The OKW communiqué suggests that the attack was not seen as anything to crow about:

A powerful formation of German heavy bombers carried out a concentrated attack on the Bristol in the early hours of 15 May.

Compare this to how the March 1944 raid was reported:

Blood-Red Sky Over Bristol: Numerous Major Fires Shine through the Clouds

On Wesnesday night, for the first time after an interval of almost three years the southwestern English port and industrial city of Bristol shuddered once again under a hail of bombs from a heavy air attack, carried out by powerful formations from our Luftwaffe.

The attack on the city of about 400,000 inhabitants, whose major grain elevators and mills are of high importance for the English food economy, happened toward midnight. The surprise was such that this time the English defences could only put up a fairly weak resistance to the German bomber stream compared to the raids on London. Therefore, German casualties were exceptionally light.

Despite cloud covering the whole of Southern England the German bomber formations found their target without difficulty and released their heavy and super-heavy high explosive bombs, as well as numerous incendiaries, right on the time ordered. Just a few minutes after the first bombs had been released, the cloud cover was lit up from underneath. Eventually, thanks to the many emerging fires, it took on a lurid red colour which was visible from far off and guided the succeeding formations to the target.

“It all went according to plan”, reported a young pilot who had the EK II [Iron Cross 2nd Class] pinned to his life jacket by his CO following this flight. “The bomber stream was over the target dead on time. The defence was pretty lively although not so strong by far as we’ve become used to in our attacks on London. Flak and salvo batteries [AA rockets?] were obviously restricting themselves to barrage fire since we received no aimed shots from the defences. Likewise the searchlights which groped their way through the clouds behind us didn’t trouble us.

So, as the target indicator bombs were placed by our comrades, we dropped our loads. The effect of the concentrated attack must have been extraordinarily powerful, since within a short time we saw through the clouds an unceasing lurid flash from the heaviest of explosions in the smallest of areas. Soon after, red fires lit up in various places. The light of the fires got ever bigger and brighter until the clouds resembled a single blood-red shroud and in our cockpit it was bright as day. In one place a major conflagration broke out whose glow we could still see, in spite of the cloud layer, until we were well into the return flight and flying back over the English south coast.

Other crews give similar accounts, their reports likewise showing that this major surprise raid was one of the most effective recently carried out by the German Luftwaffe.

Vivid storytelling but, to quote from the excellent Bristol Historical Resource website on the March attack: “no bombs whatsoever fell on Bristol”. In the event, the Luftwaffe proved no better able to find the city at its next attempt, on 23/24 April. Again, the report was extensive, war correspondent Dr. Harold Jansen devoting most of his report to an encounter between his aircraft (apparently a Ju 188) and a night fighter. He had this to say of the bombing itself:

It’s … 2.03 [GMT+2]. The German bombers’ attack has been underway for a few minutes … A thin veil of mist, almost magically illuminated from below, gains in brightness. searchlight cones and the bursting of heavy Flak, mixed with sparkling white of newly-fallen fields of incendiary bombs and the glowing red of the developing fires. Bristol’s port and city lie in the midst of the attack’s swathe of destruction. Incendiary bombs lurch down in thousands, high explosive bombs glare, and detonations throw up their dark mushrooms, recognisable from thousands of metres’ altitude.

…The observer has his eyes to the bombsight — out. In the gondola the air gunner’s count: “one, three — four, all gone!” The heavy bomber drops into a steep bank. All eyes aboard seek out the target area — there the glare is refracted upward. The line is well laid. Fire starts …

The Home Office summary was less effusive:

Approximately 40 hostile aircraft have been in operation … Bombs were dropped at a number of places in Somerset and Dorsetshire and at Bournemouth where incendiaries caused 13 fires, mainly in residential areas. 3 fatal casualties have so far been reported.

However fanciful their accounts of the raid, the Germans were meticulous in tabulating the bombs directed at “Target No. 3011”:

continued on next page …

PART FOUR OF FOUR