On This Day
On This Day… Dresden Was Bombed!
Written by: George Chittenden : 21 Sep 2019
It was on this day, 13th February, back in 1945 when the British began reducing one of the world's most beautiful cities to rubble. The bombing of the medieval city of Dresden in East Germany, remains fairly controversial.
Thirteen-hundred Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping more than fourteen-hundred tons of high-explosive bombs and more than eleven-hundred tons of incendiaries, destroying ninety per cent of the city and killing thousands of people. A massive firestorm spread over eight square miles, and the more the city burned, the more oxygen was sucked in and the greater the firestorm became. It’s believed that the temperature reached 1,800-degree fahrenheit.
The British were not alone either, the following day the U.S. Eighth Air Force took their turn. Some have even called the bombing of Dresden a war crime, whilst others argue that the devastating attack was to warn Stalin, limiting his ambitions and post-war plans.
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