provide an enthusiastic audience and robust infrastructure."


During this period, the Weapons Station was the Atlantic Fleet's loadout base for all nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Two SSBN "Boomer" squadrons and a submarine tender were homeported at the Weapons Station, while one SSN attack squadron, Submarine Squadron 4, and a submarine tender were homeported at the Naval Base. At the 1996 closure of the station's Polaris Missile Facility Atlantic (POMFLANT), over 2,500 nuclear warheads and their UGM-27 Polaris, UGM-73 Poseidon, and UGM-96 Trident I delivery missiles (SLBM) were stored and maintained, guarded by a U.S. Marine Corps security force company.


In 1832, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification, a procedure by which a state could, in effect, repeal a federal law; it was directed against the most recent tariff acts. Soon, federal soldiers were dispensed to Charleston's forts, and five United States Coast Guard cutters were detached to Charleston Harbor "to take possession of any vessel arriving from a foreign port, and defend her against any attempt to dispossess the Customs Officers of her custody until all the requirements of law have been complied with." This federal action became known as the Charleston incident. The state's politicians worked on a compromise law in Washington to gradually reduce the tariffs.


By 1840, the Market Hall and Sheds, where fresh meat and produce were brought daily, became a hub of commercial activity. The slave trade also depended on the port of Charleston, where ships could be unloaded and the slaves bought and sold. The legal importation of African slaves had ended in 1808, although smuggling was significant. However, the domestic trade was booming. More than one million slaves were transported from the Upper South to the Deep South in the antebellum years, as cotton plantations were widely developed through what became known as the Black Belt. Many slaves were transported in the coastwise slave trade, with slave ships stopping at ports such as Charleston.


After the defeat of the Confederacy, federal forces remained in Charleston during the city's reconstruction. The war had shattered the prosperity of the antebellum city. Freed slaves were faced with poverty and discrimination, but a large community of free people of color had been well-established in the city before the war and became the leaders of the postwar Republican Party and its legislators. Men who had been free people of color before the war comprised 26% of those elected to state and federal office in South Carolina from 1868 to 1876.


Between 7 September 1940 and 21 May 1941, 16 British cities suffered aerial raids with at least 100 long tons of high explosives. Over a period of 267 days, London was attacked 71 times, Birmingham, Liverpool and Plymouth eight times, Bristol six, Glasgow five, Southampton four, Portsmouth and Hull three and a minimum of one large raid on eight other cities. This was a result of a rapid escalation starting on 24 August 1940, when night bombers aiming for RAF airfields drifted off course and accidentally destroyed several London homes, killing civilians, combined with the UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill's retaliatory bombing of Berlin on the following night.[clarification needed]


From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London. Ports and industrial centres outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, causing nearly 4,000 deaths within the Merseyside area during the war. The North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to 86 raids in the Hull Blitz during the war, with a conservative estimate of 1,200 civilians killed and 95 percent of its housing stock destroyed or damaged. Other ports including Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also bombed, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield. Birmingham and Coventry were chosen because of the Spitfire and tank factories in Birmingham and the many munitions factories in Coventry. The city centre of Coventry was almost destroyed, as was Coventry Cathedral.


The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy. The eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The Blitz was only authorised when the Luftwaffe had failed to meet preconditions for a 1940 launch of Operation Sea Lion, the provisionally planned German invasion of Britain. By May 1941 the threat of an invasion of Britain had passed, and Hitler's attention had turned to Operation Barbarossa in the East. In comparison to the later Allied bombing campaign against Germany, the Blitz resulted in relatively few casualties; the British bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 inflicted some 42,000 civilian deaths, about the same as the entire Blitz.


In the 1920s and 1930s, air power theorists Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell espoused the idea that air forces could win wars by themselves, without a need for land and sea fighting. It was thought there was no defence against air attack, particularly at night. Enemy industry, their seats of government, factories and communications could be destroyed, effectively taking away their means to resist. It was also thought the bombing of residential centres would cause a collapse of civilian will, which might have led to the collapse of production and civil life. Democracies, where the populace was allowed to show overt disapproval of the ruling government, were thought particularly vulnerable. This thinking was prevalent in both the RAF and what was then known as the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) between the two world wars. RAF Bomber Command's policy in particular would attempt to achieve victory through the destruction of civilian will, communications and industry.


Within the Luftwaffe, there was a more muted view of strategic bombing. The OKL did not oppose the strategic bombardment of enemy industries and or cities, and believed it could greatly affect the balance of power on the battlefield in Germany's favour by disrupting production and damaging civilian morale, but they did not believe that air power alone could be decisive. Contrary to popular belief, the Luftwaffe did not have a systematic policy of what became known as "terror bombing". Evidence suggests that the Luftwaffe did not adopt an official bombing policy in which civilians became the primary target until 1942.


Wever argued that the Luftwaffe General Staff should not be solely educated in tactical and operational matters. He argued they should be educated in grand strategy, war economics, armament production, and the mentality of potential opponents (also known as mirror imaging). Wever's vision was not realised; the General Staff studies in those subjects fell by the wayside, and the Air Academies focused on tactics, technology, and operational planning, rather than on independent strategic air offensives.


In 1936, Wever was killed in an air crash. The failure to implement his vision for the new Luftwaffe was largely attributable to his immediate successors. Ex-Army personnel Albert Kesselring and Hans-Jürgen Stumpff are usually blamed for the turning away from strategic planning and focusing on close air support. However, it would seem the two most prominent enthusiasts for the focus on ground-support operations (direct or indirect) were actually Hugo Sperrle and Hans Jeschonnek. These men were long-time professional airmen involved in German air services since early in their careers. The Luftwaffe was not pressured into ground support operations because of pressure from the army, or because it was led by ex-army personnel. It was instead a mission that suited the Luftwaffe's existing approach to warfare; a culture of joint inter-service operations, rather than independent strategic air campaigns.


Adolf Hitler failed to pay as much attention to bombing the enemy as he did to protection from enemy bombing, although he had promoted the development of a bomber force in the 1930s and understood that it was possible to use bombers for major strategic purposes. He told the OKL in 1939 that ruthless employment of the Luftwaffe against the heart of the British will to resist could and would follow when the moment was right; however, he quickly developed a lively scepticism toward strategic bombing, confirmed by the results of the Blitz. He frequently complained of the Luftwaffe's inability to damage industries sufficiently, saying, "The munitions industry cannot be interfered with effectively by air raids ... usually the prescribed targets are not hit".


Ultimately, Hitler was trapped within his own vision of bombing as a terror weapon, formed in the 1930s when he threatened smaller nations into accepting German rule rather than submit to air bombardment. This fact had important implications. It showed the extent to which Hitler personally mistook Allied strategy for one of morale breaking instead of one of economic warfare, with the collapse of morale as an additional bonus. Hitler was much more attracted to the political aspects of bombing. As the mere threat of it had produced diplomatic results in the 1930s, he expected that the threat of German retaliation would persuade the Allies to adopt a policy of moderation and not to begin a policy of unrestricted bombing. His hope was — for reasons of political prestige within Germany itself — that the German population would be protected from the Allied bombings. When this proved impossible, he began to fear that popular feeling would turn against his regime, and he redoubled efforts to mount a similar "terror offensive" against Britain in order to produce a stalemate in which both sides would hesitate to use bombing at all.


