P-51's during the firebombing of Dresden

[ChrisDNT]

Patton is a much more complex character that it is shown here. His writings about his stay in post-war Germany are very interesting to read, not at all "PC" when compared to the current "History Channel" WWII kind of vision.

[lestweforget]

This is an intersting thread, and I truly do hope it can be discussed rationally, as bombing during WW2 is a sensitive subject per se, and Dresden is one of the most controvertial moments of conventional bombing during WW2. I wonder why Tokyo does not raise the same hackles?
War is a terrible thing, never good. The technologies and tactics of the time, flawed though they were, happened, and cannot be undone. Civilian casualties were a horrendous product of this. I live in a town which was bombed by the Germans in 1941. Many of my family lived through it. Almost every one of the casualties suffered during the two nights of attack were civilian. Whole families were wiped out, indeed my late grandfathers neighbour lost his mother, and all his brothers and sisters, , five of them aged from 4 to 14. Just around the corner from my house is the site of an air raid post, where many families took shelter. This took a direct hit, with no survivors. This was just one raid in the "blitz" over Britain.
Reports were given of German bombers dive bombing and machine gunning the streets.
I suppose what I am trying to say, is that it was a different time, and measures were taken by the Allies through experience of years of war, to finish it. Many of these were ruthless, but a truly evil regime had to be defeated.
The final word I have on the subject is this. I watched a documentary a whle ago. In it, an old Jewish man told a tale. He said he had been on a train being transported which was in Dresden on the night of the terrible bombing. He said it gave him hope, and if I recall correctly, several of them escaped that night.

[John Dupre]

It occurs to me that one aspect of the Dresden bombing was the desire on the Allied side to perfect the fire storm as a weapon. I think the first fire storm was generated in Hamburg or one of the other north German ports and was unexpected in development and effect. Later attempts on other cities were deliberate and by the time of Dresden I think it was pretty well understood how to generate a firestorm. Another aspect is that Dresden had not been significantly bombed before and a result of was that many citizens believed that it was being spared for some reason or another so that the raid had a shock value disproportionate to other German cities. Lastly the complete destruction of cities had not been a part of warfare for some centuries but had been a major strategy in ancient times. Defeat the army, take the city and destroy it, kill most of the inhabitants and sell the survivors into slavery. Salt the earth and poison the wells. For Dresden it could have been worse.

[Merlin540]

In war, there's plenty of brutality to go all around. War is the absence of reason-and mercy. That's why it's always to be the very last resort.

That being said, I agree with that British Adm. Jackie Fisher. 'If someone hits you with their glove at the table, pick up the table and hit him with it'. Always fight to win.

Finally-if the same cheezy politicians who whipped up the pugilistic propaganda had to go fight the battles, any wars would be damned short.

[mustangdriver]

The best way to avoid civilian casualties is to not start a war. realistic numbers put the losses in Dresden much less than once thought. At one time losses were estimated in the hundreds of thousands of losses. Now like the 40,000 area. That is small compared to the numbers of civilians murdered by the Nazi thugs. And as many eye witness POW's stated, this town was indeed a good target as there were thousands of soldiers and armour there. There is no reason that a crew member that took part of this raid should or should not be any more proud of flying this mission than any other one.

[dred]

Aside from stirring up sh*t, what is the purpose of this thread?

[Bill Greenwood]

Merlin 540, I agree with and salute your last sentence. Wars are so often what old men of wealth vote to send young men, and now women to fight. The next time we start a war, we ought to require a 2/3 vote, not of Congress, but of the Mothers of America.

[the330thbg]

Aside from stirring up sh*t, what is the purpose of this thread?

My question exactly.

[k5083]

Well, there certainly are some who like their history sh*t free. That's true even among some who are interested in military history, which is amazing considering that war is nothing but a huge pile of sh*t. We spend a lot of our time admiring the nice raisins that we found in the sh*t (i.e. the pretty warbirds), or pretending that some of the sh*t is really glamorous, heroic chocolate pudding, but it doesn't hurt to take out the nose plugs once in a while. Or does it?

The stories of P-51s strafing Dresden refugees have been around for decades. There were many who claimed to be eyewitnesses, but it wasn't clear that they actually understood what they were seeing. Then again it is plausible, because if 50 centuries of warfare have taught us anything, it is that if you put young men in a position to commit atrocities, some of them will go ahead and commit them. But so what? In the scheme of WWII atrocities, this would have been petty stuff. The USA during WWII generally could be proud of the discipline with which it minimized atrocities by its servicemen. The record isn't spotless but it's very, very good. So much so that there is no reason to be ashamed of discussing the unfortunate exceptions, if indeed they occurred.

August

[Django]

Bravo August.

[lestweforget]

Very well said August.

[airnutz]

...and Dresden is one of the most controvertial moments of conventional bombing during WW2. I wonder why Tokyo does not raise the same hackles

Hi LWF, Tokyo does raise some hackles in some corners but rarely here. I'm a bit surprised
that the fire bombing of Tokyo is sometimes mentioned as something that was occuring
seperate(and sometimes earlier) from Berlin and Dresden in February 1945..when in fact
Tokyo's first large scale fire raid was in the following month of March 1945. It is more
reflective of the change in the US "precision bombing" policy during Dec.'44 and Jan'45, than
something distinct to the Japanese. Throughout the war the US tried to maintain the moral
high ground but in order to expedite the end of the ETO and get on to finish Japan..the world
was weary of war and enough was enough. Doolittle did not want to persue this change,
but he was over ridden by Spatz and Eisenhauer.

As I understand it, the Brits had tried the "precision" game and decided early on that it didn't
work. There also was an element of thought of breaking the will of German population to
support their leaders, but that didn't really work either. As pointed out in a documentary on
the bombing policies a few weeks ago.."in a police state there is no voice of the public to
disagree with your nations policies."...or somesuch. Life becomes a matter of survival for
the citizen and the government will do what it may.

As for being a war crime, both the Japanese and Germans were the first to bomb civlians
willingly if someone wants to persue that line of thought. Yeah, I know, 2 wrongs don't make a right...

War is a terrible thing, never good. The technologies and tactics of the time, flawed though they were, happened, and cannot be undone.

Yeah, not that leaders didn't try to have some kind philosophy about how to conduct war
prior to any war, but the nature of war has a habit of dashing armchair generals and the
business falls to those who get it done. The public can be quite fickle as things grind on as
well.
Even when "precision" bombing things can go awry. When the target was obstructed by or
weather then they would resort to bombing by radar..at which point, collateral damage was
almost certain due to the crudeness of the early devices.

A good overview of policies, American Experience, "Bombing Germany", you can see it here...
www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/bombing/



Thanks August for your thoughts...tho you put me off my appetite for any more raisins today.

[muddyboots]

war is nothing but a huge pile of sh*t.

hooah.

[Cubs]

To sort of answer the original post and reiterate what someone already posted: a friend of mine's dad was a P-51 pilot in WWII. Italian theater. His (their) orders were to strafe anything
that looked like a target on the way home from a mission. By the way, this order almost got him in trouble with an ME-262. Previously posted the story here some time ago.

[mustangdriver]

This quote came to mind,
Col. Potter: "War is heII"

Hawkeye: "No it's not. War is war and heII is heII, and of the two war is worse."

Father Mulchay: "How so Hawkeye"

Hawkeye:"There are no innocent bystanders in heII. if you are there you deserve to be there."