oil on canvas, 50 cm x 50 cm, Iain White £385
A Turning Point
The raid had reached a level of destruction so novel and so great that Joseph Goebbels, the German minster of propaganda, later used the term koventriert ('coventried') when describing similar levels of destruction of other towns. The raid of 14/15 November combined several innovations which influenced all future strategic bomber raids during the war. These included the use of pathfinder aircraft with electronic aids to navigate, and to mark the targets before the main bomber raid; and the use of HE bombs and air mines in combination with thousands of incendiary bombs intended to set the city ablaze in a firestorm. It was the precursor to the later British and American raids on German cities such as Dresden and Hamburg.