A major problem in the managing of the Luftwaffe was Hermann Göring. Hitler believed the Luftwaffe was "the most effective strategic weapon", and in reply to repeated requests from the Kriegsmarine for control over aircraft insisted, "We should never have been able to hold our own in this war if we had not had an undivided Luftwaffe". Such principles made it much harder to integrate the air force into the overall strategy and produced in Göring a jealous and damaging defence of his "empire" while removing Hitler voluntarily from the systematic direction of the Luftwaffe at either the strategic or operational level. When Hitler tried to intervene more in the running of the air force later in the war, he was faced with a political conflict of his own making between himself and Göring, which was not fully resolved until the war was almost over. In 1940 and 1941, Göring's refusal to cooperate with the Kriegsmarine denied the entire Wehrmacht military forces of the Reich the chance to strangle British sea communications, which might have had strategic or decisive effect in the war against the British Empire.


The deliberate separation of the Luftwaffe from the rest of the military structure encouraged the emergence of a major "communications gap" between Hitler and the Luftwaffe, which other factors helped to exacerbate. For one thing, Göring's fear of Hitler led him to falsify or misrepresent what information was available in the direction of an uncritical and over-optimistic interpretation of air strength. When Göring decided against continuing Wever's original heavy bomber programme in 1937, the Reichsmarschall's own explanation was that Hitler wanted to know only how many bombers there were, not how many engines each had. In July 1939, Göring arranged a display of the Luftwaffe's most advanced equipment at Rechlin, to give the impression the air force was more prepared for a strategic air war than was actually the case.


Within hours of the UK and France declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the RAF bombed German warships along the German coast at Wilhelmshaven. Thereafter bombing operations were against ports and shipping and propaganda leaflet drops. Operations were planned to minimize civilian casualties. From 15 May 1940 – the day after the Luftwaffe destroyed the centre of Rotterdam – the RAF also carried out operations east of the Rhine, attacking industrial and transportation targets. Operations were carried out every night thereafter.


Although not specifically prepared to conduct independent strategic air operations against an opponent, the Luftwaffe was expected to do so over Britain. From July until September 1940 the Luftwaffe attacked RAF Fighter Command to gain air superiority as a prelude to invasion. This involved the bombing of English Channel convoys, ports, and RAF airfields and supporting industries. Destroying RAF Fighter Command would allow the Germans to gain control of the skies over the invasion area. It was supposed that Bomber Command, RAF Coastal Command and the Royal Navy could not operate under conditions of German air superiority.


The Luftwaffe's poor intelligence meant that their aircraft were not always able to locate their targets, and thus attacks on factories and airfields failed to achieve the desired results. British fighter aircraft production continued at a rate surpassing Germany's by 2 to 1. The British produced 10,000 aircraft in 1940, in comparison to Germany's 8,000. The replacement of pilots and aircrew was more difficult. Both the RAF and Luftwaffe struggled to replace manpower losses, though the Germans had larger reserves of trained aircrew. The circumstances affected the Germans more than the British. Operating over home territory, British flyers could fly again if they survived being shot down. German crews, even if they survived, faced capture. Moreover, bombers had four to five crewmen on board, representing a greater loss of manpower. On 7 September, the Germans shifted away from the destruction of the RAF's supporting structures. German intelligence suggested Fighter Command was weakening, and an attack on London would force it into a final battle of annihilation while compelling the British Government to surrender.


The decision to change strategy is sometimes claimed as a major mistake by the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL). It is argued that persisting with attacks on RAF airfields might have won air superiority for the Luftwaffe. Others argue that the Luftwaffe made little impression on Fighter Command in the last week of August and first week of September and that the shift in strategy was not decisive. It has also been argued that it was doubtful the Luftwaffe could have won air superiority before the "weather window" began to deteriorate in October. It was also possible, if RAF losses became severe, that they could pull out to the north, wait for the German invasion, then redeploy southward again. Other historians argue that the outcome of the air battle was irrelevant; the massive numerical superiority of British naval forces and the inherent weakness of the Kriegsmarine would have made the projected German invasion, Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sea Lion), a disaster with or without German air superiority.


Regardless of the ability of the Luftwaffe to win air superiority, Adolf Hitler was frustrated that it was not happening quickly enough. With no sign of the RAF weakening, and Luftwaffe air fleets (Luftflotten) taking punishing losses, the OKL was keen for a change in strategy. To reduce losses further, a change in strategy was also favoured to take place at night, to give the bombers greater protection under cover of darkness.[b] On 4 September 1940, in a long address at the Sportspalast, Hitler declared: "And should the Royal Air Force drop two thousand, or three thousand [kilograms ...] then we will now drop [...] 300,000, 400,000, yes one million kilograms in a single night. And should they declare they will greatly increase their attacks on our cities, then we will erase their cities."


It was decided to focus on bombing Britain's industrial cities in daylight to begin with. The main focus of the bombing operations was against the city of London. The first major raid in this regard took place on 7 September. On 15 September, on a date known as the Battle of Britain Day, a large-scale raid was launched in daylight, but suffered significant loss for no lasting gain. Although there were a few large air battles fought in daylight later in the month and into October, the Luftwaffe switched its main effort to night attacks in order to reduce losses. This became official policy on 7 October. The air campaign soon got underway against London and other British cities. However, the Luftwaffe faced limitations. Its aircraft—Dornier Do 17, Junkers Ju 88, and Heinkel He 111s—were capable of carrying out strategic missions, but were incapable of doing greater damage because of bomb-load limitations. The Luftwaffe's decision in the interwar period to concentrate on medium bombers can be attributed to several reasons: Hitler did not intend or foresee a war with Britain in 1939; the OKL believed a medium bomber could carry out strategic missions just as well as a heavy bomber force; and Germany did not possess the resources or technical ability to produce four-engined bombers before the war.


Although it had equipment capable of doing serious damage, the problem for the Luftwaffe was its unclear strategy and poor intelligence. OKL had not been informed that Britain was to be considered a potential opponent until early 1938. It had no time to gather reliable intelligence on Britain's industries. Moreover, OKL could not settle on an appropriate strategy. German planners had to decide whether the Luftwaffe should deliver the weight of its attacks against a specific segment of British industry such as aircraft factories, or against a system of interrelated industries such as Britain's import and distribution network, or even in a blow aimed at breaking the morale of the British population. The Luftwaffe's strategy became increasingly aimless over the winter of 1940–1941. Disputes among the OKL staff revolved more around tactics than strategy. This method condemned the offensive over Britain to failure before it began.


In an operational capacity, limitations in weapons technology and quick British reactions were making it more difficult to achieve strategic effect. Attacking ports, shipping and imports as well as disrupting rail traffic in the surrounding areas, especially the distribution of coal, an important fuel in all industrial economies of the Second World War, would net a positive result. However, the use of delayed-action bombs, while initially very effective, gradually had less impact, partly because they failed to detonate.[c] Moreover, the British had anticipated the change in strategy and dispersed its production facilities making them less vulnerable to a concentrated attack. Regional commissioners were given plenipotentiary powers to restore communications and organise the distribution of supplies to keep the war economy moving.


