"Strike Hard Strike Sure"

Beginning in July 1940, the German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, launched a sustained campaign against Great Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF)'s Fighter Command to achieve air superiority. By October the RAF had emerged victorious. The Luftwaffe thereafter focused on night bombing raids on the Britain in what became known as "The Blitz."

On August 20, 1940 in a speech to the House of Commons, Prime Minister Winston Churchill honored the pilots of Fighter Command, remarking "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few . . ."

Even as the Battle of Britain raged over the nation's coastal areas, this 1940 poster lets the British people know of RAF Bomber Command's counter blows against the then-formidable might of the German Luftwaffe.

The early operations of Bomber Command proved bloody. On August 12, 1941, 54 Bristol Blenheim light bombers attacked power stations at Knapsack and Quadrath near Cologne. Twelve bombers were lost but the raid heavily damaged the plants. This painting by James Gardner captures the courage and ferocity of the attack.

As Bomber Command grew in number of aircraft, larger bombers capable of carrying greater bomb loads entered operational service. Foremost among these was the Avro Lancaster introduced in February 1942. The "Lanc" could carry up to 14,000 pounds with a range of over 2,500 miles.

In February 1942, Bomber Command received orders to make targets in Germany - including civilian cities - its top priority. Bombers began launching large nighttime raids, with the bombing of Lübeck one of the first such attacks. On the night of March 28, 1942, 234 Stirling and Wellington heavy and medium bombers dropped approximately 400 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombers, creating a terrible firestorm as depicted in the poster.

By mid-1942, Bomber Command's raids on Germany dwarfed those of the Luftwaffe against Great Britain from September 1940 to May 1941 ("The Blitz").

Three times between May and June 1942, Bomber Command flew "thousand-bomber raids" which relied on the sheer number of aircraft and bombers with fire bombs to overwhelm German defenses and attack cities. While limited in destruction of military targets, the raids terrorized German civilians while demonstrating the increasing strength of Bomber Command to the British people.

With a switch to area bombing, Bomber Command increased the scale of its raids on cities in Germany. This post mentions the 26-27 July 1942 raid on Hamburg when 403 aircraft hit the city, destroying 823 houses, damaging over 5,000 more. A year later, almost twice as many bombers returned and created massive firestorm which would kill over 42,000 civilians.

By late 1942, Bomber Command was launching nighttime raids with regularity on targets in Germany and German-occupied Western Europe. While ostensibly seeking to destroy military targets, indiscriminate area bombing killed countless civilians and destroyed thousands of private homes.

On 30 January 1943, a flight of de Havilland Mosquito light bombers flew a daring daylight raid into Berlin. As Luftwaffe chief, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring gave a speech celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Nazis' seizure of power, British bombs knocked out the main Berlin radio station, silencing the broadcast. The tide of war was undeniably turning.

Printed in French, this 1943 poster reads "The R.A.F. relentlessly bombs German war industries. THE VICTORY OF THE ALLIES IS ENSURED." As a target burns below and searchlights and antiaircraft artillery fire ("flak") dance across the skies, Lancasters of Bomber Command soar overhead, part of a seemingly endless processing of aircraft determined to bring Nazi Germany to her knees.