More than 900 Fortresses and over half as many escort fighters were dispatched to the target, the largest force ever sent against a single city. (That same morning, the Eighth’s 2nd Air Division dispatched over 400 Liberators to the Magdeburg synthetic oil plant, where better weather was predicted.) The Berlin-bound air train was 300 miles long; by the time the forward elements nosed into Germany there were still bombers over the North Sea.
