Churchill tried to claim it was somebody else, but the memos point to his urging it over the militarys protest that there was no military target to bomb there. What there was, was a large number of East Europeans fleeing the advancing Red/Soviet Army, exactly because Dresden was NOT a military target. I talked with a survivor who was a 9-year old girl at the time. She was in a basement and was trapped by the rubble for days. When she was found and came out, all her family was gone, burned. She was fortunate though, because many who took refuge in basements were liquified by the heat. The firebombing was intense carpet-bombing, bombers flying as if on gridlines to cover the entire city and create a firestorm, or fire tornado. The updraft of the firestorm was so powerful even pieces of vehicles as well as partly burned body parts were drawn into the upper atmosphere and were raining down in the area for days. Phosphorus incendiaries were also dropped thickly in the river, so anyone trying to escape there were burned to death also. That pattern appeared deliberate too. Americans flew fighter air support for the British bombers. It was barely needed near the city, because no one expected a civilian city whose only military connection was hospitals to be hit and few German fighter planes were available. They hit twice, two firestorms, to catch survivors coming out. Next morning, the fighters strafed anyone on the banks. It was of course denied later, but Kurt Vonnegut, who included a fictionalized account in Slaughterhouse Five, was there (he was a POW and had been in a deep underground meat locker during the raid - Slaughterhouse Locker Five) and was nearly hit himself, by a U.S. P-40 raking the riverbanks with .50-cal gunfire. He talked about it later and it was clear this was a real experience. Including it in his fiction was one of his ways of dealing with it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
Posted on: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 23:13:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015