The other side of the same story.

[Mr Mystery]

Evening all.

So once again ensconced in the pub, and the band played 'Bomber Harris'. Which after a quick Google (I prefer my personal ignorance to be short lived) I got thinking about my Great Uncle Val.

Val died a few years back, in his late 70's. and following his death, his history in the RAF during the Second World War came into quite stark relief when his flight logs were revealed. All the relatives of my generation were given copies, and it made for interesting, of quite harrowing reading.

You see, Val was part of a bomber crew that was part of Dresden. Now although I'm a pacifist, I'm not about to start moralising. I have enough sense to get that thankfully, I will never be faced with such a thing.

But looking up old Bomber Harris, and his decorations and medals, I can't help but feel that Val, as someone just following orders, didn't half get the ****ty end of the stick. Val as a man felt quite tremendous guilt over his actions.

As far as what was done needed to be done, or at least so we're told, to read what became the memoirs of one responsible for actually dropping the bombs adds a new perspective.

It's hard to go further without others having a knowledge of Val's writings, so I shall stop of drawing conclusions, as it would simple be a triumph of opinion over evidence, but I do wonder if any of you guys, and indeed girls, have the benefit of such a unique perspective.

I would love to see them published one day, purely for posterity, but I'd prefer to seek consensus from the rest of my family first!

[Denzark]

Not being ridiculous, but did he express guilt openly? Its just that guilt is not normally something you could extract from a Flying Log.

Dresden had the Zeiss optics factory - turned from making binoculars to sniper scopes and artillery sights. It also had a cigarette factory whose machinery had been turned to making small arms cartridges. It was also a communications hub and route for the retreating germans on the way back from Za Rodina. Oh and to say nothing of the tens of thousands who voted National Socialist in 1933, and didn't protest whilst the Panzers were whizizng around Europe creating the Thousand Year Reich.

What I am saying was Dresden was a legitimate target. I can do no better than quote Sir Arthur Travers Harris himself:

The ****s entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.

[eldargal]

Well I'm not a pacifist and the Bombing of Dresden was still an obscenity, one of the very few times we stopped to the Naz! level. It's true it had transportation and industrial areas of some significance but they were not targeted. It isn't historical revisionism either, the bombing of Dresden was the first and really only time the public questioned the Allied war effort especially when they basically admitted it was a terror bombing afterwards and it was widely reported by the press.

Not the pilots fault though, they were told what to target and ordered to do so. I'm sorry to hear about your Great Uncle and his guilt.:( He was certainly put in a horrible position.

At least Dresden rebuilt its historic centre instead of just throwing up a lot of modern style rubbish like a lot of German cities did. The Frauenkircher:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-60015-0002%2C_Dresden%2C_Denkmal_Martin_Luther%2C_Frauen kirche%2C_Ruine.jpg
3767


Not being ridiculous, but did he express guilt openly? Its just that guilt is not normally something you could extract from a Flying Log.

Dresden had the Zeiss optics factory - turned from making binoculars to sniper scopes and artillery sights. It also had a cigarette factory whose machinery had been turned to making small arms cartridges. It was also a communications hub and route for the retreating germans on the way back from Za Rodina. Oh and to say nothing of the tens of thousands who voted National Socialist in 1933, and didn't protest whilst the Panzers were whizizng around Europe creating the Thousand Year Reich.

What I am saying was Dresden was a legitimate target. I can do no better than quote Sir Arthur Travers Harris himself:

The ****s entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
Pity they didn't target the vast industrial suburbs and the rail hubs then isn't it? They targeted the civilian historic city centre above all else with only a handful of military targets hit. The only person who thought it was a legitimate target was Harris and he was a moron. The Allies stopped to their level and conducted a terror bombing against a civilian population and it is really the one moral blight on the Allies in the entire war. Everything else that was nasty was warranted, like the destruction of the French fleet.

[Denzark]

I reckon this is going to get messy...

No less an authority than Albert Speer, in his memoirs, stated that if we had subjected the germans to some small number (less than 10 can't remember at the mo) of 1000 bomber raids, the equivalent of Hamburg, then the war would have been untenable for them. Hamburg was 1943 - how many lives could have been saved if we had done a few more big raids?

MM you asked for unique perspectives - you probably gather I am military, and the 6th consecutive generation to be so. What may not be apparent is that I am a serving RAF Officer, we get taught about this in training in some depth, and whilst I won't say it was nice, war ain't, and Bomber Command personnel have nothing more to be guilty at than any other unit in the forces.

May I take the liberty of recommending to you a visit to the new(ish) Bomber Command memorial in Green Park next time you are in London?

[eldargal]

Ten large raids on industrial hubs is one thing, a large raid on a civilian population with the military and industrial targets left virtually unscathed is another. The issue here isn't mass bombing of German cities, they were needed to break the German war effort. The issue is that at Dresden they said they were going after military and industrial targets but they in fact targeted the civilian population. Something like a quarter of industrial buildings were damaged while half over half the cities non-industrial buildings were destroyed despite the industrial buildings being clustered in a few industrial suburbs on the outskirts.

