The bombing of Dresden

From family, apparently one of my great uncle’s was a pilot who flew over Dresden- opened a window and shouted “SERVES YOU RIGHT YOU KRAUT B*STARDS!”
I believe it was a retalitory action for the whole war.

Just re-read this thread and, unusually for such a subject, felt moved to pass comment.

The general thrust is that civilians were harmed for a target of little or no strategic importance. I have nothing to say about that. At that time it was deemed a target and that decision is one (of millions) that has entered that annals of history. It cannot now be changed.

What I would say however is that in times of war there is no such thing as “civilians” – there is only “us and the enemy”. Looking at it any other way means you will lose. This is even more telling when the confilct is against any country that does not hold human life in such high regard as is in the “west”. To such peoples “humans” are the product of unskilled labour and plentifully abundant.

War is, it would seem, part of the human condition, unfortunate but true as attested over the centuries. Only comparatively recently has the concept of collatoral damage been raised to the level of military condemnation. Use of the military should be considered as deploying a broadsword not a scalpel so the effects of its use should not to be taken lightly, nor should they (the military) be taken to task for doing their duty.

In times of war it is worth remembering the saying (paraphrased from Patton I think) “The trick is not just to be ready to die for one’s country but to make the other side die for theirs.”

Finally, the staunchest anti-war group I know of are . . . current and ex- servicemen. War is noisy, it hurts, the food is always awful and you’ve got to “work” weekends.

Sorry to revive this, but I came across an interesting link and remembered Maple’s point above about the USAAF bombing Prague.

Here’s the link … it’s a month by month chronology of USAAF operations in WWII … you just pick a month and year.

http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/wwii/usaf/html/index.html

Re. the Dresden raid, it says “461 B-17s are dispatched to hit the marshalling yard at Dresden (311); targets of opportunity are Prague (62), Brux (25) and Pilsen (12) in
Czechoslovakia and other (25)”

So it seems perhaps Mr Irving was right in part – yes Prague bombed, but not 40 bombers and not a mistake, rather a “target of opportunity” lucky them.

Anyone know much about Prague/Czechoslovakia’s circumstances in the war?

cheers, Gnome

sorry, I didn’t make myself clear, the bit I’m sceptical about is the USAAF bombing Prague by mistake

-Nick

Reservations about the source aside, that seems likely. Bomber Command (nighttime) APs were usually large visible things.

Gents,
A correction to a statement I made earlier on this thread, info taken from ‘RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War’ by Denis Richards – the AP for the RAF attack by 5GP on Dresden was a stadium near the center of the city. The Americans followed-up with an attack on the marshalling yards, which was sucessful, despite overspill from blind bombing – [apart from the 40 bombers that attacked Prague by mistake*]

*Health warning – taken from Irving’s Destruction of Dresden – as reliable as a rail timetable and in places a bigger work of fiction.

Regards

-nick

To every member of Bomber command, I hold out my hand and say thank you for my freedom, for my chance to say what I think without worry of persicution and for my families life.
They carried out orders, Bomber Harris was as much a tool in the politicians hands as the aircrews, he was only doing the bidding of the leaders.

What have we learned from this – Nothing.

Iraq, Afganistan etc.

Thank you RAF Bomber Command. God bless you all.

From Berlin – The Downfall 1945, Antony Beevorm, Viking press

(This is in the immediate post-war period)

Even civilians, according to another US report, betrayed through their automatic use of propaganda clichés how deeply their thinking had been altered. They would, for example, instinctively refer to allied bombing raids as terrorangriffe (Goebbelss phrase) and not use the ordinary term of luftangriffe, or air attacks. The report described this as residual Nazism. Many civilians would talk with self-pity about Germany’s suffering, especially under the bombing. They fell resentfully silent when reminded that it was the Luftwaffe which had invented mass destruction of cities as a shock tactic.

Moggy – this from the RAF’s own site and unless I’m much mistaken taken (with permission) straight from Martin Middlebrook’s Bomber Command War Diaries

796 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate raids and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs. The first attack was carried out entirely by 5 Group, using their own low-level marking methods. A band of cloud still remained in the area and this raid, in which 244 Lancasters dropped more than 800 tons of bombs, was only moderately successful. The second raid, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather was now clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy. Much has been written about the fearful effects of this raid. Suffice it to say here that a firestorm, similar to the one experienced in Hamburg in July 1943, was created and large areas of the city were burnt out. No one has ever been able to discover how many people died but it is accepted that the number was greater than the 40,000 who died in the Hamburg firestorm and the Dresden figure may have exceeded 50,000.