Based on experience with German strategic bombing during World War I against the United Kingdom, the British government estimated after the war that 50 casualties— with about one third killed— would result for every tonne of bombs dropped on London. The estimate of tonnes of bombs an enemy could drop per day grew as aircraft technology advanced, from 75 in 1922, to 150 in 1934, to 644 in 1937. That year the Committee on Imperial Defence estimated that an attack of 60 days would result in 600,000 dead and 1,200,000 wounded. News reports of the Spanish Civil War, such as the bombing of Barcelona, supported the 50-casualties-per-tonne estimate. By 1938 experts generally expected that Germany would attempt to drop as much as 3,500 tonnes in the first 24 hours of war and average 700 tonnes a day for several weeks. In addition to high explosive and incendiary bombs the enemy would possibly use poison gas and even bacteriological warfare, all with a high degree of accuracy. In 1939 military theorist Basil Liddell-Hart predicted that 250,000 deaths and injuries in Britain could occur in the first week of war.


In addition to the dead and wounded, government leaders feared mass psychological trauma from aerial attack and a resulting collapse of civil society. A committee of psychiatrists reported to the government in 1938 that there would be three times as many mental as physical casualties from aerial bombing, implying three to four million psychiatric patients. Winston Churchill told Parliament in 1934, "We must expect that, under the pressure of continuous attack upon London, at least three or four million people would be driven out into the open country around the metropolis." Panicked reactions during the Munich crisis, such as the migration by 150,000 to Wales, contributed to fear of societal chaos.


The government planned to voluntarily evacuate four million people—mostly women and children—from urban areas, including 1.4 million from London. It expected about 90% of evacuees to stay in private homes, and conducted an extensive survey to determine available space. Detailed preparations for transporting them were developed. A trial blackout was held on 10 August 1939, and when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September a blackout began at sunset. Lights would not be allowed after dark for almost six years, and the blackout became by far the most unpopular aspect of the war for civilians, more than rationing.:51,106 The relocation of the government and the civil service was also planned, but would only have occurred if necessary so as not to damage civilian morale.:33


Much civil-defence preparation in the form of shelters was left in the hands of local authorities, and many areas such as Birmingham, Coventry, Belfast and the East End of London did not have enough shelters. The Phoney War, however, and the unexpected delay of civilian bombing permitted the shelter programme to finish in June 1940.:35 The programme favoured backyard Anderson shelters and small brick surface shelters; many of the latter were soon abandoned in 1940 as unsafe. In addition, authorities expected that the raids would be brief and during the day. Few predicted that attacks by night would force Londoners to sleep in shelters.


Very deeply buried shelters provided the most protection against a direct hit. The government did not build them for large populations before the war because of cost, time to build, and fears that their very safety would cause occupants to refuse to leave to return to work, or that anti-war sentiment would develop in large groups. The government saw the Communist Party's leading role in advocating for building deep shelters as an attempt to damage civilian morale, especially after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939.:34


The most important existing communal shelters were the London Underground stations. Although many civilians had used them as such during the First World War, the government in 1939 refused to allow the stations to be used as shelters so as not to interfere with commuter and troop travel, and the fears that occupants might refuse to leave. Underground officials were ordered to lock station entrances during raids; but by the second week of heavy bombing the government relented and ordered the stations to be opened. Each day orderly lines of people queued until 4 pm, when they were allowed to enter the stations. In mid-September 1940 about 150,000 a night slept in the Underground, although by the winter and spring months the numbers had declined to 100,000 or less. Noises of battle were muffled and sleep was easier in the deepest stations, but many were killed from direct hits on several stations.


Communal shelters never housed more than one seventh of Greater London residents, however. Peak use of the Underground as shelter was 177,000 on 27 September 1940, and a November 1940 census of London found that about 4% of residents used the Tube and other large shelters; 9% in public surface shelters; and 27% in private home shelters, implying that the remaining 60% of the city likely stayed at home. The government distributed Anderson shelters until 1941 and that year began distributing the Morrison shelter, which could be used inside homes.:190


Public demand caused the government in October 1940 to build new deep shelters:189–190 within the Underground to hold 80,000 people but were not completed until the period of heaviest bombing had passed. By the end of 1940 significant improvements had been made in the Underground and in many other large shelters. Authorities provided stoves and bathrooms and canteen trains provided food. Tickets were issued for bunks in large shelters to reduce the amount of time spent queuing. Committees quickly formed within shelters as informal governments, and organisations such as the British Red Cross and the Salvation Army worked to improve conditions. Entertainment included concerts, films, plays and books from local libraries.


Although the intensity of the bombing was not as great as prewar expectations so an equal comparison is impossible, no psychiatric crisis occurred because of the Blitz even during the period of greatest bombing of September 1940. An American witness wrote "By every test and measure I am able to apply, these people are staunch to the bone and won't quit ... the British are stronger and in a better position than they were at its beginning". People referred to raids as if they were weather, stating that a day was "very blitzy".:75,261 However, another American who visited Britain, the publisher Ralph Ingersoll, wrote soon after the Blitz eased on 15 September that:


Ingersoll added that, according to Anna Freud and Edward Glover, London civilians surprisingly did not suffer from widespread shell shock, unlike the soldiers in the Dunkirk evacuation.:114,117–118 The psychoanalysts were correct, and the special network of psychiatric clinics opened to receive mental casualties of the attacks closed due to lack of need. Although the stress of the war resulted in many anxiety attacks, eating disorders, fatigue, weeping, miscarriages, and other physical and mental ailments, society did not collapse. The number of suicides and drunkenness declined, and London recorded only about two cases of "bomb neuroses" per week in the first three months of bombing. Many civilians found that the best way to retain mental stability was to be with family, and after the first few weeks of bombing avoidance of the evacuation programs grew.:80–81 Glover speculated that the knowledge that the entire country was being attacked, that there was no way to escape the bombs, forced people to accept and deal with the situation.:118


The cheerful crowds visiting bomb sites were so large they interfered with rescue work, pub visits increased in number (beer was never rationed), and 13,000 attended cricket at Lord's. People left shelters when told instead of refusing to leave, although many housewives reportedly enjoyed the break from housework. Some people even told government surveyors that they enjoyed air raids if they occurred occasionally, perhaps once a week. Despite the attacks, defeat in Norway and France, and the threat of invasion, overall morale remained high; a Gallup poll found only 3% of Britons expected to lose the war in May 1940, another found an 88% approval rating for Churchill in July, and a third found 89% support for his leadership in October. Support for peace negotiations declined from 29% in February. Each setback caused more civilians to volunteer to become unpaid Local Defence Volunteers, workers worked longer shifts and over weekends, contributions rose to the £5,000 "Spitfire Funds" to build fighters, and the number of work days lost to strikes in 1940 was the lowest in history.:60–63,67–68,75,78–79,215–216


The civilians of London had an enormous role to play in the protection of their city. Many civilians who were unwilling or unable to join the military became members of the Home Guard, the Air Raid Precautions service (ARP), the Auxiliary Fire Service, and many other organisations. The AFS had 138,000 personnel by July 1939. Only one year earlier, there had only been 6,600 full-time and 13,800 part-time firemen in the entire country. During the Blitz, The Scout Association guided fire engines to where they were most needed, and became known as the "Blitz Scouts". Many unemployed were drafted into the Royal Army Pay Corps. These personnel, along with others from the Pioneer Corps, were charged with the task of salvage and clean-up.


