During World War II, the Estonian capital Tallinn suffered from many instances of aerial bombing by the Soviet air force and the German Luftwaffe. The first bombings by Luftwaffe occurred during the Summer War of 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. A number of Soviet bombing missions to then German-occupied Tallinn followed in 1942–1944.
The most extensive of Soviet aerial bombing campaign in Tallinn occurred on 9–10 March 1944 and is known as the 1944 March bombing (Estonian: 1944 märtsipommitamine). After Soviet saboteurs had disabled the water supply, over a thousand incendiary bombs were dropped on the city, causing widespread fires and killing 757 people, of whom 586 were civilians and 75 prisoners of war, wounding 659, and leaving over 20,000 people without shelter.
