Talk:Bombings of Heilbronn in World War II

Hey, whats wrong with grammar? And anyway, if there is something wrong, why didnt you fix it? Its not finished anyway. ÅñôñÿMôús Dîššíd3nt 10:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Categorising and wikilinking to be done in about 6 hours ÅñôñÿMôús Dîššíd3nt 20:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've all but finished the article. It definitely needs touching up, but otherwise the main content is complete, as far as I know. If you were interested, you could help by:
 * Adding more technical terminology where appropriate
 * Theres always more wikilinking to be done
 * The see also is lacking in ... see alsos
 * General touching up of grammar, punctuation and/or spelling
 * More factual content if possible

Thank you all for your contributions. ÅñôñÿMôús Dîššíd3nt 07:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The Bomber Command War Diaries (published in 1985) list no air raids on Heilbronn as taking place on December 17, 1940. Mannheim was attacked on the night of 16/17 December 1940 and again on the night of 17/18 December 1940. 173.79.230.235 (talk) 17:39, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

A few improvements
Done a bit of fixing/improvement. Still too wordy, the original German must be very verbose. Also, POV must be watched. Not a single reference to any of the German atrocities - Rotterdam, Warsaw, London, Coventry, & many others, which preceded the Allies retaliating. GrahamBould 08:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have added another section called "prior conflicts", to address concerns about Point of View. It attempts to give an idea of POV in the most encyclopedic way that I could, but I think it could still be made more proffessional perhaps. Is there anything more to add on that topic?


 * Well, if you could direct me to the articles where I can gather information about these prior attacks, then I would be all to happy to create an entire section about it. I think this article could receive a GA status if we work hard at it. The topic is obviously worthy of a good rating. Anyway, if you could also point out some occurances of this 'wordiness' I can also fix this up, for, as you stated, the German article was very difficult to read in parts. ♣   ÅñôñÿMôús   Dîššíd3nt  19:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If you need more fact and you are able to understand german, then you should check the linked article from german wikipedia, that has been updated and reviewed recently. The german article also uses pictures from commons.wikimedia.org that you may use in here.--84.164.117.27 19:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Terrorism
Your 'see also' choice of Terrorism is going to provoke debate ... Not sure what you meant by 'industrial place' is this a road name, as in Plaß/Plass/Place? If so, the names should be capitalised. Or is it an industrial area? A very interesting read - well done you. 82.32.238.139 00:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Removed. The article 'terrorist' has nothing related to the topic -- it doesn't include any moral discussion of strategic bombing, whether or not it should. If editors want to include in this article the assertion that strategic bombing is a terrorist act or morally equivalent to one, then that should be made explicit in the text rather than indirectly implied by the presence of a link. Willhsmit 02:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for admonishion 82.32.238.139, and thank you for removing bad link. willhsmit ♣   ÅñôñÿMôús   Dîššíd3nt  05:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * which 'industial place" are you on about? ♣   ÅñôñÿMôús   Dîššíd3nt  07:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You wrote it, mate! You can use CTRL-F to search the page. December Raid Aftermath and other information, fourth para: "Much of the population of Heilbronn, the bombing being conducted on a Monday evening, were positioned in or around the city centre, but at the first signs of attack, many fled to a high shelter (General Wever tower) and two other low shelters (at the industrial place and at the Emperor Friedrich place)."  There when I edited early this morning but since changed to 'industrial area'  The capitalisation of Emperor Freidrich Place still needs doing if it is a proper (street/place) name.  I don't have that knowledge. 82.32.238.139 21:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah yeah, I know what your on about. It's all good now; industrial area is right, and emperor place is good in caps. ♣   ÅñôñÿMôús   Dîššíd3nt  05:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Prior Conflicts
I have added another section called "prior conflicts", to address concerns about Point of View. It attempts to give an idea of POV in the most encyclopedic way that I could, but I think it could still be made more proffessional perhaps. Is there anything more to add on that topic?


 * Ok, I think context is probably a better name. But are you sure of the location of the paragraph? And does anyone think another paragraph, or sub paragraph, might be possible, just to add to the completeness of the article, about other bombings of Germany (and possibly, if someone thinks its a good idea, the Allies), and how they compare or relate to the bombing of Heilbronn?

Also, if anyone knows of any more sources of information, just so we can make this article better, please let me know, and I'd be happy to drain the source of all its info. Cheers, ♣   ÅñôñÿMôús   Dîššíd3nt  09:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

GA Review
I'm failing this article, though it's not that far from being able to be re-submitted. Some initial observations:


 * 1) The opening doesn't seem to comply with WP:LEAD. Try to have a more complete summary of the article, in multiple paragraphs.
 * 2) No inline citations
 * 3) Article has a heavy POV problem. I don't see (at least not on a quick read through) any indication WHY the British and the Americans were bombing the city.
 * 4) There are many single-sentence paragraphs which can be merged into surrounding text. Makes the reading very choppy.
 * 5) The "Present Day" section should perhaps be cut down, with parts moved to Heilbronn's article. They don't reflect the main point of the article, though information about memorials and such related to the bombings should stay.