The WVS (Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence) was set up under the direction of Samuel Hoare, Home Secretary in 1938 specifically in the event of air raids. Hoare considered it the female branch of the ARP. They organised the evacuation of children, established centres for those displaced by bombing, and operated canteens, salvage and recycling schemes. By the end of 1941, the WVS had one million members. Prior to the outbreak of war, civilians were issued with 50 million respirators (gas masks). These were issued in the event of bombing taking place with gas before evacuation.


In the inter-war years and after 1940, Hugh Dowding, Air Officer Commanding Fighter Command has received credit for the defence of British air space and the failure of the Luftwaffe to achieve air superiority. However, Dowding had spent so much effort preparing day fighter defences, there was little to prevent the Germans carrying out an alternative strategy by bombing at night. When the Luftwaffe struck at British cities for the first time on 7 September 1940, a number of civic and political leaders were worried by Dowding's apparent lack of reaction to the new crisis.


Dowding accepted that as AOC, he was responsible for the day and night defence of Britain, and the blame, should he fail, would be laid at his door. When urgent changes and improvements needed to be made, Dowding seemed reluctant to act quickly. The Air Staff felt that this was due to his stubborn nature and reluctance to cooperate. Dowding's opponents in the Air Ministry, already critical of his handling of the day battle (see Battle of Britain Day and the Big Wing controversy), were ready to use these failings as a cudgel with which to attack him and his abilities.


Dowding was summoned to an Air Ministry conference on 17 October 1940 to explain the poor state of night defences and the supposed (but ultimately successful) "failure" of his daytime strategy. The criticism of his leadership extended far beyond the Air Council, and the Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, and Churchill themselves intimated their support was waning. While the failure of night defence preparation was undeniable, it was not the AOC's responsibility to accrue resources. The general neglect of the RAF until the late spurt in 1938 had left sparse resources to build defences. While it was permissible to disagree with Dowding's operational and tactical deployment of forces, the failure of the Government and Air Ministry to allot resources was ultimately the responsibility of the civil and military institutions at large. In the pre-war period, the Chamberlain Government stated that night defence from air attack should not take up much of the national effort and, along with the Air Ministry, did not make it a priority.


The attitude of the Air Ministry was in contrast to the experiences of the First World War when a few German bombers caused physical and psychological damage out of all proportion to their numbers. Around 280 short tons (250 t) (9,000 bombs) had been dropped, killing 1,413 people and injuring 3,500 more. Most people aged 35 or over remembered the threat and greeted the bombings with great trepidation. From 1916–1918, German raids had diminished against countermeasures which demonstrated defence against night air raids was possible.


Although night air defence was causing greater concern before the war, it was not at the forefront of RAF planning. Most of the resources went into planning for daylight fighter defences. The difficulty RAF bombers had navigating in darkness, led the British to believe German bombers would suffer the same problems and would be unable to reach and identify their targets. There was also a mentality in all air forces that, if they could carry out effective operations by day, night missions and their disadvantages could be avoided.


British air doctrine, since the time of Chief of the Air Staff Hugh Trenchard in the early 1920s, had stressed offence was the best means of defence. British defensive strategy revolved around offensive action, what became known as the cult of the offensive. To prevent German formations from hitting targets in Britain, RAF's Bomber Command would destroy Luftwaffe aircraft on their own bases, aircraft in their factories and fuel reserves by attacking oil plants. This philosophy was impractical as Bomber Command lacked the technology and equipment and needed several years to develop it. This strategy retarded the development of fighter defences in the 1930s. Dowding agreed air defence would require some offensive action, and fighters could not defend Britain alone. Until September 1940, the RAF lacked specialist night-fighting aircraft and relied on anti-aircraft units which were poorly equipped and lacking in numbers.


Bomber crews already had some experience with these types of systems due to the deployment of the Lorenz beam, a commercial blind-landing aid which allowed aircraft to land at night or in bad weather. The Germans developed the short-range Lorenz system into the Knickebein aid, a system which used two Lorenz beams with much stronger signal transmissions. The concept was the same as the Lorenz system. Two aerials were rotated for the two converging beams which were pointed to cross directly over the target. The German bombers would attach themselves to either beam and fly along it until they started to pick up the signal from the other beam. When a continuous sound was heard from the second beam the crew knew they were above the target and began dropping their bombs.


While Knickebein was used by German crews en masse, X-Gerät use was limited to specially trained pathfinder crews. Special receivers were mounted in He 111s, with a radio mast on the bomber's fuselage. The system worked on a higher frequency (66–77 MHz, compared to Knickebein's 30–33 MHz). Transmitters on the ground sent pulses at a rate of 180 per minute. X-Gerät received and analysed the pulses, giving the pilot both visual and aural "on course" signals. Three beams intersected the beam along the He 111's flight path. The first cross-beam acted as a warning for the bomb-aimer to start the bombing-clock which he would activate only when the second cross-beam was reached. When the third cross-beam was reached the bomb aimer activated a third trigger, which stopped the first hand of the equipment's clock, with the second hand continuing. When the second hand re-aligned with the first, the bombs were released. The clock's timing mechanism was co-ordinated with the distances of the intersecting beams from the target so the target was directly below when the bomb release occurred.


Y-Gerät was the most complex system of the three. It was, in effect, an automatic beam-tracking system, operated through the bomber's autopilot. The single approach beam along which the bomber tracked was monitored by a ground controller. The signals from the station were retransmitted by the bomber's equipment. This way the distance the bomber travelled along the beam could be precisely verified. Direction-finding checks also enabled the controller to keep the crew on an exact course. The crew would be ordered to drop their bombs either by issue of a code word by the ground controller, or at the conclusion of the signal transmissions which would stop. Although its maximum usable range was similar to the previous systems, it was not unknown for specific buildings to be hit.


In June 1940, a German prisoner of war was overheard boasting that the British would never find the Knickebein, even though it was under their noses. The details of the conversation were passed to an RAF Air Staff technical advisor, Dr. R. V. Jones, who started an in-depth investigation which discovered that the Luftwaffe's Lorenz receivers were more than blind-landing devices. Jones therefore began a search for the German beams. Avro Ansons of the Beam Approach Training Development Unit (BATDU) were flown up and down Britain fitted with a 30 MHz receiver to detect them. Soon a beam was traced to Derby (which had been mentioned in Luftwaffe transmissions). The first jamming operations were carried out using requisitioned hospital electrocautery machines. A subtle form of distortion was introduced. Up to nine special transmitters directed their signals at the beams in a manner that widened its path, negating its ability to accurately locate targets. Confidence in the device was diminished by the time the Luftwaffe decided to launch large-scale raids. The counter operations were carried out by British Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) units under Wing Commander Edward Addison, No. 80 Wing RAF. The production of false radio navigation signals by re-transmitting the originals was a technique known as masking beacons (meacons).