In contrast the bombing of Hamburg which killed more people then Dresden destroyed over half that cities industrial and port capacity, a capacity that was vastly greater and more important than Dresden which was a cultural centre. While horrific the strategic importance is unquestionable. For Dresden this is not the case.

[Mr Mystery]

Remember folks, I'm referring to a text I'm not willing to share without the agreement of the rest of my family.

I even covered the fact I cannot look at things from the same perspective. But the way Val expressed himself in the writings demonstrates that although he grasped the tactical reasons for his orders, it did not sit well with him.

And now massive caveat, apologies for those who feel offended, but in my experience, those who fought, and actually fought, during a war don't like to talk about it.

This may seem very lefty right on, but it just seems unfair that the bloke who had the idea gets highly decorated, and from Val'd writings, those who fulfilled their orders got nothing but a hatful of guilt.

Will speak to folks, see if they're happy for me to post the document.

[Denzark]

Lets be clear, if you are on about Bomber Harris, he turned down a peerage because his crews were not given a separate campaign medal after the war. Bomber Command was widely regarded as pariahs because of controversy about their targetting, with lefty right-on historians in the 60s.

Also, the bloke who advocated the 'idea' of area bombing to the government, was the Chief Scientific Adviser - a civvy and an academic. The actual Dresden decision rested with Churchill not Harris. Afterwards, when Churchill demurred, Harris said:

Having been given a paraphrased version of Churchill's memo by Bottomley, on 29 March, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris wrote to the Air Ministry:[104]


I ... assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.

The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.

You may have seen in the press recently, that finally, Bomber Command veterans or their next of kin, are getting a clasp to their Aircrew Europe Star, marked: Bomber Command in recognition of the campaign. Btw this isn't glorifying turning large amounts of 1940's germany into 1950's germany's car parks. This is recognition that Bomber Command was taking the fight directly to a resolute foe in his heartlands - it tied down several hundreds of thouand troops as anti-air units and for a long while was the only way of hitting the enemy.

http://www.veterans-uk.info/arctic_star_index.htm

[Mr Mystery]

Not having a pop at Harris either.

Bah, this is what happens when post drunk!

[Wildeybeast]

Not the pilots fault though, they were told what to target and ordered to do so.

We put the ****s to death for using that defence....

[Denzark]

We put the ****s to death for using that defence....

Quite rightly so - when they committed war crimes. Dresden wasn't a war crime. Feel free to report it to the Hague if you feel differently!

[eldargal]

We put the ****s to death for using that defence....
True, but under the circumstances I don't think it is fair to blame the pilots. We weren't the aggressor, Britain had witnessed unprecedented assaults on its civilian centres and our pilots were accustomed to having the moral high ground and trusted that Bomber Command would continue to choose targets of military value even if civilians were killed. They were effectively betrayed.


Quite rightly so - when they committed war crimes. Dresden wasn't a war crime. Feel free to report it to the Hague if you feel differently!
A strong argument can be made that it was, though given the context of the war I don't personally think it was. The reason Dresden is controversial in a way that Hamburg or Porzheim (I think Porzheim?) are not (despite twice as many people being killed in Hamburg) is that unlike those two Dresdens industrial capacity was minor and it was largely ignored. Harris' quote is disingenuous, its munitions factories (such as they were) were not targeted, nor were the transportation network. No rail stations or bridges were targeted. If knocking out a transportation hub was the goal then it was a failure and Bomber Command were incompetent. It's government was pre-occupied with the tens of thousands of refugees flooding into the city (of which the Allies were well aware), it was hardly a hub for Naz! admin.

[Wildeybeast]

True, but under the circumstances I don't think it is fair to blame the pilots. We weren't the aggressor, Britain had witnessed unprecedented assaults on its civilian centres and our pilots were accustomed to having the moral high ground and trusted that Bomber Command would continue to choose targets of military value even if civilians were killed. They were effectively betrayed.

Oh, I'm not blaming the pilots, far from it. I actually agree with the whole 'following orders' thing, as demonstrated by the Milgrom experiment. Just pointing out the the hypocrisy of it all. History written by the victors and all that.

[Denzark]

I understand prior to the kick off, that various nations were trying to get air warfare covered in the Geneva/Hague conventions, but it didn't come off.

[eldargal]

I vaguely remember reading that it was because they didn't really take air warfare that seriously prior to WWII. Not sure if that is right.

You know this illustrates why BoLS is so superior to other forums. We can have a civil debate about a highly contentious issue without anyone getting upset and/or resorting to personal attacks.

[Denzark]

Not while the Rugby is on though...

http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy257/denzark/welsh1_zpsc9e7cd76.jpg

[Denzark]

Or not though.

[Brakkart]

Waaarrgghhh the Welsh! Wish I was in Cardiff tonight, my hometown must be rocking!

Ahem, we now return you to your scheduled topic.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

It's worth noting, as a small contribution, that we were the ones who started terror-bombing civilian populations in World War Two, not the ****s. The terror-bombings of London and other cities in the so-called Blitz weren't a first strike, they were reprisals.

This isn't to say "OMG we're worse than the ****s!" but we did actually start that one.