[Leaplist] Paul Again

[patrick]

William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> And I'd argue that Hiroshima, while horiffic, was only horrific
>> in terms of the means of destruction - certainly there were
>> many other actions that were as destructive, for example,
>> the Dresden fire-bombings killed, at a minimum, 35,000 and
>> wreaked massive destruction. I doubt the dead much cared
>> whether they were killed by fusion or napalm.
> 
> I believe the number at Dresden was closer to 250,000 (many disappeared
> w/o records due to their refuge status) .... It burned for better than a
> week after the raids, caused so much turbulence at 20,000 ft that
> subsequent bomber raids had to be diverted around Dresden for flight
> safety.
> 
> I also agree that it was completely justified, & saved dozens of
> thousands of lives of American soldiers, and probably millions of lives
> of Japanese civilians. Godspeed, General Tibbets.
>


Dresden was one of the 50 missions that my father piloted a B-17G.
25 missions was a tour, and he did two tours.

Only if you lived with someone who went through the war, would you know
what a heavy toll was paid by the survivors in mental anguish over the
unknown 'enemy' that had to be sacrificed to overthrow horrid regimes.

They knew that Dresden was a totally non-strategic city, with no
munitions factories, no barracks of troops, and a city with only the
home guard of men over 60, women, single mothers whose men were at the
Front, and their children.  Many were refugees from other bombed out
cities. All were unable to be employed in the war factories.

We bombed the city for three days with flights of 1100 to 1250 bombers,
carrying 4 tons of 500 pound percussion bombs on each B-17G, 8 tons on
each B-24H bomber to break up all the gas mains and shatter the
buildings,  The British bombed at night, with 800 Lancaster bombers that
each carried about 6 tons of percussion 500 pound bombs.

Each wave took about 3 hours to pass. On the fourth day, we all switched
to Incendiary 500 pound bombs and did them for one more day.

The winds blew at gale force for a hundred miles around, feeding the
inferno. Scheduled raids for a second run of incendiary bombing had to
be canceled due to hurricane force updrafts.

The city did indeed burn and smoulder for ten days, and even bricks were
 shattered from heat, and many steel I beams were puddled in the molten
mass. The sewers even burned out.  Heat was felt 60 miles away, it was
reported.

Hitler cared not, for he was on ten injections of metamphetamine daily,
along with at least 6 doses of cocaine, daily, and had advanced
parkinsons disease since 1939, the last time he was filmed in motion
pictures.