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 British would aim at an area target. If the Americans refused to jo***** in an ***** attack, they could hit precision targets ***** the same city. One plan, Thunderclap, had surfaced in July. It envisaged a series of *****ttacks on Berlin, designed ***** shock, not German civilians, but ***** high command into seeing that *****y was finished. After much argument, Thunderclap was ordered ***** September 9. But it turned out that there were not enough fighters to cover it, and a reaction against the whole idea set in within Eisenhower's headquarters and ***** American Joint Chiefs ***** Staff. The ***** was set aside. Bomber Comm***** attacked no less than 30 cities. This involved a smaller portion of its overall efforts than before--about 37 percent, compared to 26 ***** on oil targets and 15 percent against transportation. But its power was now enormous; by January 1945 it ***** a daily 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 *****, against slight opposition. One of its attacks, on the city of Dresden, ***** one of the more devastating attacks on a civilian populati***** of the war, and it became highly controversial. The origins ***** the Dresden attack were complex, and were interwoven with ***** operations more than most of ***** Command's area attacks. "***** was firebombed on February 13 and 14, 1945, by western Allied bomber divisions" (Hertel 2000).

***** their willingness to consider Thunderclap suggests, the Americans did not 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 civilians, albeit specialized sorts of workers, at Munster and (as a second choice) at Schweinfurt. Some oper*****ions, such ***** the first attack on Berlin, ***** been ***** at least partly to strike ***** enemy morale. Some *****s 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 area bombing. General Arnold, and some other officers, sometimes c*****sidered outright ***** bombing. In the B-29 campaign against Japan, the AAF turned to deliberate area attacks against ***** after attempted precision ***** attacks failed to achieve results. "To be sure, those who directed the US Army's "Mighty" Eighth Air Force may have ********** or at least wanted to believe th***** they were conducting precision bombing of legitimate military and economic targets, but Dresden ***** the mass incineration of ********** cities put an end to any pretense of it" (Record 2004). While some American officers strongly disapproved of ***** ***** on ethical grounds, *****