20 September 1920 On 20 September 1920, Head Constable Peter Burke, a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, was brutally gunned down outside a public house in the small Irish town of Balbriggan. He was the commander of a British ‘Black and Tan’ auxiliary police force unit which was stationed nearby. There was no evidence as to…
16 August 1923 On 16 August 1923, the RAF conducted a surprise bombing attack on the home of the Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji in the Kurdish town of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq. He was becoming dangerously popular among a population who felt the British were cheating them of their independence and was suspected of conspiring against…
28 July 1943 At about 12.55 am on Wednesday 28 July 1943, RAF Pathfinder aircraft began to drop their target indicators, lighting up the German city of Hamburg. 791 aircraft had already bombed Hamburg three nights earlier [see 25 July 1943], and Bomber Command planners had been impressed with how well the city burned, killing…
25 July 1943 At about 00.57 on 25 July 1943, RAF bombers unleashed hundreds of bright red and yellow marker bombs, followed by thousands of incendiary bombs, on the densely populated German city of Hamburg. It was the first of four RAF fire bombing raids endured by the inhabitants over the following ten days, which…
10 July 1922 On 10 July 1922, the small Kurdish town of Rowanduz was subjected to the first of a series of bombing raids by the RAF. Rowanduz was situated in northern Iraq, a country which was then under British military administration and a colony, in all but name. Group Captain Amyas Borton explained in…
27 May 1924 Today in 1924, the RAF initiated what it described as the ‘intensive bombing’ of the town of Sulaymaniyah in the kurdish region of north eastern Iraq. The local governor, Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, was reported to have been raising illegal taxes, which the British feared might be the first stage in a planned…
20 May 1919 On 20 May 1919, R.A.F. aircraft of Number 31 squadron dropped more than a hundred bombs on the Afghan city of Jalalabad. A reminder to its population that continued refusal to accept British hegemony would have a terrifying cost. Afghanistan was then in its third week of a war, an attempt to…
14 April 1919 On 14 April 1919, Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, gave orders that RAF aircraft should be sent to terminate anti-British protests in the town of Gujranwala. That morning large crowds, angered by the reports of the massacre by British troops of over 300 protesters at Amritsar the day before, set fire…
16 March 1945 On 16 March 1945, in the closing days of the Second World War, as Allied forces advanced ever deeper into Germany, 225 RAF Lancaster heavy bombers dropped a mixture of high explosives and 300,000 incendiary bombs on the medieval city of Wurzburg. Though the municipality lacked any heavy industry, it contained numerous half-timbered buildings in…
23 February 1945 At 7.50 pm of 23 February 1945, in the closing weeks of the Second World War, 367 RAF Lancaster heavy bombers began a massive air assault on the small German town of Pforzeheim. The town was renowned for its jewellery and watch making artisans, but of little or no strategic importance as…
