Stray bombs during WW2 Koblenz air raids

[Stuart Galbraith]

I don't know if the Reich authorities did such a thing, but in the UK the local councils compiled maps for HE impacts. If such a thing exists, you can figure out when it happened, which will go a long way towards working it out.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Stuart Galbraith

[seahawk]

Maybe there is something like zeit.punkt NRW  available for the Koblenz area as well. There you can browse local newspapers from the time, with often reported air raids.

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by seahawk

[Samsa]

I did find some more information regarding this in a book dealing with the town's history, so I'll just share this here. Just in case it is of interest to the ones who took part in the discussion before

The town's name is Bad Ems by the way, so its a place of at least a bit of historical significance. The book's name is „Herrenjahre in der Provinz – Die Stadt - Bad Ems 1914 – 1964“ by Wilfried Dietrichs. There are several instance of aerial attacks mentioned, I'll paraphrase the relevant bits to keep it short(ish).

• It is mentioned, that it happened several times that missdirected bomber crews“ hit the town. One instance is mentioned, where during an attack on Koblenz in Autum of 1944 a „Christbaum“, so one of the target markers was blown towards the Hasenberg (one of the surrounding mointains of Bad Ems, a good 10 kilometers away from Koblenz). An eyewitness relates, that shortly thereafter incendiary bombs dropped around the house, most of them apparently did not ignite though. This was followed by HE-bombs which destroyed and damaged several houses. Apparently no massive amount though, sounds more like individual planes (maybe seperated from the pack and just aiming for one of the markers?)

• There were multiple fighter bomber attacks on the railyway station, wich is to be expected. There were some industial facilities with military significance closeby. The line was presumably used by those, as well as the Wehrmacht. Allegedly, even Hitler was in the Town at some point and apparently by train.

• Another attack, directly intended for the town happened on the 2^nd of December. It was repored by the Luftlagekommando as „60 HE bombs on industrial facilities“, though it seems to be unclear whether that was the intention or if it was just an „Entlastungswurf“ (no idea what the translation here is. It means dropping to bombs to get rid of the load essentially). Several homes were hit in that attack.

• 8^th of December, 288 B17s attacked Koblenz. It is mentioned, that several of those circled over the town after the attack. 25 HE bombs and 30 incediary bombs hit the town shortly after. The book assumes this attack was meant to the „Gendameriekaserne“ (Police barracks), a ~100 x 100m sized complex inside the town. This one is noteworthy because it is quite close to where my grandma lived, so that might match her recountings. It is also interesting, that apparently individual targets were targeted and attacked in the aftermath of one of the Koblenz raids. Most damage seems to have happened in the surrounding civilian buildings.

• Several attacks by level bombers were flown on the „Villa Sonnenfels“. Apparently a command post of the Wehrmachts intelligence service was located there. It seems that none of those attacks hit the target, mostly destroying civilian structures again.

• The area around the town's watergate was also attacked with „blockbusters, incendiary and HE-bombs“. No direct hits were scored, but surrounding houses were damaged/destroyed.

There are more cases of even smaller towns nearby being targeted by groups of tens of level bombers as well. One town closeby got its center leveled by an attack intended for the towns bridge. It would be interesting to check some of the relevant archives to get information about these attacks on the allied side. Seems likeeven inidivual buildings were deemed a good target for a level bombing attack at times.

The books also describes some of the effects on the population the civilian life at the time. Its quite interesting, I can recommend it to anyone interested. There is more detailed info in there, I can share more direct quotes if necessary.

 

[Ssnake]

7 minutes ago, Samsa said:

„Entlastungswurf“ (no idea what the translation here is.

I'd use "jettison".

[Stuart Galbraith]

38 minutes ago, Samsa said:

I did find some more information regarding this in a book dealing with the town's history, so I'll just share this here. Just in case it is of interest to the ones who took part in the discussion before

The town's name is Bad Ems by the way, so its a place of at least a bit of historical significance. The book's name is „Herrenjahre in der Provinz – Die Stadt - Bad Ems 1914 – 1964“ by Wilfried Dietrichs. There are several instance of aerial attacks mentioned, I'll paraphrase the relevant bits to keep it short(ish).

• It is mentioned, that it happened several times that missdirected bomber crews“ hit the town. One instance is mentioned, where during an attack on Koblenz in Autum of 1944 a „Christbaum“, so one of the target markers was blown towards the Hasenberg (one of the surrounding mointains of Bad Ems, a good 10 kilometers away from Koblenz). An eyewitness relates, that shortly thereafter incendiary bombs dropped around the house, most of them apparently did not ignite though. This was followed by HE-bombs which destroyed and damaged several houses. Apparently no massive amount though, sounds more like individual planes (maybe seperated from the pack and just aiming for one of the markers?)

