Questions on 8th AF Swinemünde raid on 12 March 1945

[Delmenhorst]

Hi Juha
I won't say that I have researched the attack but I went through the files in the PRO about the attack on Swinemünde. I also spoke to a number of American fighter pilots that participated in the attack plus to a lead bombardier and a navigator who bombed Swinemünde. They considerered the attack to be 'just one of many'.

[Juha]

Thanks a lot again for Your answer, Delmenhorst!
I tended to agree with You. Even if an attack by 661 heavy bombers against a sea resort, not so important harbour and an unimportant marshalling yard seemed an overkill there was the request by Russian, troops moving through the town and probably a fair amount of rail traffic, lot of shipping in the harbour and at least in April 1945 IIRC Swinemünde was a fortress (we know that Hitler declared many towns as fortress but IIRC among other troops Swinemünde fortress had an A/T unit with 10 Hertzers in April 45). And if the clouds covered much of Germany on that day Swinemünde should have been easily recognizable from the cathode-tube of H2X and so a good target for blind/radar bombing.

Juha