In the last days of July 1943, British and American planes dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on Hamburg with the intention of erasing the German city from the map. The resultant firestorm burned for a month and left 40,000 civilians dead. Inferno is a searing account of terrifying destruction: of how and why the Allies dropped a hail of high-explosive and incendiary bombs; of blizzards of sparks, hurricane-force winds and 800-degree temperatures; of survivors cowering in basements or struggling along melting streets; of a city and its people near annihilated from above. Inferno is an epic stroy of human devestation and survival against impossible odds.