{"id":6267,"date":"2017-03-15T20:25:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T02:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2017-03-15T20:25:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T02:25:30","slug":"this-week-in-the-war-12-18-march-1945-raf-attacks-the-schildesche-viaduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=6267","title":{"rendered":"This week in the War, 12–18 March 1945: RAF attacks the Schildesche viaduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Schildesche viaduct, March 1945 [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>This week in the war, on 14 March 1945, the RAF’s 617 Squadron launched a daytime raid\u00a0against the Schildesche viaduct near Bielefeld, on the railway line linking Hanover to Hamm. The viaduct dated from 1847.<\/p>\n

A large section of the viaduct was destroyed.<\/p>\n

A new type of bomb, the \u2018Grand Slam\u2019 or so-called earthquake bomb—designed by British engineer Barnes Wallis of Dam Buster fame<\/a>—was used for the first time.<\/p>\n

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Avro Lancaster of 617 Squadron drops a 22,000 pound Grand Slam on the viaduct at Arnsberg, 19 March 1945 [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>Weighing 22,000 pounds, the bomb was almost twice the size of its predecessor, the \u2018Tall Boy,\u2019 which was also designed by Barnes Wallis.<\/p>\n

After a similar but unsuccessful raid against the viaduct at Arnsberg, another RAF \u2018Grand Slam\u2019 raid demolished part of the Arnsberg viaduct on 19 March.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in the war, on 14 March 1945, the RAF’s 617 Squadron launched a daytime raid\u00a0against the Schildesche viaduct near Bielefeld, on the railway line linking Hanover to Hamm. The viaduct dated from 1847. A large section of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1077,1076],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-grand-slam","tag-schildesche-viaduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6269,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/6269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}