German beacons operated on the medium-frequency band and the signals involved a two-letter Morse identifier followed by a lengthy time-lapse which enabled the Luftwaffe crews to determine the signal's bearing. The Meacon system involved separate locations for a receiver with a directional aerial and a transmitter. The receipt of the German signal by the receiver was duly passed to the transmitter, the signal to be repeated. The action did not guarantee automatic success. If the German bomber flew closer to its own beam than the Meacon then the former signal would come through the stronger on the direction finder. The reverse would apply only if the meacon were closer.


In general, German bombers were likely to get through to their targets without too much difficulty. It was to be some months before an effective night fighter force would be ready, and anti-aircraft defences only became adequate after the Blitz was over, so ruses were created to lure German bombers away from their targets. Throughout 1940, dummy airfields were prepared, good enough to stand up to skilled observation. A number[clarification needed] of bombs fell on these diversionary ("Starfish") targets.


The use of diversionary techniques such as fires had to be made carefully. The fake fires could only begin when the bombing started over an adjacent target and its effects were brought under control. Too early and the chances of success receded; too late and the real conflagration at the target would exceed the diversionary fires. Another innovation was the boiler fire. These units were fed from two adjacent tanks containing oil and water. The oil-fed fires were then injected with water from time to time; the flashes produced were similar to those of the German C-250 and C-500 Flammbomben. The hope was that, if it could deceive German bombardiers, it would draw more bombers away from the real target.


Initially the change in strategy caught the RAF off-guard, and caused extensive damage and civilian casualties. Some 107,400 long tons (109,100 t) of shipping was damaged in the Thames Estuary and 1,600 civilians were casualties. Of this total around 400 were killed. The fighting in the air was more intense in daylight. Overall Loge had cost the Luftwaffe 41 aircraft; 14 bombers, 16 Messerschmitt Bf 109s, seven Messerschmitt Bf 110s and four reconnaissance aircraft. Fighter Command lost 23 fighters, with six pilots killed and another seven wounded. Another 247 bombers from Sperrle's Luftflotte 3 (Air Fleet 3) attacked that night. On 8 September, the Luftwaffe returned. This time 412 people were killed and 747 severely wounded.


On 9 September the OKL appeared to be backing two strategies. Its round-the-clock bombing of London was an immediate attempt to force the British government to capitulate, but it was also striking at Britain's vital sea communications to achieve a victory through siege. Although the weather was poor, heavy raids took place that afternoon on the London suburbs and the airfield at Farnborough. The day's fighting cost Kesselring and Luftflotte 2 (Air Fleet 2) 24 aircraft, including 13 Bf 109s. Fighter Command lost 17 fighters and six pilots. Over the next few days weather was poor and the next main effort would not be made until 15 September 1940.


On 15 September the Luftwaffe made two large daylight attacks on London along the Thames Estuary, targeting the docks and rail communications in the city. Its hope was to destroy its targets and draw the RAF into defending them, allowing the Luftwaffe to destroy their fighters in large numbers, thereby achieving an air superiority. Large air battles broke out, lasting for most of the day. The first attack merely damaged the rail network for three days, and the second attack failed altogether. The air battle was later commemorated by Battle of Britain Day. The Luftwaffe lost 18 percent of the bombers sent on the operations that day, and failed to gain air superiority.


While Göring was optimistic the Luftwaffe could prevail, Hitler was not. On 17 September he postponed Operation Sea Lion (as it turned out, indefinitely) rather than gamble Germany's newly gained military prestige on a risky cross-Channel operation, particularly in the face of a sceptical Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. In the last days of the battle, the bombers became lures in an attempt to draw the RAF into combat with German fighters. But their operations were to no avail; the worsening weather and unsustainable attrition in daylight gave the OKL an excuse to switch to night attacks on 7 October.


On 14 October, the heaviest night attack to date saw 380 German bombers from Luftflotte 3 hit London. Around 200 people were killed and another 2,000 injured. British anti-aircraft defences (General Frederick Alfred Pile) fired 8,326 rounds and shot down only two bombers. On 15 October, the bombers returned and about 900 fires were started by the mix of 415 short tons (376 t) of high explosive and 11 short tons (10.0 t) of incendiaries dropped. Five main rail lines were cut in London and rolling stock damaged.


Loge continued during October. According to German sources, 9,000 short tons (8,200 t) of bombs were dropped in that month, of which about 10 percent of which was dropped in daylight. Over 6,000 short tons (5,400 t) was aimed at London during the night. Attacks on Birmingham and Coventry were subject to 500 short tons (450 t) of bombs between them in the last 10 days of October. Liverpool suffered 200 short tons (180 t) of bombs dropped. Hull and Glasgow were attacked, but 800 short tons (730 t) of bombs were spread out all over Britain. The Metropolitan-Vickers works in Manchester was targeted and 12 short tons (11 t) of bombs dropped against it. Little tonnage was dropped on Fighter Command airfields; Bomber Command airfields were hit instead.


Luftwaffe policy at this point was primarily to continue progressive attacks on London, chiefly by night attack; second, to interfere with production in the vast industrial arms factories of the West Midlands, again chiefly by night attack; and third to disrupt plants and factories during the day by means of fighter-bombers. Kesselring, commanding Luftflotte 2, was ordered to send 50 sorties per night against London and attack eastern harbours in daylight. Sperrle, commanding Luftflotte 3, was ordered to dispatch 250 sorties per night including 100 against the West Midlands. Seeschlange would be carried out by Fliegerkorps X (10th Air Corps) which concentrated on mining operations against shipping. It also took part in the bombing over Britain. By 19/20 April 1941, it had dropped 3,984 mines, ⅓ of the total dropped. The mines' ability to destroy entire streets earned them respect in Britain, but several fell unexploded into British hands allowing counter-measures to be developed which damaged the German anti-shipping campaign.


By mid-November 1940, when the Germans adopted a changed plan, more than 13,000 short tons (12,000 t) of high explosive and nearly 1,000,000 incendiaries had fallen on London. Outside the capital, there had been widespread harassing activity by single aircraft, as well as fairly strong diversionary attacks on Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool, but no major raids. The London docks and railways communications had taken a heavy pounding, and much damage had been done to the railway system outside. In September, there had been no less than 667 hits on railways in Great Britain, and at one period, between 5,000 and 6,000 wagons were standing idle from the effect of delayed action bombs. But the great bulk of the traffic went on; and Londoners—though they glanced apprehensively each morning at the list of closed stretches of line displayed at their local station, or made strange detours round back streets in the buses—still got to work. For all the destruction of life and property, the observers sent out by the Ministry of Home Security failed to discover the slightest sign of a break in morale. More than 13,000 civilians had been killed, and almost 20,000 injured, in September and October alone, but the death toll was much less than expected. In late 1940, Churchill credited the shelters:


