This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame came up and almost blinded us from our guns.

Starting with small raids at the beginning of the war, the aerial offensive grew into a massive operation. Huge air armadas would eventually pulverize Germany with the mighty 8th Air Force flying by day and the Lancaster

of bomber command by night. This 24-hour campaign seriously damaged Germany's ability to make

war and killed hundreds of thousands.

I'm Angus Wallison joining me is now regular of the podcast Jonathan Trigg, whose new book is The

Air War through German Eyes, How the Luftwaffe lost the skies over the Reich, which looks at the

air war from the point of view of the Germans.

John, it's great to have you back.

So, pre-war, there is this idea and to coin a British

phrase the bomb will always get through did the Germans have the same fear

they might face bombing are they sitting there before the war thinking if the British or French

bombers get through how are we going to counteract counteract that threat?

They put very very large-scale preparations in place before the war because they were really

worried, particularly about the British, less so the French, and particularly about the RAF bombing their

cities and that civilian morale would just collapse.

Almost overnight. They were far more scared of that than we were of being able to achieve that.

We had no one, we thought, we would be able to achieve it? The Germans were convinced it would.

The German, the average German civilian would just have to hear the drone of an aircraft overhead and would immediately raise a white flag.

So they put an enormous amount of effort and resource

into preparing people, local classes and lessons for what happens if the bombers come over and getting all of the

...