On the last day of May 1941 some aircraft of the Luftwaffe bombed Dublin, killing more than 30 people and causing panic across the city. Now, in comparison to what London, Coventry, Liverpool, Birmingham etc suffered, this may not seem much (more info on the bombing here) and the largest bomb used was a 500lb aerial mine, but it was extremely shocking in a ‘neutral country’.
Anyway, I’m reading a book on the raid at the moment and in it is a photograph (reproduced below) of a part reported to have dropped from one of the bombers. It’s enamel and says ’emergency brake ****’. Hee hee! CENSORED.
My question; whereabouts on a Heinkel 111 (for it was they) would this be and is it likely that it could simply fall off the aircraft and down to the ground?
By: PaulR - 31st March 2025 at 10:56
Good question, I was wondering about enamelled nameplates because of the weight factor. But seeing as how the bombers circled the city for about an hour and a half prior to dropping their loads (the first bomb and last were about half an hour apart) it’s hard to say which aircraft it came from.
Another oddity – the first two bombs were released together, then there were three single bombs and finally the massive mine which devastated a large area and caused all the fatalities. And there were about ten to twenty planes flying around at the time.
I thought (in my own innocent way) that if you press the bomb button all your ordnance dropped, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Or am I wrong?
Oh, and thanks to whomever corrected my thread title spelling mishap!
By: ian_ - 31st March 2025 at 10:56
Compared to the typing above, it’s huge. Did Dublin import German trams? Could it have been blown from somewhere else rather than fallen from an aircraft?
By: ian_ - 31st March 2025 at 10:56
Apart from engine manufacturer’s badges, I’ve never seen an enameled instruction label on an aircraft. Could it be something to do with the mine?
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February 19, 2010 at 5:54 pm