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The Story

The Story

To many people the sacrifices the United Kingdom endured through the grueling months of the Battle of Britain are well known. What is not well known is that across the span of a few chaotic hours on the night of March 30/31, 1944, the RAF losses surpassed those of the entire Battle of Britain. The Nuremberg Raid was an unequivocal disaster for British Bomber Command. Bomber Command Headquarters concluded a combination of poor weather, German tactical advances and misfortune were the primary components that ultimately led to the disaster.

But for years lingering rumors quietly persisted that the raid was intentionally compromised by the Allies; sacrificed to the Double Cross System of turned German spies in an elaborate effort to keep Adolph Hitler uncertain about the Normandy Invasion launched just two months after the raid. Captured German spies were basically presented with two options: be hanged as a spy or fully cooperate with MI5 as British double agents and pass disinformation back to the Germans. Most of the German spies chose life and cooperated with the British. The Double Cross operation became an integral part of the Allied pre D-Day disinformation campaign (specifically known as Operation Fortitude) designed to convince Hitler and Germany that the anticipated Allied landings on D-Day would target the Pas de Calais, not the shores of Normandy. The obvious object of the deception was to cause the Germans to weaken their Normandy defenses, concentrating their main forces, particularly their Panzer divisions, in the area of Pas de Calais thereby greatly increasing the odds of a successful Allied landing at Normandy. The troubling rumors that have persisted regarding the Nuremberg raid allege that MI5, in an effort to enhance the bona fides of their double agents during the run-up to D-Day, allowed the actual details of the Nuremberg raid to be passed by double agents to the Germans. As the conspiracy theory goes, by passing the specific details of the Nuremberg raid MI5 helped convince the Germans that their spy networks were providing incredibly accurate intelligence setting the stage for the larger Allied disinformation campaign focusing on D-Day.

For over 70 years answers eluded historians…until now. Investigative historian Mark Chandler, with over forty years of Bomber Command research, takes us on a journey back in time into the heart of Bomber Command. Reinforced by Steve Bond, a Luftwaffe technological expert and John Stubbington, author of Kept In The Dark – The Denial to Bomber Command Of Vital Ultra And OtherIntelligence Information During World War ll, newly declassified material breaks through 70 years of conspiracy theory and allegations of incompetence on the part of Bomber Command finally revealing¬ the true cause of the disastrous Nuremberg Raid.

The documentary focuses not only on solving the mystery of what went horrifically wrong on the night of March 30/31, but also on the technological advances of the combatants, espionage intrigue, and the young airmen who risked their lives for freedom. By profiling this raid in a fresh perspective using a mix of on-camera interviews, archival footage, 3D animation and reenactments, this project will finally close the case on one of World War Two’s most elusive mysteries.