From Ed Lankford: "Well, that just bears out what Frau Katy Mueller told me about the raid over Bremerhaven. She said the planes were returning from a raid, maybe Bremen, and just dumped all they had left on them. Some of the incendiary bombs were still the cases. The whole town was in flames. People had to get in the Geeste River to keep from burning. Relatives reported seeing the flames from 40 - 50 Km away out in the countryside. There was still quite a bit of evidence in certain areas when I got there in March '53. Bremen had lots of bombed out buildings when I first visited there."

Additional info from Ed Lankford (2.1.01):
The Bombing of Bremerhaven (Wesermuende) WW II (Translated from the Bremerhaven Firefighters' Website)
"On 18th September 1944, 200 British bombers led an especially heavy air raid on Wesermuende. Frightening result: 618 dead, 1193 injured persons, 30,000 homeless Persons and the destruction of 56.5% of the entire development of Wesermuende. A part of the fire department personnel sat at the time of the attack in self built bunkers on guard, while the remaining part lay between the rails of the railroad in front of the guard station to find protection there. In Kiel street,firemen formed a water bridge, so that the people could run through this water tunnel. It was at its worst strength at the entry point. Here the heat was so strong, that the paint of the vehicles began to wave."

Copied from message board discussion of Bremerhaven Bombing:
"I spoke to my father today, he remembers Bremerhaven being bombed twice once in the day, once in the night, and the time at night he remembers clearly, because they did not hear any air raid warnings so they did not put the blackout shades on the windows and he remembers vividly looking outside in the middle of the night and it being lit up like day due to the fires in Bremerhaven 10 Km away..regards, John Buck"