Fuzzball wrote on Jan 12
th, 2016 at 2:52pm:
Yes Herb,
you exactly correct. Dresden was indeed an important transportation hub, and sited many industrial complexes supplying the German Military. There were many sites of "cultural value" in London, Coventry, etc.......
An extract from Wikipedia Quote:"The US Air Force Historical Division wrote a report in response to the international concern about the bombing, which was classified until December 1978.[34] This said that there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raid.[35] According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory (Zeiss Ikon AG); as well as factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch & Sterzel AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrüder Bassler). It also said there were barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot."
It was a hospital city. Not only was it bombed with napalm, the people escaping the bombing were machine gunned.
The military will always lie about atrocities to avoid dishonor and the gallows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II Quote:It is not possible to describe! Explosion after explosion. It was beyond belief, worse than the blackest nightmare. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. It was dark and all of us tried to leave this cellar with inconceivable panic. Dead and dying people were trampled upon, luggage was left or snatched up out of our hands by rescuers. The basket with our twins covered with wet cloths was snatched up out of my mother's hands and we were pushed upstairs by the people behind us. We saw the burning street, the falling ruins and the terrible firestorm. My mother covered us with wet blankets and coats she found in a water tub.
We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.
I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them.
— Lothar Metzger, survivor.