Posted on 02/13/2020 7:17:08 AM PST by C19fan
During the final months of World War II, from February 13 to 15, 1945, Allied forces bombed the ancient, cathedral city of Dresden, in eastern Germany.
The bombing was controversial because Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities — though it was a key transport junction and used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east.
Before the huge air raid, it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, however, it was a smouldering ruin — 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. An unknown number of civilians, somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000, were dead.
British rifleman Victor Gregg was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW in the city by the Germans. On the 75th anniversary of the start of the bombing, this is his eyewitness account of the devastation he left behind.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In war, the definition of “civilians” is shaky. Civilians are working in the munitions plants and transporting troops in trains. In England, people were assembling airplane parts in their homes.
Sherman didn’t burn Atlanta to free the slaves. He did it to punish the South.
One of the reasons for the disparity in the body counts of that raid over the years is that while the German authorities knew with some degree of accuracy which Germans had died, it was almost impossible to determine the identities of the refugees who were killed. (These were people, mind you, who had done nothing more criminal than crowd into a train station in the hope of boarding a train that would take them west.)
I believe Hitler was elected and retained power because of the people of Germany.
Regardless, War is Heck, (Richard Nixon). The military’s hands can’t be tied, if you want to WIN.
Being RUTHLESS is part of winning.
This is why war should be avoided, but once in it, no holds barred.
The only warning our adversaries need to know is Don’t Mess With The US of A.
Must watch patriotic video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIUyQsGRG2Q
Oct 23, 2007 · Toby Keith Licensed to YouTube by UMG (on behalf of DreamWorks Nashville); Rumblefish (Publishing), AMRA, LatinAutor, BMI - Broadcast Music Inc., and 9 Music Rights Societies
“Thank you.” [Mr. Lucky, post 133]
A special “You’re welcome” for the courteous reply. May your luck increase without limit.
And special thanks to the many respondents who realize Dresden was a transport hub and industrial center. Every time the topic comes up, I’ve been at pains to point out this fact. For years. May the understanding of all forum members continue to mature so gracefully.
The Dresden raids come up every year; it’s like clockwork. More than one article from the Daily Mail or one of the other British tabloids has mentioned Victor Gregg by name; invariably, someone throws Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s name into the mix.
While I stand in awe of the exploits of these men, and honor their sacrifices, I feel duty-bound to point out that neither was privy to wartime strategy-formulation meetings. To junior troops entangled in the horror and chaos of combat at low operational levels, the whole deal often looks wasteful, pointless, and unnecessary. While their personal accounts can be deeply moving, that doesn’t mean their critiques are valid.
Stop taking their thoughts as if they were Holy Writ.
For the moralizers like 2banana, I must warn that repeating the words “no military necessity” doesn’t make them any more true. What seems obvious today, 75 years on, wasn’t at the time. Decisions had to be made at the time, under less-than-ideal circumstances, using incomplete information, under serious stress, using the moral precepts of the day. Condemning the results now, after more information has come to light and after decades of analysis at leisure, is not only uncharitable - it’s dishonest. Times have changed; so have morals. Evaluating then in terms of now is hubris of the lowest sort. Worse, it leads to invalid results.
No poster has hinted they have any familiarity with the theory & practice of aerial bombardment (there are many). Arguments like we are experiencing on this thread cannot have any substance without such knowledge.
I would humbly suggest that those who are curious look up the term “United States Strategic Bombing Survey.” It’s a starting point.
Goes back to what I said - don’t start a war.
I’m sure those who survived the Japanese atrocity in Nanking had zero problem with atomic weapons being used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
War is Hell. So figure out how to live in peace and leave other people alone and everybody gets to live another day.
Or not.
In the case of the infrastructure bombing late in the war, it was also to stop things from moving or functioning.
Troops could not get from one part of the country to where the allied advances were being made. Fuel, food, ammunition, vehicles, and other supplies could not get to the troops who needed them.
Had the allies began this sort of bombing right after D Day the war in Europe might have been greatly shortened.
Vonnegut's opinion wouldn't have mattered on this thread, apparently.
A Jewish soldier who fought the Germans in combat would no doubt be called a Nazi apologist by some on this thread for daring to be sympathetic to those who were incinerated in this bombing. (I mean, just because he and the other POWs had been pressed into service to remove the dead, what would he know?) < /s>
It goes further than that.
RAF mechanics had put a deviation (of different degrees) into the Lancasters' bomb sights. During the raid, Mosquito bombers kept a fire burning in Dresden's football stadium by periodically dropping out of the sky and letting go with incendiary bombs. Different groups of planes flew over the city from various angles but the bombardiers all focused on that one central magnesium fire in the city center; the pre-planned "flaw" ensured that as long as the bombardiers targeted that central point, different groups of planes would bomb different NEIGHBORHOODS.
