[IronJack]

Most authorities agree that the firebombing of Dresden at least was unnecessary, from a military point of view, and that it added little to a war that was already won. The bombing of Hamburg in July of 1943 (much earlier in the Combined Bomber Offensive) presaged Dresden. Estimates were that 50,000 died, and three fourths of the city was destroyed. But at least Hamburg had a military value; it was a major port and shipbuilding center, and its facilities were being used for Uboat production.

Does any of this make the Allies terrorists or war criminals? Even the stuffy leaders of Bomber Command admitted that the point of much of their effort was to strike terror into the heart of the German citizenry, thereby reducing their will to fight. Churchill was especially committed to that effort. But they also had to admit that all the bombing did was strengthen German resolve, much the way the Blitz had stiffened the spine of the British.

In the end, the offensive achieved most when it was targeted toward areas that provided Germany with her warmaking materiel: ball bearing plants, oil and gas refineries, heavy armament factories, and railyards. Terror proved a most ineffective tactic.

[Alberta's Child]

The argument that in World War II enemy cities -- at least German ones -- represented legitimate targets because of their industrial capacity falls on its face when you realize the lengths to which the U.S. and Britain went to protect key industrial targets in many of these German cities.

The major plant in Cologne that had been owned by the Ford Motor Company (actually Ford Werke, the German subsidiary of the company), for example, had gone unscathed through so many Allied bombing raids during the war that it became a place of refuge for the city's residents whenever the air raid sirens sounded.

[rlmorel]

Heck, our fighter pilots were strafing anything that moved. And to demoralize the German and Japanese public was just why they were doing it.

Like Sherman said..."War is Hell".