Dresden and Tokyo

One other point to bear in mind is that Dresden wasn’t an incendiary attack per se. Standard Bomber Command practice was to mix HE and incendiary and for the Dresden raid 1,478 tons of HE against 1,182 tons of incendiary.

The Tokyo raids switched to low level night raids using incendiaries because during their high level precision bombing attempts the affects of the jetstream were so severe that, depending on the wind direction, they were either a sitting target for flak, going too fast to aim or dealing with such a crosswind that their bombsights couldn’t calculate an aiming point properly. They also dispensed with HE because most of the buildings in Tokyo were wooden construction so didn’t require blasting apart first.

To be honest I’m not an expert on Bomber Command / 8th Air Force tactics, but is it possible that the reason why Dresden was bombed was to prove that low level incendiary bombing of “combustible” targets was a viable alternative to high altitude bombing missions over Japan. I understand that several high ranking US staff members transferred to the Pacific from the 8th around the time of the bombing of Dresden. Or was Dresden bombed because it was a German city and therefore a target – one of many.

I don’t want to go into the ethics of bombing or the bombing of ethics, it just good to know why.

Dresden was bombed at the request of the Russians to help their army in the east that was very close to Dresden but bogged down. With bad weather in the west of Germany and the stalled counter offensive in the Ardens the army had started to transfer large numbers troops to the east and the Russians were taking casualties at a staggering rate. Stalin wanted the Western Allies to do more to help and requested various choke points to be destroyed. Dresden was just one of many of these places. It should have been bombed in January but the weather was very poor.

In fact most of the raids during this period had poor to middling results despite the tonnage dropped due to the poor weather. 13th Feb was no different. Except that incredibly on this night a localised hole appeared in the cloud and perfect visual conditions prevailed. And as all the flak had been removed to Berlin or the Russian front there was no opposition. A case of impossible to miss, with no early “bombs away”, or creep-back occurring.

As for being combustible Dresden was again in no way any different to all the other industrial cities, with one possible exception. The Nazis never allowed news of how other cities were coping with the air-raids to be shared, so the residents of Dresden had no experience or help of what to do once the bombs stopped dropping. They in fact stayed in their cellars, (where they suffocated) as there were no air raid shelters for the public, and they did not come out and help fight the many small fires that had started, or evacuate the area if the fires had taken hold.

Consequently etc etc etc

Dresden was not choked with refugees to the extent that has often been quoted, but that was one of the objectives to have the city choked up to help prevent the easy movement of troops and thereby help the Russians.

There was no conspiracy to terror bomb, or burn, or annihilate or any other theory. In fact the outstanding feature of the raid was that there were no C**k ups by the RAF this night. (C**k ups being an integral part of all warfare) I hope this helps a little. The 8th Airforce bombed Dresden the following day, on a day when they ranged far and wide over Germany. Perhaps as little as 15% of their force was directed at Dresden this day. The Politics of this raid is a fascinating subject, but some what complicated to explain quickly. I think that everyone was taken aback by the firestorm, but even then as a proportion of the total population the casulties in Dresden were not as high as in many other raids.

Try getting hold of ‘Tail-End Charlies’ by John Nichol and Tony Rennell. Seems a very well researched book with masses of detail on the bombing campaigns of the latter years of WWII. Not an easy read but quite compulsive.

The latter Philip. The technique used was standard area bombing technique as practiced for years. The outcome was because of a number of unusual circumstances. And this had happened before, the most well-known being Hamburg. Have a look here …
http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/famousraids.html

FYI the Tokyo night raid of 9-10 March 1945 is generally acknowledged as the most destructive and deadly raid of the war, exceeding in damage and casualties even the two atom bomb raids. It is not generally recounted by those with a fight to pick re. strategic/area/carpet (pick a name) bombing.

And Cees is right – very difficult/touchy topic this.

To be honest I’m not an expert on Bomber Command / 8th Air Force tactics, but is it possible that the reason why Dresden was bombed was to prove that low level incendiary bombing of “combustible” targets was a viable alternative to high altitude bombing missions over Japan. I understand that several high ranking US staff members transferred to the Pacific from the 8th around the time of the bombing of Dresden. Or was Dresden bombed because it was a German city and therefore a target – one of many.

I don’t want to go into the ethics of bombing or the bombing of ethics, it just good to know why.

Why Phillip, and then what?

These kind of threads tend to end in political discussions that can get out of hand easily, and what’s the point to get into that. Only for you interest or is there a greater good in this. Discussing this you cannot avoid the ethics of bombing or vice versa. And then we are back to square one etc. etc.

Cheers

Cees