How accurate were the Germans in the London Blitz?

Did they accurately target places in London flying at night and during the blackout? Or were they pretty indiscriminate?

 

Consider the fact that they hit Dublin once while aiming for an English city. From what I've read they were lucky to hit London much less a particular target in London. Part of this was due to the "Battle of the Beams" though.

 

They didn't need to be accurate.

Once they were over London, easy to find by just following the River Thames from the coast, they just let loose and were guaranteed targets every time.

I can verify this as someone who lived in London during the Blitz.

Ron

 

The land-sea delineator is indeed one of the easiest ground features to pick out at night...and unfortunately the twists and turns of the Thames ALSO provided excellent guidance to locations like the Imperial Docks etc.

The Luftwaffe's "best" performances were indeed against targets on the shoreline or on rivers - like the damage done to Liverpool's docks.

LWD - the attack on Dublin's North Circular Road was NOT accidental; it was one of two attacks on Neutral Ireland during the war....and both of them came immedialtey after speeches made by DeValera that seemed to hint at Ireland favouring the British cause. They were the nastiest of "wake up calls"....

In the first nights of the London Blitz, after daylight raids on the capital, they actually didn't NEED precise navigation or guidance beams; they simply bombed on the fires still burning from the daylight raids.

Otherwise - the Luftwaffe wasn't actually that great at nightitme navigation! There are several famous instances of imprecise navigation and mistakes being made, either out beyond the range of the bombing beams or by aircraft not equiped with beam-riding receivers.

 

bear in mind that London even in 1940 was the biggest metropolis in the world - approx 10 times bigger than Berlin for example

 

While that is indeed true - the layout of the city on the banks of the Thames guided The Lufttwaffe right to its heart -

First - the area in question - the Pool of London, its docklands, and down under the "a" in Eastenders, the Imperial docks and huge warehouses...in a format well-known to UK television viewers...



Now - admittedly this is a modern pic, I'm not aware of any period pics of the blacked-out city at night...



See how clearly that VERY distinctive set of bends in the river stands out???



Now, yes it wouldn't be so distinctive in one way if the city was blacked out effectively...


But imagine instead on a moonlit night, with the river standing out in reflected moonlight?

 

Here's another indication of how that set of river bends stands out - one of the most famous pics from WWII...



And just look again at the sheer SIZE of those warehouses down below...!



...chock-full of all the flammable products of Empire....

 

100% accuracy! Every bomb they dropped over London hit the ground.

 

As the story goes, the first German bombs on London were dropped by mistake by a lost crew.

 

, and down under the "a" in Eastenders, the Imperial docks and huge warehouses...in a format well-known to UK television viewers...


Not to split hairs, but those are the India & Millwall Docks ; on the South side of the River are the Surrey Docks and out to the East are the Royal Docks. The only Imperial Dock I can find a reference to in the UK is in Leith, Scotland.

 

Probably the accuracy of the Germans was superior to the early-war British bombing accuracy because the Germans didn't have so far to go. Therefore, any errors in navigation wouldn't be as big as British errors because the British went much farther.

 

but averaged out and given the size of Greater London, the Luftwaffe was doing well if it managed ONE paltry 250 kg bomb per PER SQ mile during the average raid...frankly what was Hermann thinking ?!

 

The first German bombs to hit the London area were in June 1940. They fell on open ground on the outskirts of the city and there were no casualties.

The next German attack on London was on the 15 August. It was meant for Kenley airfield in Croydon, but hit Croydon airport instead. 60 civilians were killed in a perfumed soap factory close to the airport.

The next German attack was on an electricity sub station in Wimbledon a couple of days later. 15 civilians were killed.

There was light bombing of London on the nights of the 19/20 August, and again a couple of nights later.

The "accidental" bombing of London was on the night of the 24/25 August. It was an inevitable consequence of the expansion of German night bombing.

Accuracy for both sides was quite good against coastal targets. Once the planes had to fly inland accuracy was poor.

The Luftwaffe carried out the first of their large raids on a British city with an attack on Liverpool in late August. British records show "scattered" bombing over the Midlands, with no idea the Luftwaffe was actually attacking Liverpool.

 

I want to thank everyone for their responses. The information was invaluable. In case of interest, I used the information here to write this paper (first author). billion pound drop: the Blitz and agglomeration economies in London