Bomber Command casualties were 6 Lancasters lost, with 2 more crashed in France and 1 in England.

311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden the next day, with the railway yards as their aiming point. Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos. The Americans bombed Dresden again on the 15th and on 2nd March but it is generally accepted that it was the R.A.F. night raid, which caused the most serious damage.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/dresden.html

Note the USAAF aiming point = railway yards. Doesn’t mean RAF wasn’t but open to conjecture.

The AP was the railway station – a military comms node, unless the German Armed Forces had given up using trains. I’d post the picture if I could remember where I put it.

regards

-nick

As a matter of interest did we actually hit the railway station? Anyone know?

Moggy

Overstrand or Sidestrand?

I’m sorry for the chap with connections to Dresden, Dresden, IMO has become part of the folk memory of the ‘passion of the East’ that has frequently been overlooked by non-German Historians (about 2m+ Ethnic Germans killed, many more dispaced as revenge in Czech republic, Poland etc or fleeing the advancing Soviets)

However, I lived in Berlin for four years, no-one there complained about Allied bombing although they had it for much longer.

The old ‘no military targets in Dresden’ argument has worn a bit thin I’m sad to say. The AP was the railway station – a military comms node, unless the German Armed Forces had given up using trains. I’d post the picture if I could remember where I put it.

regards

-nick

Damien – The facts are that we are pursuing a ‘war’ against insurgents and
former members of Saddam’s regime . Much as it would be great not to involve
innocent civilians in the conflict – the situation on the ground is that the population and terrorists arn’t separate.
Not all the fighters are Iraqi – so effectively we do not have the leaders of countries like Syria ,Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan in our hands.
Similarily not all of the Iraqi population miss Saddam and his sons.
Undoubtedly civilians are being killed – but it’s worth pointing out that
the insurgents themselves are doing a pretty good job of killing Iraqi’s.

We know now it was very close to the end of the European war, but was it that obvious then?

That it was close was obvious, how close wasn’t.

That’s not the point, this is a hindsight question. At the time I’d have sent those aircrew to their deaths with no more thought than for the ones that went before them.

Moggy

NOTE: ‘No more thought’ does not imply that AVM Harris was in any way heartless about his men. His was an awful job, sending his crews out knowing that 3 – 7% of them would be dead by morning. I can’t believe that his sleep was ever easy.

It could be that those who ask if it was necessary might be happier had German been able to utilise 1,000 heavy bombers in their raids… Or maybe that this attack had been carried out by 100-200 Wellingtons instead.
War isn’t equal, never will be. Bomber Command had the capacity – and used it. If the Nazis had a similar opportunity then do you think they wouldn’t use it?
And who is to know what the raid planners thought might or might not be in the city; in this day and age intelligence and reconnaisance units with all their new modern technology still can’t pin point weapons of mass destruction (no matter how much their leaders insist such things exist) so Dresden was a target, just like all the rest. – Nermal

We know now it was very close to the end of the European war, but was it that obvious then?

. To apologise for Dresden and the like is to apologise for removing that regime. Under NO circumstances should the British head of state make any form of apology.

Different thread Dan (We did that one elsewhere)

The question is “Was what was achieved worth the lives of 49 aircrew so near the end of the conflict?”

Moggy

Got the wrong end of the stick

Not at all … as I said in my post I struggle with this. I fundamentally don’t think war is a useful way of resolving political differences … but I also don’t like fascism and/or dictators. And yes, Germany started it no doubt. But, BUT, much of that excess bomload was dropped in the last few months of the war (I don’t have the data on me, but there’s some sort of – every year the bomb tonnage equalled the aggregate of what had been done to date – something like that) and Moggy’s question is whether this degree of overkill was reasonable in February 1945.

I don’t think it was.

You said it yourself. ‘The last few months of the war’. Was the war over? No it wasn’t. Sorry. My Mom was a baby when a German bomb destroyed the house and killed the family on the other side of her street directly opposite her family home. She was having her nappy changed at the time. I’ve never heard anybody appologise for the fact that I was ‘nearly’ never able to write this reply. This is not a moot point when put into context. 🙂

Actually, who cares…it’s over and that’s that….

I should think a debate about the ancient history of Dresden is pretty irrelevant when we are carrying out a greater slaughter right now.

Even if the figures you quote are accurate (bearing in mind they were extrapolated from a sample of just 1,000 people – source BBC News this morning) your conclusion is a non sequitor.

This means we have to close the boards and not discuss anything?

If you consider it irrelevant, can we assume that you will resist the temptation to contribute futher? 🙂

Kev: I really wish it seemed that simple to me. I think, perhaps, it is just one of those questions without an answer.

Moggy