• There were multiple fighter bomber attacks on the railyway station, wich is to be expected. There were some industial facilities with military significance closeby. The line was presumably used by those, as well as the Wehrmacht. Allegedly, even Hitler was in the Town at some point and apparently by train.

• Another attack, directly intended for the town happened on the 2^nd of December. It was repored by the Luftlagekommando as „60 HE bombs on industrial facilities“, though it seems to be unclear whether that was the intention or if it was just an „Entlastungswurf“ (no idea what the translation here is. It means dropping to bombs to get rid of the load essentially). Several homes were hit in that attack.

• 8^th of December, 288 B17s attacked Koblenz. It is mentioned, that several of those circled over the town after the attack. 25 HE bombs and 30 incediary bombs hit the town shortly after. The book assumes this attack was meant to the „Gendameriekaserne“ (Police barracks), a ~100 x 100m sized complex inside the town. This one is noteworthy because it is quite close to where my grandma lived, so that might match her recountings. It is also interesting, that apparently individual targets were targeted and attacked in the aftermath of one of the Koblenz raids. Most damage seems to have happened in the surrounding civilian buildings.

• Several attacks by level bombers were flown on the „Villa Sonnenfels“. Apparently a command post of the Wehrmachts intelligence service was located there. It seems that none of those attacks hit the target, mostly destroying civilian structures again.

• The area around the town's watergate was also attacked with „blockbusters, incendiary and HE-bombs“. No direct hits were scored, but surrounding houses were damaged/destroyed.

There are more cases of even smaller towns nearby being targeted by groups of tens of level bombers as well. One town closeby got its center leveled by an attack intended for the towns bridge. It would be interesting to check some of the relevant archives to get information about these attacks on the allied side. Seems likeeven inidivual buildings were deemed a good target for a level bombing attack at times.

The books also describes some of the effects on the population the civilian life at the time. Its quite interesting, I can recommend it to anyone interested. There is more detailed info in there, I can share more direct quotes if necessary.

 

Its entirely possible. Ive a nagging feeling the Mosquito's carried cookies on some of these deception raids, though it sounds like the town was far too small to justify a deception in this way. So yeah, presumably someone in a hurry to get home bombing on markers, any markers.

 

[Sardaukar]

Might have been because of Operation Clarion?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clarion

For some reason it's not very popular topic...

 

 

[Rick]

Sidetrack, are there places in Europe where one should not go due to unexploded stuff lying around and or buried?

From memory and Rich could probably verify if true, I understand there were casualties in Honolulu from falling .50 caliber bullets?  

[Samsa]

I know there are areas in germany where clearing from uxos has to be done before any kind of digging or construction work. There are also dangers to firefighters in wildfires in northern germany. I don't know of any no-go areas though. At least none that are not fenced off. Just the usual "don't pick up the weird looking container in the forest". That used to be different for a good while after the war of course.

Other than that there are still mined areas in ex yugoslavia afaik. Not because of ww2 though. 

[bojan]

35 minutes ago, Samsa said:

...Other than that there are still mined areas in ex yugoslavia afaik. Not because of ww2 though. 

EOD guy from Bosnia used to post on local forum, it was pretty common to find old things. WW2 and earlier to modern staff was about 1:25-30 ratio, that might not look like a lot but is actually incredibly high % of old ordnance. Weirdest thing ever found was 17-18th century bombard shell.

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, Rick said:

Sidetrack, are there places in Europe where one should not go due to unexploded stuff lying around and or buried?

From memory and Rich could probably verify if true, I understand there were casualties in Honolulu from falling .50 caliber bullets?  

Construction sites in Germany used to regularly dig up old shit. They still do, but less often so. Still, a few years ago a bulldozer driver managed to get himself blown up on an autobahn construction site. Most bombs are found and removed by analysis of aerial photographs and targeted searches for identified duds. And, since these bombs aren't aging so well in moist earth, there is a trend of them getting demolished (=blown) in place these days rather than defused and transported off-site as was the norm during my childhood.

Occasionally there are forest fires near Berlin (and a few select other places) where the firefighters will not go because of ordnance in the ground. But you wouldn't want to be in a wildfire even if there was no UXO problem under your feet, so it's maybe slightly more lethal but not dramatically so. And then there are, of course, military training areas that have UXO issues. While they do get swept regularly, and live ammo is not so often used as inert rounds, or rounds with much reduced explosive charge, these are technically the "unsafe locations" you were asking about, but they are part of military installations and you're not allowed to go there in the first place.

 

In short, despite the millions of tons of aircraft bombs Germany still is one of the safer places to be on this planet.

