30. Explosives and Fire: A One-Two Bombing Punch
Lancasters typically carried a mix of large high explosive bombs, such as 2000 pound bombs or 4000 pound and heavier “blockbusters”, plus clusters of smaller incendiary bombs. The idea was that the big bombs would tear open buildings, then the incendiaries would start fires in their innards, which were now well ventilated.
The blockbusters would hopefully have also ruptured the city’s water mains, making firefighting difficult or impossible. That allowed individual fires to coalesce into larger conflagrations that, if conditions were ripe, could produce firestorms. When they occurred, firestorms produced hurricane-strength walls of flame and whirling tornadoes of fire that would sweep and dance through cities. They were capable of killing tens of thousands by burning them to cinders or, as the stories-high inferno sucked the oxygen out of the air, suffocating those whom the flames did not touch.
