Over the course of 11 days in the summer of 1943, Allied bombers conducted six major air raids on Hamburg. Historians have called this sustained period of bombing the Battle of Hamburg; the citizens of that city, however, refer to it as "die Katastrophe." How was this notoriously dangerous mission carried out--and how, amazingly, did everything go exactly according to plan for the Allies? Using the perspective of the flight crews on both sides, and the citizenry below, the answers come into brilliant focus.