During World War II, how many times did the British army carry out "thousand-plane bombing" against Germany?

After many discussions, Harris and others finally targeted Cologne, an important industrial city in Ruhr-gebiet.

1942 On the night of May 30th, under the direct command of Harris, the British Air Force dispatched 1046 bombers, including 292 heavy bombers with four engines and 754 double bombers. When these planes took off in Britain, the weather was not ideal, but after entering the European continent, the weather gradually improved. There are only a few thin clouds over Cologne, and the visibility is very good, which is very suitable for British troops to fight at night.

These thousands of bombers successfully found their targets, dropped incendiary bombs and ignited a fire in the center of Cologne. The subsequent echelon saw the fire far away, and they went straight to the target. German anti-aircraft guns soon began shooting at British bombers. Intensive artillery fire shot down 1 British bomber every 7-8 minutes on average, and injured L bomber more than 1 minute. British bombers dropped 1455 tons of bombs in 90 minutes, including 540 tons of high-explosive bombs and 9 15 tons of incendiary bombs. The British aircrew who finally withdrew from the target could still see the Cologne fire after returning to 150 miles. In Cologne, 2.4 square kilometers of urban area was destroyed, and more than half of downtown blocks were completely destroyed. British bombing killed 486 people in Cologne, injured more than 5,000 people, left more than 6,543.8+0.4 million homeless, and cut off contact with other cities for 9 days. In this operation, the British bomber troops were shot down by four heavy bombers, six double bombers and 34 double bombers, and another 1 16 people were injured.

On June 1 day and night, 956 bombers of the British bombing aviation formed a surprise formation, and once again carried out "thousand-plane bombing" to bomb Essen, another important industrial city in Ruhr, Germany. Later, Harris successfully carried out the third "thousand-plane bombing" against Bremen, an important port city in northern Germany.

However, the two "thousand-aircraft bombing" did not last long, and the biggest reason was the limited strength. At 1942, there are less than 500 bombers available every month, even less heavy bombers. In addition, British bombers use optical sights for visual aiming, and moonlight must be used when fighting at night. In addition, Germany adopted strict air defense measures, which seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the bomber units, so it failed to achieve the purpose of preventing the German economy from transforming into a wartime economy, disintegrating the morale of the German people and destroying their resistance will.