“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.
"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.