There was nothing in Dresden of such military importance that absolutely had to be taken out,paerticularly at that time of the war.
Strange that - given that in 1944, the German Army High Command's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops that were supplying the army with material. And I take it you missed the bit at the start of the thread about there being barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot?
Or what Col. Cook said about Dresden the night before the raid? - "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians."
Are you for instance in saying that stopping the Germans transferring Wehrmacht divisions from West to East against the Red Army via the transport nexus that was Dresden...was NOT a military necessity?
And to return to the question of Churchill's letters to Charles Portal - here's the one he
finally sent -
28.3.45
TOP SECRET 10 Downing Street,
Whitehall.
PRIME MINISTER'S
PERSONAL MINUTE
SERIAL No D.89/5
GENERAL ISMAY FOR C.O.S. COMMITTEE.
C.A.S. (copy sent)
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called "area bombing" of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our Allies: and we shall be unable to get housing materials out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. We must see to it that our attacks do not do more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's immediate war effort. Pray let me have your views.
W.S.C.
1.4.45
Let's read that very carefully again -
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called "area bombing" of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our Allies: and we shall be unable to get housing materials out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. We must see to it that our attacks do not do more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's immediate war effort.
Where's the concern for public opinion over the bombings????
Well, some readers would say it's HERE in the
first version of that...
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. We shall not, for instance, be able to get housing material out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction
But once again - let's look closely at that, shall we?
I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction
And lo and behold,
what do we have at Dresden?
"I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians."
...."military objectives" AND "communications behind the immediate battle-zone"!
Dresden couldn't actually sit any more precisely
right within Churchill's expressed target parameters in even the first "concerned" version of his letter!
The terror attacks by the RAF were always intentionally misrepresented as a attacks against military targets to avoiD protest.
In briefings Bomber Command crews were ALWAYS 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 MAN diesel engine factory at Augsburg on the famous raid of 17th April 1942, for instance, or the Henri Paul transformer plant at Le Cruesot, the Paris-Juvisy/Aulnoye/Rouen/Noissy/Ste. Chappelle rail marshalling yards, the 348 aircraft sent against the Wehrwuxcht armoured vehicle repair depot at Mailly-le-Camp, the Fiat Works in Turin on 28/29th November 1942, etc. etc.
And by 1945 they were able to target VERY effectively, with the advent of effective target marking, first by the designated Lancaster/Mosquito Pathfinders of the PFF, No.8 Group Bomber Command, then eventually the lowflying Mosquitoes of the FNFS immediately preceeding massed raids...and of course by then the RAF had OBOE.
There are plenty of RAF briefing sessions recorded on film (with sound) where crews are being given
specific targets on the ground...and there are ANY number of literary sources confirming this -
Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson for one is at my elbow.
Yes, in Dresden the initial
aiming point was a sports stadium...but aiming points HAD to be chosen to allow for
windage I.E,. the
drift of ordnance as it whistles down from several thouand feet. And of course - even at night BC heavies had to bomb from well over 5,000 feet - because HC "cookie" bombs could through debris as high as 5,000 feet! In this case, both the stadium
and the nearby railway station were right in the heart of the city IIRC.
And in this case SO were the Americans for the daylight raid afterwards...from
COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
FEBRUARY 1945
http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/wwii/us ... eb.45.html
“461 B-17s are dispatched to hit the marshalling yard at Dresden”
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds