"But I was always taught that the sort of terror bombing you cite was due to (a) night missions versus day missions, and (b) general license assumed after (accidental) German bombing of civilians in GB.
And,
(c) wasn't Dresden an American mission?"
The Brits bombed area targets at night, "because" they could not do precision bombing and could not afford the losses they incurred during day-time bombing raids. Of course, the military inability to conduct precision bombing does not justify bombing -- aiming at -- civilian centers. E.G. historic city centers and residential districts. Which is precisely what the British theory of terror bombing INTENDED. To aim at civilians, to terrorize them, as a means of "breaking their resistance".
The Americans, with greater precision, could conduct day-time bombing raids. The American policy, for most of the war, was to bomb ONLY militarily-significant targets. This is what they told the American people, and is what the American people expected. So the American Air Corps accepted the greater risk and losses of day-time bombing, because they were addressing militarily-significant targets, and not taking the easy way out just bombing cities at large.
So the American and British policies were different, not only their capabilities . . .
The bombing of Dresden was a primarily British mission, tho the Americans did some bombing there, too. (There were certain industrial areas outside of the city center.) Even some British pilots were sickened at what they saw -- coming back for another raid, and another, with the entire city in flames.
You are correct about the accidental bombing of some British citizens by Germans. The Germans did not intend to start a terror-bombing campaign against civilians. The Germans viewed the purposeful bombing of Berlin by the British as outrageous. After Dresden, Hitler wanted to escalate by using chemical weapons (gas) but even Keitel talked him out of that.
When they ran out of military targets, even the Americans adopted the policy of using their ordnance on anything and everything -- straffing cows and farmers on roads, etc. The air campaign had outlived all purpose by most of '45 . . .
other than tactical air support, which was under Eisenhower's command. The strategic air bombing discussed above was run by Air Command (Bomber Harris on the British side) and not coordinated with the ground campaign.
You are correct about the accidental bombing of some British citizens by Germans. The Germans did not intend to start a terror-bombing campaign against civilians. The Germans viewed the purposeful bombing of Berlin by the British as outrageous. After Dresden, Hitler wanted to escalate by using chemical weapons (gas) but even Keitel talked him out of that...........AMDG&BVMH
I wrote the folloewing summary about the origin of World War II terror bombing in the Western Theater for another thread a while back.
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The targeting of civilians as a strategic objective in the World War II Western European Theatre had a rather absurd and tragic beginning.
At the start of the war, both sides carefully avoided civilian centers although collateral damage was seen as an unfortunate consequence of aerial bombing. During the Battle of Britain, during the night of 23 August 1940, a dozen German bombers made a navigational error and dropped their bomb loads in the center of London rather than on the oil farms and factories that they were ordered to hit. The British believed that this attack was deliberate and, the next evening, 81 R.A.F. bombers targeted civilian targets in Berlin. After a few more such raids, the Germans retaliated with a massive night bombing raids on London. Ironically, the switch from R.A.F. targets to civilian targets took pressure off the R.A.F. and eventually lead to the Luftwaffe’s defeat in the Battle of Britain.
After this series of events, the genie was out of the bottle and each side, to the best of it’s ability, targeted each other’s civilian population centers with whatever means were available to it. The Allies firebombed cities. The Germans, never having developed adequate four engine bombers to match the Allied bomber capabilities, eventually resorted to the V-1 and V-2 terror weapons.
Each side truly believed that, by causing massive civilian casualties, the other side would surrender. In reality, conventional bombing never achieved that kind of shock value which was only achieved with the advent of the atomic bomb. More civilians died in one Tokyo fire-raid than at Hiroshima.
After the war, the morality of massive conventional bombing of civilians came into question. It is always easier to ponder such questions with 20/20 hindsight than during the passions of a World War. The British, it seems, did not feel very comfortable with what had occurred. While all other British senior military leaders were lionized, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris of Bomber Command became somewhat of a quiet embarrassment just as Sir Douglas “Butcher” Haig had become after World War One. Both men were seen by many as having wrought much more death than was necessary to achieve victory.
Did the fire-bombings of the civilian populations of Dresden and Tokyo shorten the war by a single day? Most likely not.
Did the atomic bomb strikes end the war with Japan. Most certainly.
Massive conventional bombing of civilian populations of a determined enemy has been shown to be ineffective in achieving victory and most likely will not occur again. Nuclear strikes, however, are another matter. Hopefully, our progeny will never have to see that genie come out of it’s bottle.
I had always understood that Dresden was a retaliation for the German bombing of Coventry, which had no military targets and was fairly far removed from any. (The account I dimly recall didn't indicate whether the German raid on Coventry was an error of some sort or deliberate.)