If the Hamburg raid was so effective, why is it so little remembered? Partly, it was overshadowed by later raids, especially the twin nuclear attacks on Japan in 1945. But much like those later episodes, Gomorrah raised immense moral difficulties. Already during the war, some British thinkers were horrified by the indiscriminate nature of the bombing, and pleaded for more consideration of civilians. In 1944, Anglican Bishop George Bell used the Hamburg attacks as a central point in his mighty denunciation of Allied bombing strategy.
Post-Hiroshima concerns about civilian losses further aroused popular concerns about such raids. Not until 2012 did the British erect an official memorial to RAF Bomber Command.
It was difficult, then, to admit that the attacks might really have had the impact that they did, and that they significantly shortened the war. Had these raids not been eclipsed by the atomic bombs, we would assuredly remember Gomorrah as a grim turning point in military history, and indeed in the history of humanity.