Chapter 7- Gomorah

When phosphorus bonds are dropped on cities during the Second World War (1935-45), you may wonder what the affects may be. Well playwrights and novelists took on the "dirty job" of describing the affects of burning phosphorus.
"Heisenberg: You never had the slightest conception of what happens when bombs are dropped on cities. Even conventional bombs. None of you ever experienced it. Not a single one of you ever experienced. Not a single one of you. I walked back from the centre of Berlin to the suburbs one night, after one of the big raids. No transport moving of course. The whole city on fire. Even the puddles in the streets are burning. They're puddles of molten phosphorus. It gets on your shoes like some incandescent dog-muck - I have to keep scraping it off - as if the streets had been fouled by the hounds of hell. It would have made you laugh, my shoes kept bursting into flames. All around me, I suppose, there are people trapped, people in various stages of burning to death".  This from Act 1 of Copenhagen by Michael Frayn.
Describing the power and horror phosphorus bombs create can be hard. Some authors have tried to capture the moments of incredible terror.
"But the worst has yet to come ... a large phosphorus bomb fell directly outside ... the people nearest the door now gave way to an indescribable panic ... Terrible scenes took place. since all of us saw certain death in front of us, with the only way out a sea of flames. We were caught like rats in a trap. Doors were thrown on the canister by screaming people and not smoke and heat poured in ... some collapsed and never woke up again. Three soldiers committed suicide. I begged my husband to beat back the flames with our blanket but he was un able to do so. My hair began to singe..".
Not all versions are written in books, or playwrights. The one above was a real account from a woman who survived a phosphorus bombing.
Phosphorus was only used in bombs when it could be produced in rather large quantity. Large scale production became available in 1882 when electric furnaces were produced which allowed phosphorus to be extracted from phosphate ore. This industrialization opened the world to bigger and badder warfare.
Lastly, you must all be wondering... What is Gomorrah, and why is the chapter named after it? It is an  operation and otherwise known as operation Gomorrah. The operation was scheduled for July 1843. it lasted 8 grouling days and destroyed the population of Hamburg, Germany.
People killed at the least- 37,000
Property destroyed
253,000 apartment blocks
35,500 houses
2,632 shops
580 factories
379 office blocks
277 schools
83 banks
77 cinema and theatres
76 municipal buildings
69 post offices
58 churches
24 hospitals
1 zoo
Water mains broke- 850
Shipping sunk- 180,000 tons
Rubble- 40 million tons