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Re: A Question RE: 8th AF raid of April 29,1944
Hello Nick,
Your mentioned raid on Berlin reminds me to one of the last big night attacks of RAF towards Würzburg and Nürnberg at 16/17. March 1945. I can not say so much about the mentality of our dayfighters but I remember very well our feelings as nightfighters. According NJG Tagebuch Kock the NJG 6 went up with 23 Me 110 and Ju 88 and claimed 20 successes and 2 own losses. Our thoughts are best described in the book by the former RAF-Navigator Peter Hinchliffe 'The Other Battle' : "The nightfighters saw the Pathfinders' marker going down on their cities, and they saw their cities burning, erupting, seething beneath them. They knew that their folk were dying down there, often in indescribable agony. They had been through air raids themselves, and many of them had lost members of their family. They knew that every bomber that they shot down was one less that could drop its explosives and its incendiaries on their country and on their people, and such knowledge lent strength to their resolve."
Dick Nick, it was not blind luck.
best regards Peter
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