Good evening, DuncanWaring...I suspect you are right, that it should be tons rather than pounds. I guess the New York Times, October 3, 2008, article by Dennis Hevesi missed it.
I checked to make sure we didn’t mis-write it in case we needed to fix it. Thanks for catching it.
Recall that the OKC Murrah building was hit by a ton or two of ANFO, a relatively low-grade explosive.
In this particular attack on Berlin, it was hit by 4000 tons of high-grade explosive.
And that was only one of many attacks on Berlin.
To say nothing of the Russian artillery.
Good Morning all, Surprise I is still alive:-)
If I may, the bomb load of a single B-17 at the range from England to Berlin would have been 4,000 pounds. The B-24’s possibly could have carried slightly more, maybe 5,000 pounds or so per aircraft.
As the author said “each” I think it would be a fair statement that he was referencing the individual planes bomb load.
I was unable to find the number of bombers on the March 6th raid, my best guess would have been about 800 or so would have attacked Berlin for a gross tonnage of 1,600 tons approximately.
It should be noted that their were 69 bombers lost on the mission and 11+ fighters according to several articles I saw, not counting the ships that would have been written off once they made it back to England.
Best wishes to you and your Mom Kathy
Best Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Oops - reread the article, and it does include the word “each”.