Good luck! JRP 00:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

context
Why do you have to have a 'context' paragraph for this description at all? And if you feel you must, it needs editing even if it is off a PC German site. Great Britain and the Commonwealth, and France declared war on Germany in 1939 over Poland, but perhaps they should not have been so eager to strip the former German and Austro-Hungarian territories of their eastern lands in 1919, renamed e.g., "Poland." And am not comfortable with 'unprovoked." After Great Britain declared war, blockaded seaways and entries to German ports, sent an invasion force to Norway and the BEF to Belgium, German short-term bombing of the ports of Rotterdam and London made some strategic sense. And Poland had an Armed Forces and were fighting the Germans (and the Soviets). And as I understand it, the first German bomb on Britain was and is still held to have been in error, and angered Hitler, who didn't want war with GB. But then GB started bombing Germany. Where or why Heilbronn got targeted that close to the end of the war is usually ascribed to the US turning out bomber aircraft in huge numbers (and at great profit), with the British likewise producing bombs in huge surpluses, and both used both because they had too many.  Oil fields, ports, etc. there may be an argument for, but terror bombing of civilians, and that is precisely what it was, was madness. And as previously discussed, why Heilbronn at all? – — … —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.81.73.21 (talk) 22:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Short term bombing? London was bombed on 57 consecutive nights from September 7, 1940. The "Blitz" lasted until May 1941. Bighammerfan (talk) 18:34, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Concerns
I've changed a few words into American English as the article was a bit of a mish-mash and consitency was the intention. But I still have a number of concerns:

1. The title. 'Bombing s of Heilbronn in World War II'. "Bombings" means to me that it has more to do with modern terrorist attacks. "Bombing" is far more suitable and is singular or plural. I would change the title to: "Bombing of Heilbronn in World War II" ( I see that it is a blue link) or even "Destruction of Heilbronn in World War II", but I don't know how to do it. 2. I'm not too sure of the "6th largest city in Baden-Wurttenburg" claim. Does this mean anything to anyone? I can understand the "6th largest city in Germany" but Baden-Wurtenburg? Its like saying "Springfield is the 5th largest city" in Illonois, Vermont, Maine, California or anywhere else for that matter. 3. "282 Lancaster bombers of 627 squadron..." Two hundred and eighty two aircraft in one squadron?! That would make it by far the largest unit in the Royal Air Force. Not even the Americans have that number of planes in one unit! Not surprisingly, I have put a "citation needed" tag after this "fact". 4. What is a 'flashlight' bomb? I think it's a type of flare, but as the USAAF did few night operations and 'flashlight' is an American term, I thought I would ask here as I have no idea what it is/was and I don't think the RAF knew it as such.

This article still has some way to go before it becomes a 'good' one.

RASAM (talk) 16:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The "flashlight bomb" is probably a reference to the photo flares used to take pictures - the 4.5 inch Photo Flash for instance.GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info, GL, but can we go with a 'flashlight' bomb "probably" being a flare or should there be something more tangible? RASAM (talk) 14:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * More likely to be a Target Indicator (TI) probably dropped by a Path Finder Mosquito. Bighammerfan (talk) 18:01, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * 627 Squadron flew Mosquitoes. From April 1944 they were a target marking squadron for 5 Group of Bomber Command. 173.79.230.235 (talk) 17:09, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This entire article is so inaccurate in so many ways.
 * The city was not bombed in December 1940. It was not attacked for two weeks in January and February 1944 with raids until April. I can find no reference to the town as a target in the Bomber Command War Diaries (Middlebrook - Everitt 1985) during this time scale.
 * It was attacked by the RAF on the following occasions:
 * 6/7 May 1942 Aircraft attacking Stuttgart were misled by a decoy fire. 150 buildings damaged, 7 people killed.
 * 27/28 August 1943 47 Pathfinder aircraft were ordered to drop a 1,000lb bomb on Helibronn to test the accuracy of H2S. Most bombs fell to the north of the town, no casulaties.
 * 27/28 September 1944, 6 aircraft (type not specified but probably Mosquitoes).
 * 4/5 October 1944, 5 Mosquitoes.
 * 11/12 October 1944, 12 Mosquitoes.
 * 30/31 October 1944, 3 Mosquitoes.
 * 4/5 December 1944, 282 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitoes dropped 1,254 tons of bombs. 351 acres (82% of the built up area) was destroyed, mostly by fire. Almost certainly a firestorm. 7,000 people killed. Bighammerfan (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The Heilbronn city chronicle (Stadtchronik) for 1940 clearly says: "16.-17. Dezember (Mo-Di) Nächtlicher Luftangriff der Royal Air Force. Die Bomben fallen auf das Altstadtviertel am Neckar und zum Teil auch in den Fluss. [...]" (more details about damages and casualties) So I wonder how you arrived at your claim that "The city was not bombed in December 1940." --Rosenzweig (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)