A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the term has been used to describe certain large fires, the phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass towards the storm's center, where the air is heated and then ascends.
The Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II included numerous attacks on civilians and civic infrastructure. As a large city and industrial centre, Hamburg's shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war.
Firestorm is the name of several fictional superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein fused together debuted as the first incarnation in Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #1 and were created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom. Jason Rusch debuted as a modern update of the character in Firestorm #1, and was created by Dan Jolley and ChrisCross.
Martin Middlebrook is an English military historian and author.
The Kammhuber Line was the Allied name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber. It consisted of a series of control sectors equipped with radars and searchlights and an associated night fighter. Each sector would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers.
Creepback is the tendency of bomber aircraft using optical bombsights to release their weapons aimed at target markers before time, leading to a gradual spread backwards along the bombing path of the concentration of bombing. It was a particularly noted phenomenon of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command night attacks during World War II.
The Berlin Raids is a book by the British military historian Martin Middlebrook describing the RAF Bomber Command attacks on the German city of Berlin in the Winter of 1943–1944.
The Battle of Berlin was a bombing campaign against Berlin by RAF Bomber Command along with raids on other German cities to keep German defences dispersed. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) Bomber Command, believed that "We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USAAF come in with us. It will cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war".
Jason Rusch is a superhero in the DC Comics Universe, and the second character known as Firestorm. He first appeared in Firestorm #1, and was created by Dan Jolley and ChrisCross.
During the Second World War, the city of Wuppertal suffered numerous Allied air raids, primarily nighttime attacks from the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during its Battle of the Ruhr bomber offensive. The largest raids were on the night of 29-30 May 1943, heavy enough to cause a firestorm, and on 24-25 June. The wartime-era German Feuerwehr fire brigades were ill-equipped to fight the fires. The RAF's airstrikes destroyed areas of Wuppertal's north-eastern Barmen, central Elberfeld and south-eastern Ronsdorf communities, mainly through incendiary area bombing, resulting in destructive firestorms. Other Allied aircraft also carried out numerous smaller air raids on Wuppertal. Overall, more than 6,500 people lost their lives during World War II in Wuppertal from such raids; 38 percent of the built-up urban area was destroyed.
The German city of Mannheim in the state of Baden-Württemberg saw bombing during World War II from December 1940 until the end of the war. Mannheim saw over 150 air raids.
Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 was a Luftwaffe night fighter-wing of World War II. NJG 3 was formed on 29 September 1941 in Stade from Stab./Zerstörergeschwader 26.
The Battle of the Ruhr was a strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany carried out by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Ruhr was the main centre of German heavy industry with coke plants, steelworks, armaments factories and ten synthetic oil plants. The British attacked 26 targets identified in the Combined Bomber Offensive. Targets included the Krupp armament works (Essen), the Nordstern synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen and the Rheinmetal–Borsig plant in Düsseldorf, which was evacuated during the battle. The battle included cities such as Cologne not in the Ruhr proper but which were in the larger Rhine-Ruhr region and considered part of the Ruhr industrial complex. Some targets were not sites of heavy industry but part of the production and movement of materiel.
During World War II, Leipzig was repeatedly attacked by British as well as American air raids. The most severe attack was launched by the Royal Air Force in the early hours of 4 December 1943 and claimed more than 1,800 lives. Large parts of the city center were destroyed, while factories experienced temporary shortfalls in production, had to move production facilities or even were decentralized.
Blitz Week was a period of United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aerial bombardment during the 1943 Combined Bomber Offensive of World War II. Air raids were conducted on six of seven days as part of Operation Gomorrah, against targets such as the chemical plant at Herøya, Norway, which produced nitrates for explosives; and the AGO Flugzeugwerke AG plant at Oschersleben, Germany that assembled Focke-Wulf 190s. The Kassel mission on July 28, 1943, was the first use of P-47 Thunderbolt auxiliary fuel tanks.
Hammerbrook is a quarter (Stadtteil) in the Hamburg-Mitte borough of the Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg in Germany. In 2020, the population was 5,069.
The bombing of Nuremberg was a series of air raids carried out by allied forces of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) that caused heavy damage throughout the city from 1940 through 1945.
