If any memorial should be protested it’s the one of Bomber Harris, unbelievably insensitive!
Why on earth shouldn’t there be a status of Harris?
He did a thankless job, reasonably well.
From what I’ve read, he cared deeply about the well-being of his crews (the fact that he sent thousands to their deaths was unfortunately in keeping with the nature of that conflict and the level of sophistication of the technologies used. Men were, sadly, expendable when fighting that ‘total’ war).
He had the courage of his convictions that strategic bombing would shorten the war and save lives (you can argue about whether it did or didn’t – but he believed it did and by doing so that it would save peoples lives)
I’m sure he spent the rest of his life haunted about the terrible losses on both sides. I repeat, he had a thankless task and not many men could have taken the strain of that job with so much forebearance.
I don’t have my references to hand but I don’t believe Harris particularly wanted to ‘get at’ Dresden – I believe it was ‘next’ on a schedule of targets decided at higher level. If you want to talk about pointless deaths on the eve of victory/defeat you can talk about kamikazes or sending kids out with panzerfausts or the RTR Sergeant sitting in the turret of his tank when a German mortar round dropped right down on top of him minutes before the ceasefire – I’d like to see a memorial to those victims of cruel fate – they’re all someone’s child.
I don’t see Dresden as being an illegitimate target – it was total war, it was a German city – lots of Nazis and, no doubt, lots of innocents there too – like Berlin, Hamburg et al.
He did warn them it was coming – ‘reap the whirlwind’ etc… (ok, slightly flippant point but Germany got more warning than the citizens of Guernica, Pearl Harbour etc…)
And now I play devil’s advocate – did the strategic bombing of Germany and Japan work? The war against the axis (including strategic bombing) turned two highly nationalistic, expansionist dictatorial empires into forward-thinking, peaceful democracies.
I do not think we can criticise or judge this man unless we’ve walked 6 years in his shoes.
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