Between 1936 and 1945 well over 200 urban centres worldwide were immolated from the air, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of homeless civilians.
Had this thread used the anniversary of the controversial raid on Dresden to commemorate all the victims of the strategic bomber everywhere, there would have been little to add but 'thumbs up'.
It can always be disputed whether the Dresden raid was necessary or not but I would submit that in that place and time, the level of violence engendered by six-years of total war had assumed a momentum of its own and so it was probably inevitable. At this scale of disaster and distance in time concepts like right and wrong tend to become so blurred as to be meaningless as we apply our emotions to what we think we know.
It is worth noting that on the night of the Dresden firestorm, Bomber Command also sent almost 400 bombers against the town of Bohlen, near Leipzig. Bombing through 100% undercast, the attack missed the synthetic oil refinery that was its intended target and the bombing was widely scattered and largely ineffective. Since it is in-conceivable that there were no civilian casualties at Bohlen, so they too share this anniversery and yet are forgotten since Dresden gets all the press coverage. Are not the victims of Bohlen deserving of the same rememberance as the dead of Dresden?
We should well remember all those who died as a result of the strategic bomber whether in the air or on the ground and 13 February is as good a day as any and better than most. However we should also beware of hyperbole, arbitrary value judgements and 20/20 hindsight as discussion points for this very sensitive topic, they add nothing to the dialog.
Cheers
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