Posted on 04/14/2010 3:08:51 PM PDT by NYer
The cities were chosen because they had been relatively untouched during the war. The Target Committee wanted the first bomb to be "sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it was released."...
Unlike many other bombing raids, the goal for this raid had not been a military installation but rather an entire city.
In Dresden, from a British site:
My father was one of the "anonymous RAF meteorological officers (who) finally sealed Dresden's fate"....
Normally, crews were given a strategic aiming point - anything from a major factory in the middle of nowhere to a small but significant railway junction within a built-up area. The smaller the aiming point and the heavier the concentration of housing around it, the greater would be the civilian casualties - but given that the strike was at a strategic aiming point those casualties could be justified.
Only at the Dresden briefing, my father told me, were the crews given no strategic aiming point. They were simply told that anywhere within the built-up area of the city would serve.
He felt that Dresden and its civilian population had been the prime target of the raid and that its destruction and their deaths served no strategic purpose, even in the widest terms; that this was a significant departure from accepting civilian deaths as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of the bomber war; and that he had been complicit in what was, at best, a very dubious operation.
The people who introduced the notion of targetign entire cities were Charles Portal of the British Air Staff and Air Marshall Arthur Harris. Others, from Churchill down went along with some reluctance (see the entire page cited above).
The justifications, such as those we've seen here, come from the eye-for-an-eye moral philosophy, incompatible with Christianity.
LOL, too young to be a hippie. No, someone on the thread had my post removed (”Post 21 removed by moderator”). I guess it violated their delicate sensibilities.
Sir, you make no sense.
Young are you? Then you still have a lot to learn in life and in history.
“Provoked!’’ Good Lord.
I’d be happy to answer any further questions you have on this topic.
Whats to answer? The bombs were dropped(thank God) and the wars over, Japan lost. I don’t give a God Damn what happened to them. They deserved it. Would you like to do it all over again and have the Japanese win? Grow up.
You said that my post made no sense and I offered, and continue to offer to explain it to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.