 

Being a farmer in Flanders or around Verdun, well, that's another issue. They don't get blown to pieces with regularity, but the fact that they changed the design of utility poles to have pockets where farmers could deposit mortar bombs and hand grenades found while plowing their fields tells you that these places are a bit more messed up.

[Stuart Galbraith]

British engineering, it almost brings a tear to the eye...

 

[seahawk]

9 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Construction sites in Germany used to regularly dig up old shit. They still do, but less often so.

 

We are at 2 for January alone.

[Rick]

On 2/4/2023 at 6:40 PM, Ssnake said:

Construction sites in Germany used to regularly dig up old shit. They still do, but less often so. Still, a few years ago a bulldozer driver managed to get himself blown up on an autobahn construction site. Most bombs are found and removed by analysis of aerial photographs and targeted searches for identified duds. And, since these bombs aren't aging so well in moist earth, there is a trend of them getting demolished (=blown) in place these days rather than defused and transported off-site as was the norm during my childhood.

Occasionally there are forest fires near Berlin (and a few select other places) where the firefighters will not go because of ordnance in the ground. But you wouldn't want to be in a wildfire even if there was no UXO problem under your feet, so it's maybe slightly more lethal but not dramatically so. And then there are, of course, military training areas that have UXO issues. While they do get swept regularly, and live ammo is not so often used as inert rounds, or rounds with much reduced explosive charge, these are technically the "unsafe locations" you were asking about, but they are part of military installations and you're not allowed to go there in the first place.

 

In short, despite the millions of tons of aircraft bombs Germany still is one of the safer places to be on this planet.

 

Being a farmer in Flanders or around Verdun, well, that's another issue. They don't get blown to pieces with regularity, but the fact that they changed the design of utility poles to have pockets where farmers could deposit mortar bombs and hand grenades found while plowing their fields tells you that these places are a bit more messed up.

Interesting about the French utility poles. To be honest, if I saw something looking like old ordnance , I think I would call someone. 

[Ssnake]

The point is, if there's SO MUCH in the ground that on average you find five or more every time you plow the field and the thing made contact with the plow already and didn't go off, can you afford losing a whole day on the field or do you take the chance and carry the thing over to the nearest utility pole, deposit it there, and the EOD guys who routinely patrol the area then just pick it up whenever they see them deposited?

The reality is, people are willing to take a minor risk so they're able to carry on with their business. And it's not as if they weren't educated about assessing how dangerous their finds were. I guess, if a grenade was particularly rusty and could be recognized as containing mustard gas they might not touch it but, indeed, call someone.

But here you are, plowing, and there's this prominent metallic TCHINK sound - followed by the equally noticeable absence of a Kaboom. Is it going to explode in your hands if you gently carry it over to the roadside? Probably not.

[Rick]

14 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

The point is, if there's SO MUCH in the ground that on average you find five or more every time you plow the field and the thing made contact with the plow already and didn't go off, can you afford losing a whole day on the field or do you take the chance and carry the thing over to the nearest utility pole, deposit it there, and the EOD guys who routinely patrol the area then just pick it up whenever they see them deposited?

The reality is, people are willing to take a minor risk so they're able to carry on with their business. And it's not as if they weren't educated about assessing how dangerous their finds were. I guess, if a grenade was particularly rusty and could be recognized as containing mustard gas they might not touch it but, indeed, call someone.

But here you are, plowing, and there's this prominent metallic TCHINK sound - followed by the equally noticeable absence of a Kaboom. Is it going to explode in your hands if you gently carry it over to the roadside? Probably not.

Good points. I agree after reading your post.

[DB]

Nevertheless, there are still red zones in France that are fenced off, prohibited areas, but I suspect you'd have to go looking for them rather than stumble over one whilst out walking.

[Junior FO]

...

Edited September 22, 2024 by Junior FO

[Samsa]

On 4/8/2023 at 1:10 AM, Junior FO said:

It seems that the Soviets managed to get most of the daily Oberkommando der Luftwaffe summaries. It includes air intrusions and detailed BDA like the below. Some of the ones from 1940 even have street numbers etc.

https://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/de/nodes/2772-akte-172-lageberichte-des-f-hrungsstabes-der-luftwaffe-ber-die-lage-an-den-fronten-einschlie-lich-der-deutsch-sowjetischen-front#page/78/mode/inspect/zoom/7

If you have the approximate dates, you can check below for the appropriate file.

https://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/de/nodes/search?field=&from=0000-12-30&query=luftwaffe+Führungsstabes+&to=2018-06-29

Thanks for the link! Whoever thought filtering the date via a slider that goes from the year 0 to 2018 is a good idea probably has a very interesting mindset. But the content is still interesting, I'll see if I can find something!