Battle of the Ruhr

Battle of the Ruhr
Part of Strategic bombing during World War II
The Möhne dam after Operation Chastise
Date 5 March 1943 – 31 July 1943 Location Ruhr Area Result Allied victory Heavy damage to German industry
Belligerents
United Kingdom  United States  Australia  Canada  New Zealand  South Africa	Nazi Germany
Commanders and leaders
Arthur Harris	Hermann Göring Josef Kammhuber
Strength
6 Groups of RAF Bomber Command 380 heavy and 160 medium bombers in March	radar warning static gun emplacements day and night fighters
Casualties and losses
RAF Bomber Command 4.7% over 43 attacks (18,506 sorties) 5,000 RAF aircrew USAAF: unknown	Heavy

Allied victory

RAF Bomber Command

The Battle of the Ruhr of 1943 was a 5-month long campaign of strategic bombing during the Second World War against the Nazi Germany Ruhr Area, which had coke plants, steelworks, and 10 synthetic oil plants. The campaign bombed twenty-six major Combined Bomber Offensive targets. The targets included the Krupp armament works (Essen), the Nordstern synthetic-oil plant (Gelsenkirchen), and the Rheinmetal–Borsig plant in Düsseldorf. The latter was safely evacuated during the Battle of the Ruhr.Although not strictly part of the Ruhr area, the battle of the Ruhr included other cities such as Cologne which were within the Rhine-Ruhr region and considered part of the same "industrial complex". Some targets were not sites of heavy industrial production but part of the production and movement of materiel.

Although the Ruhr had always been a target for the RAF from the start of the war, the organized defences and the large amount of industrial pollutants produced that gave a semi-permanent smog or industrial haze hampered accurate bombing. Before the Battle of the Ruhr ended, Operation Gomorrah began the "Battle of Hamburg". Even after this switch of focus to Hamburg, there would be further raids on the Ruhr area by the RAF—in part to keep German defences dispersed, just as there had been raids on areas other than the Ruhr during the battle.

The British bomber force was made up in the main of the twin-engined Vickers Wellington medium bomber and the four-engined "heavies", the Short Stirling, Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster. The Wellington and Stirling were the two oldest designs and limited in the type or weight of bombs carried. The Stirling was also limited to a lower operational height. Bombers could carry a range of bombs - Medium Capacity bombs of about 50% explosive by weight, High Capacity "Blockbusters" that were mostly explosive, and incendiary devices. The combined use of the latter two were most effective in setting fires in urban areas.

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Wikipedia