I think it helps a lot of people sleep at night if they insist to themselves that the railyards were the primary target, but they weren't; this raid targeted the city itself.
It was war. Germany had decided to stand, to a man, so it was what they got!
"I think we may say that there are, at any rate, three rules of international law or three principles of international law which are as applicable to warfare from the air as they are to war at sea or on land. In the first place, it is against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks upon civilian populations. That is undoubtedly a violation of international law. In the second place, targets which are aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be capable of identification. In the third place, reasonable care must be taken in attacking those military objectives so that by carelessness a civilian 938 population in the neighbourhood is not bombed.."
- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, June 21, 1938
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/jun/21/foreign-office#S5CV0337P0_19380621_HOC_336
I am sorry, FRiend, but the powers that be in the UK knew exactly what international law was with regard to the bombing of population centers; we're not simply looking at this with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
Thanks. I listed to it. Fascinating. I had known about Roosevelt suppressing the info about Bataan but not these details. I’ll be sending this to my brothers.
I thought he was an officer, but no, he interviewed survivors.
Paul Carell wrote “Hitler Moves East” which was 1941 to 1943. Then he wrote another whose title I forget which was 1943 to the fall of Berlin
He was unstuck in time
” ‘...three principles of international law... applicable to warfare from the air...it is against international law to bomb civilians as such...targets which are aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be capable of identification...reasonable care must be taken in attacking those military objectives so that by carelessness a civilian...population...is not bombed.’
- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, June 21, 1938...” [Captain Walker, post 170]
Neville wasn’t really up to the job. He’d have been a disappointment to his dad, had old Joe lived so long.
Citing PM Chamberlain as justification for condemning Allied aerial bombardment strategies during the Second World War isn’t much of a gambit.
“International law” has never been set in stone. It’s a shadowy mishmash of vaguely good intentions forever in a fluid state, changing in accordance with the whims of the various nations and societies who purport to agree with it and claim to live by it; despite what attorneys, moralizers, and social engineers yearn for, it’s honored more in the breach than in the observance. Nations large and small cling to it when it suits them, level accusations of violations against adversaries when it suits them, and plead reasons of state when it suits them to ignore it.
The only individuals who take it seriously - in the United States at least - are deficient in understanding, incapable of leading responsibly, and ought to be kept as far from the levers of power as possible.
It is laughable to discover anyone at this late date who attempts to hang a guilty verdict on the UK government for any of its actions or policies of the period 1939-45. Ironic, too; it’s arguable that the UK was the most morally aware and morally compliant power to be involved in that conflict.
Oh nein, nicht schon wieder diese Scheiße.
“...those waves were designed to kill civilians...” [discostu, post 87]
“...The Dresden bombing raid was specifically designed to kill as many civilians as possible.
And you do nothing but defend it or even make jokes about it...” [2banana, post 88]
“...I think it helps a lot of people sleep at night if they insist to themselves that the railyards were the primary target, but they weren’t; this raid targeted the city itself.” [Captain Walker, post 168]
I’ve thought of a couple dozen witty responses to these posts. But all that keyboard work is tiring. I’ll settle for pointing out that no one has posted any factual content.
Part of the confusion stems from the misunderstanding of what “international law” actually says. Or doesn’t say.
It doesn’t say “don’t target civilians.” It says that “reasonable” efforts must be made to avoid harming civilians - which opens things up for reinterpretation. Tweet-length accusations sneering at “intentions” are not reinterpretation (though they do get posted quite a lot here).
RAF Bomber Command tactics of the early 1940s stemmed from system limitations on navigation, aiming, target detection and identification, survivability/vulnerability, countermeasures, and other factors. The assertion that civilians were deliberately targeted has no merit.
USAAF ran into similar limitations in the bombardment campaigns against Japan, 1944-1945.
Many forum members appear to be very concerned about the morality of this or that action by the Allies, during WW2. Which leads to the question: why do you insist with such passion, that the moral must take precedence over the real?
“...Vonnegut is definitely against the bombing and based on his experience, who would argue against him?” [Michael.S.F., post 37]
“Vonnegut’s opinion wouldn’t have mattered on this thread, apparently.” [Captain Walker, post 167]
Does victimhood convey greater moral authority than anything else?
I thought that was a Left/Progressive concept.
Nobody is. You talk about targeting limitations. That’s got nothing to do with what we were talking about. The Dresden raid came in phases:
fragmentation bombs to get people in shelters
Incendiary bombs to light those shelters on fire
Fragmentation bombs again to get the people fighting the fires
There is only one reason for that kind of timing for a bombing of the middle of a populated city: kill civilians.
Is this not precisely what the Germans did in London and Coventry?
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