The American observer Ingersoll reported at this time that "as to the accuracy of the bombing of military objectives, here I make no qualifications. The aim is surprisingly, astonishingly, amazingly inaccurate ... The physical damage to civilian London, to sum up, was more general and more extensive than I had imagined. The damage to military targets much less", and stated that he had seen numerous examples of untouched targets surrounded by buildings destroyed by errant bombs. For example, in two months of bombing, Battersea Power Station, perhaps the largest single target in London, had only received one minor hit ("a nick"). No bridge over the Thames had been hit, and the docks were still functioning despite great damage. An airfield was hit 56 times but the runways were never damaged and the field was never out of operation, despite German pilots' familiarity with it from prewar commercial flights. Ingersoll wrote that the difference between the failure of the German campaign against military targets versus its success in continental Europe was the RAF retaining control of the air.:79–80,174


British night air defences were in a poor state. Few anti-aircraft guns had fire-control systems, and the underpowered searchlights were usually ineffective against aircraft at altitudes above 12,000 ft (3,700 m). In July 1940, only 1,200 heavy and 549 light guns were deployed in the whole of Britain. Of the "heavies", some 200 were of the obsolescent 3 in (76 mm) type; the remainder were the effective 4.5 in (110 mm) and 3.7 in (94 mm) guns, with a theoretical "ceiling"' of over 30,000 ft (9,100 m) but a practical limit of 25,000 ft (7,600 m) because the predictor in use could not accept greater heights. The light guns, about half of which were of the excellent Bofors 40 mm, dealt with aircraft only up to 6,000 ft (1,800 m). Although the use of the guns improved civilian morale, with the knowledge the German bomber crews were facing the barrage, it is now believed that the anti-aircraft guns achieved little and in fact the falling shell fragments caused more British casualties on the ground.


London's defences were rapidly reorganised by General Pile, the Commander-in-Chief of Anti-Aircraft Command. The difference this made to the effectiveness of air defences is questionable. The British were still one-third below the establishment of heavy anti-aircraft artillery AAA (or ack-ack) in May 1941, with only 2,631 weapons available. Dowding had to rely on night fighters. From 1940 to 1941, the most successful night-fighter was the Boulton Paul Defiant; its four squadrons shot down more enemy aircraft than any other type. AA defences improved by better use of radar and searchlights. Over several months, the 20,000 shells spent per raider shot down in September 1940, was reduced to 4,087 in January 1941 and to 2,963 shells in February 1941.


Airborne Interception radar (AI) was unreliable. The heavy fighting in the Battle of Britain had eaten up most of Fighter Command's resources, so there was little investment in night fighting. Bombers were flown with airborne search lights out of desperation[citation needed], but to little avail. Of greater potential was the GL (Gunlaying) radar and searchlights with fighter direction from RAF fighter control rooms to begin a GCI system (Ground Control-led Interception) under Group-level control (No. 10 Group RAF, No. 11 Group RAF and No. 12 Group RAF).


Whitehall's disquiet at the failures of the RAF led to the replacement of Dowding (who was already due for retirement) with Sholto Douglas on 25 November. Douglas set about introducing more squadrons and dispersing the few GL sets to create a carpet effect in the southern counties. Still, in February 1941, there remained only seven squadrons with 87 pilots, under half the required strength. The GL carpet was supported by six GCI sets controlling radar-equipped night-fighters. By the height of the Blitz, they were becoming more successful. The number of contacts and combats rose in 1941, from 44 and two in 48 sorties in January 1941, to 204 and 74 in May (643 sorties). But even in May, 67% of the sorties were visual cat's-eye missions. Curiously, while 43% of the contacts in May 1941 were by visual sightings, they accounted for 61% of the combats. Yet when compared with Luftwaffe daylight operations, there was a sharp decline in German losses to 1%. If a vigilant bomber crew could spot the fighter first, they had a decent chance at evading it.


Nevertheless, it was radar that proved to be critical weapon in the night battles over Britain from this point onward. Dowding had introduced the concept of airborne radar and encouraged its usage. Eventually it would become a success. On the night of 22/23 July 1940, Flying Officer Cyril Ashfield (pilot), Pilot Officer Geoffrey Morris (Observer) and Flight Sergeant Reginald Leyland (Air Intercept radar operator) of the Fighter Interception Unit became the first pilot and crew to intercept and destroy an enemy aircraft using onboard radar to guide them to a visual interception, when their AI night fighter brought down a Do 17 off Sussex. On 19 November 1940 the famous RAF night fighter ace John Cunningham shot down a Ju 88 bomber using airborne radar, just as Dowding had predicted.


From November 1940 – February 1941, the Luftwaffe shifted its strategy and attacked other industrial cities. In particular, the West Midlands were targeted. On the night of 13/14 November, 77 He 111s of Kampfgeschwader 26 (26th Bomber Wing, or KG 26) bombed London while 63 from KG 55 hit Birmingham. The next night, a large force hit Coventry. "Pathfinders" from 12 Kampfgruppe 100 (Bomb Group 100 or KGr 100) led 437 bombers from KG 1, KG 3, KG 26, KG 27, KG 55 and Lehrgeschwader 1 (1st Training Wing, or LG 1) which dropped 394 short tons (357 t) of high explosive, 56 short tons (51 t) of incendiaries, and 127 parachute mines. Other sources say 449 bombers and a total of 530 short tons (480 t) of bombs were dropped. The raid against Coventry was particularly devastating, and led to widespread use of the phrase "to conventrate". Over 10,000 incendiaries were dropped. Around 21 factories were seriously damaged in Coventry, and loss of public utilities stopped work at nine others, disrupting industrial output for several months. Only one bomber was lost, to anti-aircraft fire, despite the RAF flying 125 night sorties. No follow up raids were made, as OKL underestimated the British power of recovery (as Bomber Command would do over Germany from 1943–1945). The Germans were surprised by the success of the attack. The concentration had been achieved by accident. The strategic effect of the raid was a brief 20 percent dip in aircraft production.


Five nights later, Birmingham was hit by 369 bombers from KG 54, KG 26, and KG 55. By the end of November, 1,100 bombers were available for night raids. An average of 200 were able to strike per night. This weight of attack went on for two months, with the Luftwaffe dropping 13,900 short tons (12,600 t) of bombs. In November 1940, 6,000 sorties and 23 major attacks (more than 100 tons of bombs dropped) were flown. Two heavy (50 short tons (45 t) of bombs) attacks were also flown. In December, only 11 major and five heavy attacks were made.


Probably the most devastating strike occurred on the evening of 29 December, when German aircraft attacked the City of London itself with incendiary and high explosive bombs, causing a firestorm that has been called the Second Great Fire of London. The first group to use these incendiaries was Kampfgruppe 100 which despatched 10 "pathfinder" He 111s. At 18:17, it released the first of 10,000 fire bombs, eventually amounting to 300 dropped per minute. Altogether, 130 German bombers destroyed the historical centre of London. Civilian casualties on London throughout the Blitz amounted to 28,556 killed, and 25,578 wounded. The Luftwaffe had dropped 18,291 short tons (16,593 t) of bombs.


Not all of the Luftwaffe's effort was made against inland cities. Port cities were also attacked to try to disrupt trade and sea communications. In January Swansea was bombed four times, very heavily. On 17 January around 100 bombers dropped a high concentration of incendiaries, some 32,000 in all. The main damage was inflicted on the commercial and domestic areas. Four days later 230 tons was dropped including 60,000 incendiaries. In Portsmouth Southsea and Gosport waves of 150 bombers destroyed vast swaths of the city with 40,000 incendiaries. Warehouses, rail lines and houses were destroyed and damaged, but the docks were largely untouched.


