Into the inferno: Families boiled alive as they hid in water tanks and fleeing survivors trapped in molten tarmac... 75 years on, the most horrifically vivid account you'll ever read of the Allied bombing of Dresden – by a British PoW who saw it all

UK Daily Mail ^ | February 12, 2020 | Victor Gregg and Risk Stroud

[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.

[max americana]

I read accounts and seen the documentaries. They mostly point to that british commander who gave specific orders to bomb the st@t out the enemy. But I won’t pretend that I care. War is hell.

[max americana]

Exactly. War is hell. The Nazis and japs were masters of barbarism too. They bitched about us bombing Tokyo multiple times in order to get them to surrender.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Thanks for the insult. I’m not better than ISIS?? Are you really that full of it? I have not committed any terrorist acts in my life. You really think I am.no better than ISIS, for a statement on a website such as this?

Why don’t you explain to us your view of the bombing of Dresden, rather than calling me someone of an an ISIS type mindset?

[Captain Walker]

Vonnegut was there; he was a sergeant in the Army who had been captured at the Battle of the Bulge.

The book got its title from the rows of stone buildings that had served as slaughterhouses before the war but were used as barracks for captured prisoners; Vonnegut had been held in house number five.

[discostu]

Because this was a bombing run specifically designed to kill as many civilians as possible. It was brutal. And when you’re supposed to be the good guys...

[Steely Tom]

Virtue signaling.

[DoodleDawg]

War is hell.

[Michael.SF.]

Ditto. My dad was on an aircraft carrier in the Philippines.

[max americana]

Why? To appease the limp wrist freepers who pretend they care about we did 100 years ago to win. Theyll pop up eventually.

[Zhang Fei]

[You think directly targeting and killing innocent people, with no military purpose, is OK?

You are no better than ISIS.]

---

If targeting civilians providing battlefield and economic sustenance to enemy regimes had no military utility, there wouldn’t be laws against it. Above all, military commanders want to win, because the cost of losing is unthinkable. If sparing enemy civilians is an aid to victory, they’ll leave them alone.

Alexander did not put Persepolis’s male population to the sword because he loved killing Persians - he did it to avoid guerrilla warfare that might whittle down his army, zero out his finances and stir his troops to mutiny*. And he did it to set an example to all other kingdoms that might resist his armies instead of surrendering.

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/diodorus/alexander-sacks-persepolis/

* In the end, Alexander’s Greek troops mutinied and are said to have poisoned him and killed his entire clan because they felt he favored his Persian subjects excessively.

[Lurker]

Don’t start wars.

L

[Michael.SF.]

By Mid February of '45, the defeat of Germany was inevitable. Allied forces were already in Germany, but had not yet crossed the Rhine. They would do so a few weeks later.

Dresden, which was payback for the bombing of London, did not have an impact on the time frame of the war.

[WXRGina]

ping

[NativeSon]

Well said.

[DesertRhino]

Dresden always brings out the Reich apologists. Feb of 45 there was still a lot of hard fighting to go and it wasn’t a time to be sensitive to the Nazis and worry about being too aggressive.

[Captain Walker]

The raid on Coventry had been avenged long before Dresden, my FRiend; the firebombing of Hamburg alone in July of 1943 killed more people than the British had lost during the entire Blitz.

[Michael.SF.]

I've read the book twice and seen the movie at least twice.

The movie is an excellent adaptation of the book and well worth seeing. But I would suggest reading the book first.

Vonnegut is definitely against the bombing and based on his experience, who would argue against him?

And so it goes.

[Mears]

I’m with you on this topic.The Jews that suffered under Nazi rule were civilians too. The Dresden bombing lowered the morale of Germans and that is a tactic in war.

[LoveMyFreedom]

I agree. I really get disgusted with people being Monday morning quarterbacks. They were not there.

[precisionshootist]

“You think directly targeting and killing innocent people, with no military purpose, is OK? You are no better than ISIS“

They weren't innocent. We were at war with Germany not German soldiers. Every German citizen had a military purpose either directly or indirectly.