Dresden deserves to be remembered

UK Telegraph ^ | 02/13/2013 | Tom Chivers

[Kid Shelleen]

It's the 68th anniversary of the Dresden bombing. In Britain, we don't think about it as much as, perhaps, we should. The bare facts. More than 1,200 RAF and USAAF bombers attacked the city between the 13th and 15th of February 1945, in four raids. They dropped 3,900 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs, killing between 22,000 and 25,000 people, almost all civilians. The city's anti-aircraft defences had all been moved to defend the industrial works of the Ruhr valley. The details are chilling.

[null and void]

Yes. There was simply no way to smoke him out (to coin a phrase) without burning down the whole house.

It worked for a whole city block in Boston, the SLA, Booth, Waco, etc.

Arson is an acceptable the preferred police technique in your book.

Got it.

[what's up]

for what he and many Muslims see as America’s misdeeds

"Seeing it that way" doesn't make it true.

There is no moral relativism there though many make a case for such.

[TADSLOS]

I agree. Once committed, anything less than conducting and winning a total war is a fool’s errand.

[null and void]

That, or picking a winner...

[Lockbar]

Don’t bomb Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry.

[Count of Monte Fisto]

Yeah, yeah. If Dresden was such a high value target why wasn't bombed before that? Could it be that they waited until it full of wounded and refugees.

Strategic bombing never slowed down German industrial production and was practically a non factor in determining the outcome of the war. It was only good for one thing and that was the destruction of civilians.

If you want to make excuses for the incineration of tens of thousands non-combatants that's on you.

[Kozak]

Congratulations ! You just justified the nuking of an American city.

[dfwgator]

The blood of Dresden is all on Hitler’s hands.

[what's up]

Its wrong to judge people fighting for their lives, 70 years later.

So true. This is another case of victimizing the perpetrator which creeps into even this forum.

The allies had suffered enough. IMO they can be forgiven for bombing the life out of the last remaining German industrial city if there was even a chance it would continue to contribute to killing their own.

When your loved ones' lives are at stake one can be forgiven for taking the lives of the perpetrators; in the situation one would laugh at the trial lawyers' argument to stop because there are some innocents among them.

[wbill]

Debate also continues on how much average Germans knew about the Holocaust

Well, this is anecdotal, but my grandfather toured Buchenwald, right after it was liberated. He once told me that anyone who said they didn't know what was happening there is a liar, because you could smell the place from 20 miles away.

[1rudeboy]

Well put. I look at it even more simply--the headline reads, "Dresden deserves to be remembered." It should bother anyone if he argues, "it should not."

Hiroshima also deserves to be remembered, and to do so doesn't make one a "bleeding heart."

[dfwgator]

One thing most don’t about Buchenwald, is that after the war, the Soviets continued to use it as a Concentration Camp.

[cripplecreek]

My grandfather used to speak at the men’s breakfast at the church about his experiences in WWII Europe. Of the things he spoke about often was the brutality of war and the amazing ability of humanity to come immediately after.

[azcap]

“it simply strengthened their resolve to resist. Now, tell me what part worked”

Sure the people who lived through it may have hated us and been determined to fight harder...but the 20K 40K however many that died had their will to resist reduced to 0. That is the point of total war

[ExTxMarine]

When we dropped atomic bombs on Japan it was mostly civilians that died and there was not a great deal of military targets in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki areas. This was a terror bombing and it worked and it worked well.

I am tired of this BS! The A-Bombs were NOT designed as "terrorist" bombs, but they damn sure were terrifying!!

Hiroshima was home to the 4th largest military supply depot in Japan! It was one of the busiest shallow-water ports in southern Japan. It was chosen because of the military depot, the industrial parks (there were several) AND because of the population level! The US wanted a small enough population to avoid excessive civilian deaths, WHILE taking out military and industrial resources!

Nagasaki wasn't even the main target for the second A-Bomb. The munitions dump at Kokura was the main target, but because the US did not want indiscriminate killing of civilians, military orders did not allow them drop the bomb WITHOUT positive sighting of the intended target! Due to weather and lag-time in rendezvous with the rest of the flights, they had to find their secondary target - Nagasaki. More importantly, weather conditions in Nagasaki almost thwarted this second run altogether, but they finally got enough clearance that they dropped Fat Man directly between two major military and industrial facilities - completely destroying the industrial facility and knocking out the deep-water ports within the city! As a side note, the ports were damaged, but the train-service was only disrupted where the tracks were missing - go figure! Again, Nagasaki was chosen based on the population levels and other military-rich targets.

If the US wanted to terrorize Japan, why wouldn't they have just dropped the A-Bombs on Tokyo and the Emperor's Palace? Because the Emperor's Palace was surrounded by three SCHOOLS! And Tokyo would have been too many civilians without many military-rich targets.

More importantly, the US dropped new, more detailed pamphlets in about nine cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, telling them that their cities were going to be hit with an unbelievable force - it told them to LEAVE the city! So, if our intent was strictly to kill civilians and terrorize, then why would we tell them this? The Japanese, in an effort to conserve their fuel and aircraft also stopped defending and attacking small squadrons, and in both cases they signaled air raid, but then signaled all clear! Had the Japanese military done their part to protect their people, then neither of these would have even been a BLIP on our past-radar! There were only two support aircraft and NO fighter support with either run! And we told them where we were going to bomb!

Real terrifying!

[dfwgator]

They certainly fought the Soviets harder, but in the West, they surrendered en masse.

Of course that probably had more to do with the stories of Red Army soldiers raping German women.

[Scooter100]

You seem to have a rather belligerent “name”, for such a passivist point of view.

[cripplecreek]

but the 20K 40K however many that died had their will to resist reduced to 0.

LOL

[dfwgator]

We are sadly rapidly coming to the point where the only thing kids are going to wind up learning about from WWII will be Hiroshima and Dresden, and how “bad” we were.

[mass55th]

So how would you have gained custody of Dorner? Please enlighten us all.