Although official German air doctrine did target civilian morale, it did not espouse the attacking of civilians directly. It hoped to destroy morale by destroying the enemy's factories and public utilities as well as its food stocks (by attacking shipping). Nevertheless, its official opposition to attacks on civilians became an increasingly moot point when large-scale raids were conducted in November and December 1940. Although not encouraged by official policy, the use of mines and incendiaries, for tactical expediency, came close to indiscriminate bombing. Locating targets in skies obscured by industrial haze meant they needed to be illuminated "without regard for the civilian population".


Special units, such as KGr 100, became the Beleuchtergruppe (Firelighter Group), which used incendiaries and high explosive to mark the target area. The tactic was expanded into Feuerleitung (Blaze Control) with the creation of Brandbombenfelder (Incendiary Fields) to mark targets. These were marked out by parachute flares. Then bombers carrying SC 1000 (1,000 kg (2,205 lb)), SC 1400 (1,400 kg (3,086 lb)), and SC 1800 (1,800 kg (3,968 lb)) "Satan" bombs were used to level streets and residential areas. By December, the SC 2500 (2,500 kg (5,512 lb)) "Max" bomb was used.


These decisions, apparently taken at the Luftflotte or Fliegerkorps level (see Organisation of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945)), meant attacks on individual targets were gradually replaced by what was, for all intents and purposes, an unrestricted area attack or Terrorangriff (Terror Attack). Part of the reason for this was inaccuracy of navigation. The effectiveness of British countermeasures against Knickebein, which was designed to avoid area attacks, forced the Luftwaffe to resort to these methods. The shift from precision bombing to area attack is indicated in the tactical methods and weapons dropped. KGr 100 increased its use of incendiaries from 13–28 percent. By December, this had increased to 92 percent. Use of incendiaries, which were inherently inaccurate, indicated much less care was taken to avoid civilian property close to industrial sites. Other units ceased using parachute flares and opted for explosive target markers. Captured German air crews also indicated the homes of industrial workers were deliberately targeted.


In 1941, the Luftwaffe shifted strategy again. Erich Raeder—commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine—had long argued the Luftwaffe should support the German submarine force (U-Bootwaffe) in the Battle of the Atlantic by attacking shipping in the Atlantic Ocean and attacking British ports. Eventually, he convinced Hitler of the need to attack British port facilities. Hitler had been convinced by Raeder that this was the right course of action due to the high success rates of the U-Boat force during this period of the war. Hitler correctly noted that the greatest damage to the British war economy had been done through submarines and air attacks by small numbers of Focke-Wulf Fw 200 naval aircraft. He ordered attacks to be carried out on those targets which were also the target of the Kriegsmarine. This meant that British coastal centres and shipping at sea west of Ireland were the prime targets.


Hitler's interest in this strategy forced Göring and Jeschonnek to review the air war against Britain in January 1941. This led to Göring and Jeschonnek agreeing to Hitler's Directive 23, Directions for operations against the British War Economy, which was published on 6 February 1941 and gave aerial interdiction of British imports by sea top priority. This strategy had been recognised before the war, but Operation Eagle Attack and the following Battle of Britain had got in the way of striking at Britain's sea communications and diverted German air strength to the campaign against the RAF and its supporting structures. The OKL had always regarded the interdiction of sea communications of less importance than bombing land-based aircraft industries.


Directive 23 was the only concession made by Göring to the Kriegsmarine over the strategic bombing strategy of the Luftwaffe against Britain. Thereafter, he would refuse to make available any air units to destroy British dockyards, ports, port facilities, or shipping in dock or at sea, lest Kriegsmarine gain control of more Luftwaffe units. Raeder's successor—Karl Dönitz—would—on the intervention of Hitler—gain control of one unit (KG 40), but Göring would soon regain it. Göring's lack of cooperation was detrimental to the one air strategy with potentially decisive strategic effect on Britain. Instead, he wasted aircraft of Fliegerführer Atlantik (Flying Command Atlantic) on bombing mainland Britain instead of attacks against convoys. For Göring, his prestige had been damaged by the defeat in the Battle of Britain, and he wanted to regain it by subduing Britain by air power alone. He was always reluctant to cooperate with Raeder.


Even so, the decision by OKL to support the strategy in Directive 23 was instigated by two considerations, both of which had little to do with wanting to destroy Britain's sea communications in conjunction with the Kriegsmarine. First, the difficulty in estimating the impact of bombing upon war production was becoming apparent, and second, the conclusion British morale was unlikely to break led OKL to adopt the naval option. The indifference displayed by OKL to Directive 23 was perhaps best demonstrated in operational directives which diluted its effect. They emphasised the core strategic interest was attacking ports but they insisted in maintaining pressure, or diverting strength, onto industries building aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, and explosives. Other targets would be considered if the primary ones could not be attacked because of weather conditions.


A further line in the directive stressed the need to inflict the heaviest losses possible, but also to intensify the air war in order to create the impression an amphibious assault on Britain was planned for 1941. However, meteorological conditions over Britain were not favourable for flying and prevented an escalation in air operations. Airfields became water-logged and the 18 Kampfgruppen (bomber groups) of the Luftwaffe's Kampfgeschwadern (bomber wings) were relocated to Germany for rest and re-equipment.


From the German point of view, March 1941 saw an improvement. The Luftwaffe flew 4,000 sorties that month, including 12 major and three heavy attacks. The electronic war intensified but the Luftwaffe flew major inland missions only on moonlit nights. Ports were easier to find and made better targets. To confuse the British, radio silence was observed until the bombs fell. X- and Y-Gerät beams were placed over false targets and switched only at the last minute. Rapid frequency changes were introduced for X-Gerät, whose wider band of frequencies and greater tactical flexibility ensured it remained effective at a time when British selective jamming was degrading the effectiveness of Y-Gerät.


The attacks were focused against western ports in March. These attacks produced some breaks in morale, with civil leaders fleeing the cities before the offensive reached its height. But the Luftwaffe's effort eased in the last 10 attacks as seven Kampfgruppen moved to Austria in preparation for the Balkans Campaign in Yugoslavia and Greece. The shortage of bombers caused the OKL to improvise. Some 50 Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers and Jabos (fighter-bombers) were used, officially classed as Leichte Kampfflugzeuge ("light bombers") and sometimes called Leichte Kesselringe ("Light Kesselrings"). The defences failed to prevent widespread damage but on some occasions did prevent German bombers concentrating on their targets. On occasion, only one-third of German bombs hit their targets.


The diversion of heavier bombers to the Balkans meant that the crews and units left behind were asked to fly two or three sorties per night. Bombers were noisy, cold, and vibrated badly. Added to the tension of the mission which exhausted and drained crews, tiredness caught up with and killed many. In one incident on 28/29 April, Peter Stahl of KG 30 was flying on his 50th mission. He fell asleep at the controls of his Ju 88 and woke up to discover the entire crew asleep. He roused them, ensured they took oxygen and Dextro-Energen tablets, then completed the mission.


