The large raid that almost destroyed the inner city district occurred on the evening of February 23, 1945. The first bombs were dropped at 19:50 and the last one at 20:12. The attack on "Yellowfin", the RAF's code name for Pforzheim, included 379 aircraft. The main force bombers were 367
Avro Lancasters of
No. 1,
No. 6, and
No. 8 Groups along with one Film Unit Lancaster, and 13 Mosquitos of
No. 8 Group (the
Pathfinders). The master bomber for the raid was Major
Ted Swales,
DFC, a
South African, aged 29, who would be awarded Bomber Command's last
Victoria Cross of the war for his actions on this night. Despite severe damage to his plane he remained over the target directing the raid and died when his Lancaster crashed near
Valenciennes on the return flight. The bomber stream attacked from a height of 8,000 feet (2,400 m). The bombs were, by now, a standard mix of high explosive and
incendiary bombs. The town center suffered immediate destruction and a
firestorm broke out, reaching its most devastating phase about 10 minutes from the start of the raid. The smoke over the town rose to about 3,000 meters, and the returning bomber crews could still see the glare of the fire up to 160 km away. Twelve aircraft of the bomber fleet did not return to their bases. Eleven of them were shot down by Luftwaffe fighters stationed at Großsachsenheim (now
Sachsenheim), and another was assumed to have been accidentally hit by "friendly" bombs. At least two aircraft crashed not far from Pforzheim, and Swales' aircraft, which had been hit twice, crashed in France. One of the Lancasters that crashed near Pforzheim went down close to the village of
Neuhausen (Enzkreis). Three of its crew members bailed out, of whom two survived; the remaining crew members died. The other one crashed near the village of
Althengstett near the town of
Calw.
Impact of the attack The German Army Report of February 24, 1945 devoted only two lines to reporting the bombardment: "In the early evening hours of February 23, a forceful British attack was directed at Pforzheim". The post-war British Bombing Survey Unit estimated that 83 per cent of the town's built-up area was destroyed, "probably the greatest proportion in one raid during the war". In the center, almost 90% of the buildings were destroyed. In an area about 3 km long and 1.5 km wide, all buildings were reduced to rubble. 17,600 citizens were officially counted as dead and thousands were injured. People died from the immediate impact of explosions, from burns due to burning incendiary materials that seeped through basement windows into the cellars of houses where they hid, from poisonous gases, lack of oxygen, and collapsing walls of houses. Some of them drowned in the
Enz or
Nagold rivers into which they had jumped while trying to escape from the burning incendiary materials in the streets, but even the rivers were burning as the phosphorus floated on the water. After the attack, about 30,000 people had to be fed by makeshift public kitchens because their housing had been destroyed. Many Pforzheim citizens were buried in common graves at Pforzheim's main cemetery because they could not be identified. There are many graves of complete families. The labour office of 1942 listed 2,980 foreigners in Pforzheim, and one source puts the number of foreign laborers who died in the bombings at 498 (among them 50 Italians). The inner city districts were almost totally depopulated. According to the State Statistics Bureau (Statistisches Landesamt), in the Market Square area (Marktplatzviertel) in 1939 there were 4,112 registered inhabitants, in 1945 none. In the Old Town area (Altstadtviertel) in 1939 there were 5,109 inhabitants, in 1945 only 2 persons were still living there. In the Leopold Square area, in 1939 there were 4,416 inhabitants, in 1945 only 13. Some surviving Allied aircrew were killed after they fell into the hands of German civilians. Four weeks after the Pforzheim main raid, the British crew of a
Avro Lancaster bailed out near Pforzheim where they were captured, and six of them were shot at the nearby village of Huchenfeld. One member managed to escape but was later recaptured and taken to a POW camp. ==Post war==