Essay - Fire Bombing of Dresden During 1944 the British Had Several...

Fire bombing of Dresden

During 1944 the British had several times proposed combined attacks on major German objectives to smash morale, in which the ***** would aim at an area target. If ***** Americans refused to join in an ***** *****tack, they could hit precision targets ***** the same city. One plan, Thunderclap, had surfaced in July. It envisaged a series of *****ttacks on Berl*****, designed ***** shock, not German civilians, but the high command into seeing that Germany was finished. After much argument, Thunderclap ***** ordered on September 9. But it turned out ***** there were not enough fighters to cover *****, and a reacti***** against the whole idea set in within Eisenhower's headquarters ***** the American Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plan was set aside. Bomber Command attacked no less than 30 cities. This involved a sm*****ller portion of its overall efforts than before--about 37 percent, compared to 26 percent on oil ***** and 15 ***** against transportation. But ***** power was now enormous; by January 1*****45 it ***** a d*****ily average of 1,420 four-engine bombers and Mosqui*****es ready w*****h crews. In the remaining months of the war it dropped 181,000 tons of bombs, a fifth of the total dropped in the whole war, against slight opposition. One of its attacks, on ***** city of *****, ***** *****e of the more devastating attacks on a civilian populati***** of the *****, and it became highly controversial. The origins of the Dresden attack were complex, and ***** interwoven w*****h American operations more than most of ***** Command's area attacks. "Dresden was firebombed on February 13 and 14, 1945, by western Allied bomber divisions" (Hertel 2000).

***** their willingness to consider Thunderclap suggests, the Americans did ***** always inflexibly oppose area attacks, or ***** aimed to undermine ***** morale, or even operations specifically ***** at killing civilians outright. The Eighth Air Force had explicitly aimed ***** killing *****, albeit specialized sorts of workers, at Munster and (as a second choice) at Schweinfurt. Some oper*****ions, such ***** the first attack on Berlin, had been ***** at least partly to strike at enemy *****. Some attacks on ***** Balkan satellite capitals, while aimed at marshalling yards in those cities, were also designed to frighten Romanians and Bulgarians and turn them aga*****st their rulers. ***** radar bombing of German targets that had begun in late 1943 often amounted ***** de facto ***** bomb*****g. General Arnold, and some other officers, sometimes consi*****red outright area bombing. In the B-29 campaign against Japan, ***** AAF turned to deliberate area attacks against ***** after attempted precision bombing attacks failed to achieve results. "To be sure, those who directed the US Army's "Mighty" Eighth ***** Force may have believed or at least wanted to believe that ***** were conducting ***** bombing of legitimate military and economic targets, ***** ***** and the mass incineration of Japan's cities put an end to any pretense of it" (Record 2004). While some American *****ficers strongly disapproved of area ***** on ethical grounds, *****