Regardless, the Luftwaffe could still inflict huge damage. With the German occupation of Western Europe, the intensification of submarine and air attack on Britain's sea communications was feared by the British. Such an event would have serious consequences on the future course of the war, should the Germans succeed. Liverpool and its port became an important destination for convoys heading through the Western Approaches from North America, bringing supplies and materials. The considerable rail network distributed to the rest of the country. Operations against Liverpool in the Liverpool Blitz were successful. Air attacks sank 39,126 long tons (39,754 t) of shipping, with another 111,601 long tons (113,392 t) damaged. Minister of Home Security Herbert Morrison was also worried morale was breaking, noting the defeatism expressed by civilians. Other sources point to half of the port's 144 berths rendered unusable, while cargo unloading capability was reduced by 75%. Roads and railways were blocked and ships could not leave harbour. On 8 May 1941, 57 ships were destroyed, sunk or damaged amounting to 80,000 long tons (81,000 t). Around 66,000 houses were destroyed, 77,000 people made homeless, and 1,900 people killed and 1,450 seriously hurt on one night. Operations against London up until May 1941 could also have a severe impact on morale. The populace of the port of Hull became 'trekkers', people who underwent a mass exodus from cities before, during, and after attacks. However, the attacks failed to knock out or damage railways, or port facilities for long, even in the Port of London, a target of many attacks. The Port of London in particular was an important target, bringing in one-third of overseas trade.


On 13 March, the upper Clyde port of Clydebank near Glasgow was bombed. All but seven of its 12,000 houses were damaged. Many more ports were attacked. Plymouth was attacked five times before the end of the month while Belfast, Hull, and Cardiff were hit. Cardiff was bombed on three nights, Portsmouth centre was devastated by five raids. The rate of civilian housing lost was averaging 40,000 people per week dehoused in September 1940. In March 1941, two raids on Plymouth and London dehoused 148,000 people. Still, while heavily damaged, British ports continued to support war industry and supplies from North America continued to pass through them while the Royal Navy continued to operate in Plymouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth. Plymouth in particular, because of its vulnerable position on the south coast and close proximity to German air bases, was subjected to the heaviest attacks. On 10/11 March, 240 bombers dropped 193 tons of high explosives and 46,000 incendiaries. Many houses and commercial centres were heavily damaged, the electrical supply was knocked out, and five oil tanks and two magazines exploded. Nine days later, two waves of 125 and 170 bombers dropped heavy bombs, including 160 tons of high explosive and 32,000 incendiaries. Much of the city centre was destroyed. Damage was inflicted on the port installations, but many bombs fell on the city itself. On 17 April 346 tons of explosives and 46,000 incendiaries were dropped from 250 bombers led by KG 26. The damage was considerable, and the Germans also used aerial mines. Over 2,000 AAA shells were fired, destroying two Ju 88s. By the end of the air campaign over Britain, only eight percent of the German effort against British ports was made using mines.


In the north, substantial efforts were made against Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland, which were large ports on the English east coast. On 9 April 1941 Luftflotte 2 dropped 150 tons of high explosives and 50,000 incendiaries from 120 bombers in a five-hour attack. Sewer, rail, docklands, and electric installations were damaged. In Sunderland on 25 April, Luftflotte 2 sent 60 bombers which dropped 80 tons of high explosive and 9,000 incendiaries. Much damage was done. A further attack on the Clyde, this time at Greenock, took place on 6 and 7 May. However, as with the attacks in the south, the Germans failed to prevent maritime movements or cripple industry in the regions.


The last major attack on London was on 10/11 May 1941, on which the Luftwaffe flew 571 sorties and dropped 800 tonnes of bombs. This caused more than 2,000 fires. 1,436 people were killed and 1,792 seriously injured, which affected morale badly. Another raid was carried out on 11/12 May 1941. Westminster Abbey and the Law Courts were damaged, while the Chamber of the House of Commons was destroyed. One-third of London's streets were impassable. All but one railway station line was blocked for several weeks. This raid was significant, as 63 German fighters were sent with the bombers, indicating the growing effectiveness of RAF night fighter defences.


German air supremacy at night was also now under threat. British night-fighter operations out over the Channel were proving highly successful. This was not immediately apparent. The Bristol Blenheim F.1 was undergunned, with just four .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns which struggled to down the Do 17, Ju 88, or Heinkel He 111. Moreover, the Blenheim struggled to reach the speed of the German bombers. Added to the fact an interception relied on visual sighting, a kill was most elusive even in the conditions of a moonlit sky.


The Boulton Paul Defiant, despite its poor performance during daylight engagements, was a much better night fighter. It was faster, able to catch the bombers and its configuration of four machine guns in a turret could (much like German night fighters in 1943–1945 with Schräge Musik) engage the unsuspecting German bomber from beneath. Attacks from below offered a larger target, compared to attacking tail-on, as well as a better chance of not being seen by the bomber (so less chance of evasion), as well as greater likelihood of detonating its bombload. In subsequent months a steady number of German bombers would fall to night fighters.


Improved aircraft designs were in the offing with the Bristol Beaufighter, then under development. It would prove formidable, but its development was slow. The Beaufighter had a maximum speed of 320 mph (510 km/h), an operational ceiling of 26,000 ft (7,900 m) and a climb rate of 2,500 ft (760 m) per minute. Its armament of four 20 mm (0.79 in) Hispano cannon and six .303 in Browning machine guns offered a serious threat to German bombers. On 19 November, John Cunningham of No. 604 Squadron RAF shot down a bomber flying an AI-equipped Beaufighter. It was the first air victory for the airborne radar.


By April and May 1941, the Luftwaffe was still getting through to their targets, taking no more than one- to two-percent losses on any given mission. On 19/20 April 1941, in honour of Hitler's 52nd birthday, 712 bombers hit Plymouth with a record 1,000 tons of bombs. Losses were minimal. In the following month, 22 German bombers were lost with 13 confirmed to have been shot down by night fighters. On 3/4 May, nine were shot down in one night. On 10/11 May, London suffered severe damage, but 10 German bombers were downed. In May 1941, RAF night fighters shot down 38 German bombers.


The military effectiveness of bombing varied. The Luftwaffe dropped around 45,000 short tons (41,000 t) of bombs during the Blitz disrupting production and transport, reducing food supplies and shaking the British morale. It also helped to support the U-Boat blockade by sinking some 58,000 long tons (59,000 t) of shipping destroyed and 450,000 long tons (460,000 t) damaged. Yet, overall the British production rose steadily throughout this period although there were significant falls during April 1941, probably influenced by the departure of workers of Easter Holidays according to the British official history. The British official history on war production noted the great impact was upon the supply of components rather than complete equipment. In aircraft production, the British were denied the opportunity to reach the planned target of 2,500 aircraft in a month, arguably the greatest achievement of the bombing, as it forced the dispersal of industry. In April 1941, when the targets were British ports, rifle production fell by 25%, filled-shell production by 4.6%, and in smallarms production 4.5% overall. The strategic impact on industrial cities was varied; most took from 10–15 days to recover from heavy raids, although Belfast and Liverpool took longer. The attacks against Birmingham took war industries some three months to recover fully from. The exhausted population took three weeks to overcome the effects of an attack.