Soviet bombing raids

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Glebsky
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Soviet bombing raids

#1

Post by Glebsky » 22 Oct 2014, 06:21

Hi guys. I am looking for information on IIWW era Soviet aerial bombings of de facto Soviet cities under German occupation. I currently can recall only Soviet bombings of Tallinn and other Estonian cities in the first half of 1944, but that can hardly be the only precedent (?).

If anyone can recommend a good resource on Soviet bombings in WWII, especially post-Soviet literature (in English, German, Russian), I'd really appreciate it. Rather than the military side, I am more interested in the politics of it.

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Ponury
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#2

Post by Ponury » 24 Oct 2014, 22:36

Raids over Gdansk/Poland in 1944.


Glebsky
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#3

Post by Glebsky » 24 Oct 2014, 23:30

Thank you, Ponury. I wonder which other tows of Poland? Gdansk isn't really an analogous example, as it was annexed in 1939 (as Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia) by Germans and not the Soviets. In other words, it is not the same case as with the Baltics, Eastern Poland and the old-Soviet territories which from the Soviet perspective were Soviet territories occupied by Germany.

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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#4

Post by Mangrove » 25 Oct 2014, 16:37

Glebsky wrote:I currently can recall only Soviet bombings of Tallinn and other Estonian cities in the first half of 1944, but that can hardly be the only precedent (?).
Soviet bombers were about to launch a major bombing against the city of Vyborg (former Finnish city of Viipuri) on the night of 9 and 10 June 1944, but it was called off due to bad weather. However, smaller raids were launched against the city on 14 and 17 June. The city was recaptured by Soviet forces on 20 June 1944.

Glebsky
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#5

Post by Glebsky » 26 Oct 2014, 08:54

Thank you for that, Mangrove.

The 1944 bombing of Tallinn was pretty hardcore (third of the city destroyed, over 500 dead), so I am wondering if the Soviets would have done it in any other and especially older Soviet cities. There is no academic work I know claiming it was a deliberate terror bombing (rather than a military excursion that got seriously screwed up) aimed at the anti-Soviet population rather than against the German controlled military targets, but this is how it has definitely been viewed by the locals.

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Mr.No one
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#6

Post by Mr.No one » 26 Oct 2014, 09:07

Well, there was also the bombing of Berlin in 1941:

http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviati ... 0raids.htm

Cheers!

Sorry about that, didn't read your question properly, apparently! :D
Last edited by Mr.No one on 26 Oct 2014, 23:40, edited 1 time in total.
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ML59
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#7

Post by ML59 » 26 Oct 2014, 11:31

Glebsky wrote: The 1944 bombing of Tallinn was pretty hardcore (third of the city destroyed, over 500 dead), so I am wondering if the Soviets would have done it in any other and especially older Soviet cities. There is no academic work I know claiming it was a deliberate terror bombing (rather than a military excursion that got seriously screwed up) aimed at the anti-Soviet population rather than against the German controlled military targets, but this is how it has definitely been viewed by the locals.
All along 1944 a large number of Italian cities, in the German occupied zone, were bombed by western allies aiming, officially, only at military targets, at a time when Italy was not anymore at war with USA or Gb and was, actually, co-belligerant. Loss of civilian life was much, much higher than the 500 people that died in Tallin. Nevertheless, nobody in Italy today claims that the Allies made deliberate terror attacks on Italian cities to kill civilians and to soften fascist attitude of the population.
What is different is the political perception of the matter, we don't have (and, historically, never had in the past) any hatred for American or British people; on the contrary, many Baltic people still harbor profound mistrust on Russians, for historical, ideological and political reasons.

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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#8

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 26 Oct 2014, 19:14

What were the intended targets of these raids?

Thanks

ML59
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#9

Post by ML59 » 26 Oct 2014, 21:26

Railways hubs, factories, depots, road infrastructures like bridges and tunnels and a lot of "free hunt", strafing anything on the move during daytime. This all caused a lot of collateral losses and damages.

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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#10

Post by Glebsky » 27 Oct 2014, 02:48

You misunderstood my question. In bombing Italy and Germany, the Western Allies and Soviet Union bombed foreign territories. In the case of bombing Tallinn and other Estonian cities, the Soviets bombed (from the official Soviet perspective) their own cities. My question was, whether Estonian cities were the only Soviet cities that the Soviets bombed like that, or would they have done it also against e.g. Kiev, Minsk, Smolensk etc. It would be an equivalent case had the Allies bombed German occupied Paris and destroyed a third of it, killing thousands of people.

The probable objective of the great Tallinn bombing were indeed the German military targets, but given that, the Soviet bombers really screwed up, didn't care, or dropped the bombs wherever possible to avoid anti-aircraft fire. I haven't seen any research analyzing the bombing raid from the Soviet perspective, or that would put it into a larger framework (this is essentially what I am after). In any case, the devastation of Tallinn's medieval old town and residential areas were considerable and the Estonians, who bore the brunt of the casualties, didn't question then or now that the "true" targets of the Soviet bombing were not the Germans but Estonians.

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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#11

Post by Art » 27 Oct 2014, 08:28

Glebsky wrote:It would be an equivalent case had the Allies bombed German occupied Paris and destroyed a third of it, killing thousands of people.
Formally speaking Western Allies bombed occupied France quite a lot with considerable civilian casualties:
The enemy garrison at Le Havre had resisted to the bitter end, and had forced the Allies to subject the city to heavy bombardments from the sea, land, and air for a full week before it capitulated. When First Canadian Army forces entered Le Havre on 12 September, therefore, they found one of the most thoroughly demolished ports captured thus far. Port facilities had been destroyed with characteristic thoroughness. In addition, the repeated bombings had destroyed approximately two thirds of the city's business and residential sections and caused an estimated 6,000 civilian casualties.
My question was, whether Estonian cities were the only Soviet cities that the Soviets bombed like that
Large railroad stations were bombed all the way. Smolensk, Orel, Bryansk, Kharkov to call some.

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Svetlana Karlin
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#12

Post by Svetlana Karlin » 27 Oct 2014, 08:51

Kiev was bombed by the Soviets during the German occupation. A witness account mentioned Soviet bombers dropping bombs on Hungarian army barracks in Kiev in 1943. Same person witnessed a Soviet bombing of Vorzel, a railway station near Kiev the same year.

During the Battle of Stalingrad the Soviets bombed German positions in the city.

There's a book series, Black Cross Red Star: The Air War over the Eastern Front, that apparently describes the Soviet and German air battles in detail. The books are available on Amazon. I did not read the whole series, only excerpts translated into Russian online. It appears that Soviet bombings of strategic objects in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territory were common.
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Glebsky
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Re: Soviet bombing raids

#13

Post by Glebsky » 27 Oct 2014, 09:23

Thank you Svetlana and Art! This is of great help and clears up some misconceptions. I wonder if these bombings of other German occupied cities in the USSR and the rest of Europe were similarly exploited by German propaganda as deliberate Allied terror-campaigns against the civilian population... This was certainly the case in Estonia.

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