#Story
Operation Moonlight Sonata
Operation Moonlight Sonata was the code name for the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) devastating air raid on the industrial city of Coventry by Luftwaffe (German Air Force). This took place on the night of 14 to 15 November 1940, during the Blitz of the Second World War. Planned as a concentrated strike to cripple Britain’s war production and break civilian morale, it became one of the most destructive single raids of the Blitz.
The operation’s unusual name ‘Mondscheinsonate’, German for Moonlight Sonata, reflected the desire for a clear, moonlit night to aid navigation. The Luftwaffe meticulously prepared a three-phase attack for the night.
First came small pathfinder units of Kampfgruppe 100, equipped with advanced radio-beam guidance ‘X-Gerät’. These crews dropped marker flares to illuminate the target area and mislead defenders. The second wave, from Luftflotte 3, carrying high explosive bombs, destroyed water mains and disrupted firefighting capability. Finally, waves of further bombers released thousands of incendiary bombs, creating an enormous firestorm.
The raid began at 19:20 with the all clear sounding at 06:15 the following morning, eleven hours of terror. The Luftwaffe used 515 bomber aircraft, dropping an estimated 500 tonnes of high explosive bombs and 900 incendiary bombs. The fires merged into a conflagration that gutted much of Coventry’s medieval city centre, including the 14th-century St. Michael’s Cathedral.
568 civilians were killed, over 1,200 injured, 4,300 homes destroyed and two thirds of the city damaged. Key industrial plants such as those producing munitions, aircraft engines, and vehicles suffered serious damage, though production often resumed more quickly than German planners expected.
Strategically, the raid demonstrated the Luftwaffe’s growing skill with electronic navigation and large-scale night bombing, while also exposing limits. Britain’s dispersed industry and determined workforce meant that long term production was only temporarily disrupted.
Politically, ‘Coventration’ (a term coined afterward) entered the vocabulary as a synonym for deliberate civilian devastation. The attack increased British resolve, known as the ‘Blitz Spirit’. It influenced the expansion of civil defence measures and provided powerful propaganda that highlighted German brutality.
Operation Moonlight Sonata stands as a dark milestone of the Blitz. It combined technical innovation with psychological warfare, inflicted immense civilian suffering, and left a lasting symbol in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. Today, the ruins of the Cathedral are preserved as a memorial to both the destruction of war and the commitment to reconciliation.