Attacking Bremen four nights in eight, the R.A.F. went die-straight to two sources of Nazi troublemaking: the U-boat yards and plane factories of Germany's second port. British authorities described the ancient Hanseatic city, after its four-raid treatment, as in the same rubble-heaped condition as Rostock, Lübeck and Cologne, pocked by huge craters, smudged by long-burning fires.
Highly important to the U.S. was the fact that Bremen sheltered one of Germany's greatest U-boat building yards, the Deschimag works. Also important to second front possibilities was the fact that Bremen's sprawling docks funnel most...