Navigating at night using nothing but maps, compass, altitude and speed indicator is pretty difficult. Especially when the hostile territory you are flying over is forcing everyone to keep their curtains closed and minimize light leaks.
I’ve done some night flying by dead reckoning. I had the benefit of meteorologists in the territory I was flying over, so I had pretty good winds aloft data. That makes a DIFFERENCE.
Some cities would go dark and then a mile away have lanterns set up in the night over a large distance so planes would drop their bombs in a field instead of over the actual city, if I recall correctly.
And even then, they often hit the wrong city
No way. Are you joking or did this really happen?
Navigating at night using nothing but maps, compass, altitude and speed indicator is pretty difficult. Especially when the hostile territory you are flying over is forcing everyone to keep their curtains closed and minimize light leaks.
I’ve done some night flying by dead reckoning. I had the benefit of meteorologists in the territory I was flying over, so I had pretty good winds aloft data. That makes a DIFFERENCE.
Some cities would go dark and then a mile away have lanterns set up in the night over a large distance so planes would drop their bombs in a field instead of over the actual city, if I recall correctly.
In ww2, sometimes the wrong COUNTRY was hit
Or landed in. See giant stone marking spelling out EIRE, i.e., NOT ENGLAND YOU STUPID YANKEE.
To wit: the initial “development” process of the Tu-4
Edit: ok to be fair those were more of a “don’t have enough fuel” situation, but it is funny how they just copied the thing
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65344370
Russia is just honoring the Great Patriotic War!
Several Swiss cities were bombed during World War II because they were mistaken for Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_incidents_in_Switzerland_in_World_War_II?wprov=sfti1#Bombing_incidents
An easy mistake at any altitude.
The German city of Constanze would deliberately leave all their lights on at night so that allied pilots would think they were part of Switzerland
This actually worked pretty well
Bezuidenhout comes to mind. The Allies bombed The Hague instead of a rocket installation outside of town because somebody got their target coordinates mixed up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_the_Bezuidenhout