On January 24, 1944 - Anglo-American aviation carried out bombing raids on the cities of Skopje and Vratsa. In addition, the villages of Chomakovtsi, Dragalevtsi, Simeonovo, German, Zgalevo, Beglezh and Kumanovo were also hit. A total of 124 people died. This is recalled by the website "Bulgarian Heritage".
On January 24, 1944, 300 American heavy bombers were to bomb Sofia. But on that day, nature was on the side of the people of Sofia. The entire Sofia Plain was shrouded in a thick layer of fog. The planes of the 15th Air Force of the United States did not have the equipment for blind bombing, which the night bombers of the Royal Air Force had. And after circling over Vitosha for 45 minutes, the bombers took off in different directions.
Fate saved the people of Sofia, but it turned out to be unkind to other Bulgarians. One group of planes bombed the city of Skopje, then in the territory of the Kingdom of Bulgaria. Nearly 380 bombs were dropped over the city.
Another formation of 84 bombers hit Vratsa. 124 people were killed and 250 people were wounded. Fighters descended low and fired on the city. The civilian population was shot at point blank range with on-board machine guns and cannons. The villages of Kunino and Beglezh and other settlements in Northern Bulgaria were also bombed. In total, about 800 bombs were dropped over the country on that day and 234 buildings were destroyed.
After the tragedy “H.H. Queen Joanna sent the mayor of Vratsa, on behalf of H.H. the Tsar, the sum of 20,000 leva to assist the poor families in the city who suffered from the bombing”.
According to a pilot of a downed American plane, the military wanted to destroy the railway line near Mezdra, but because of the fog they attacked Vratsa. The plane was shot down by a machine gun located on the Meshchiite Tower in the city, and the pilots saw people running away, but fired at them.
The famous lull was interrupted on March 16 and 30 with strikes aimed mainly at Sofia.
The ominous balance of operation “Point Blank” shows that Sofia was bombed 11 times, as well as Vratsa, Dupnitsa and 18 other settlements.
45,265 destructive and incendiary bombs were dropped. Some of them were timed to explode later, when people had left their hiding places.
The summarized statistics show that over 2,477 people died, 99 percent of whom were civilians, women and children. The wounded were twice as many. Over 12,000 buildings were destroyed. The 4,350-ton bomb load dropped on the capital destroyed nearly a quarter of its buildings. Material damage reached the astronomical sum of 24 billion leva.
Democrat Churchill welcomed the data from the destructive bombings of Bulgaria with the words: “Excellent!”