These included the shipyards of Vulkan, AG Weser and Atlas Werke, the Valentin submarine pens, oil refineries and the aircraft works of Focke-Wulf.

Early RAF raids on Bremen beginning in May 1940 had sought out these industrial and military targets but the efforts proved costly and, given limited navigation and target-location capabilities, impractical.

Purporting to draw lessons from the German Blitz on Britain, Bomber Command concluded that rather than being "collateral damage", the destruction of residential districts and the killing of civilians served the legitimate purpose of weakening enemy morale.

In just 34 minutes 274 aircraft dropped 1,120 tons of bombs over the densely built-up west of the city killing 1,059 people, destroying 8,248 residential buildings, and leaving 50,000 homeless.

[7][8] In just over five years, the Allies carried out a total of 173 air raids on Bremen, dropping 5,513 tons of explosive devices, and killing more than 4,000 residents.