The bombing of Peenemünde in World War II was carried out on several occasions as part of the overall

Operation Crossbow ''Crossbow'' was the code name in World War II for Anglo-American operations against the German V-weapons, long range reprisal weapons (V-weapons) programme. The main V-weapons were the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket – these were launched aga ...

to disrupt German secret weapon development. The first raid on

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, en, "Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The communi ...

, on the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

coast of Germany, was Operation Hydra of the night of 17/18 August 1943, involving 596 heavy bombers of the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

. Intelligence about the existence and location of the programme was allegedly obtained from the secretly recorded conversations of a German officer,

Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma (11 September 1891 – 30 April 1948) was a German army officer who served in World War I, in the Spanish Civil War, and as a general in World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Th ...

, who was a prisoner of war of the British. Subsequent attacks were carried out in daylight raids by the

US Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

. Among those on the ground at Peenemünde were

Walter Dornberger Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger (6 September 1895 – 26 June 1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World War I and World War II. He was a leader of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket programme and other projects a ...

, noted rocket expert

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

, and Nazi female test pilot

Hanna Reitsch Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was amon ...

, who later claimed to have slept through the raid. Some markers were dropped too far south, and ultimately a number of buildings remained undamaged, while many bombs hit the forced labour camps, killing between 500 and 600 prisoners. However, sufficient damage was caused to delay the V-weapons programme for some months, and the senior engineer Dr

Walter Thiel Walter Thiel (3 March 1910, Breslau – 17 August 1943, Karlshagen, near Peenemünde) was a German rocket scientist. Thiel provided the decisive ideas for the A4 (V-2) rocket engine and his research enabled rockets to head towards space. Lif ...

was among the dead.

Operations

References and notes

;Notes ;Bibliography *

Clare Mulley Clare Margaret Mulley (born 1969) is an English award-winning author and broadcaster. Her first book, ''The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb'' (Oneworld, 2009) republished in 2019 to mark the centenary of Save the Chi ...

, ''The Women Who Flew for Hitler'' (Macmillan, 2017)

External links

National Collection of Aerial Photography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peenemunde Bombing of Peenemünde World War II strategic bombing of Germany World War II strategic bombing conducted by the United Kingdom Aerial operations and battles of World War II involving the United States Bombing of Peenemünde Bombing of Peenemünde Bombing of Peenemünde