“...those waves were designed to kill civilians...” [discostu, post 87]
“...The Dresden bombing raid was specifically designed to kill as many civilians as possible.
And you do nothing but defend it or even make jokes about it...” [2banana, post 88]
“...I think it helps a lot of people sleep at night if they insist to themselves that the railyards were the primary target, but they weren’t; this raid targeted the city itself.” [Captain Walker, post 168]
I’ve thought of a couple dozen witty responses to these posts. But all that keyboard work is tiring. I’ll settle for pointing out that no one has posted any factual content.
Part of the confusion stems from the misunderstanding of what “international law” actually says. Or doesn’t say.
It doesn’t say “don’t target civilians.” It says that “reasonable” efforts must be made to avoid harming civilians - which opens things up for reinterpretation. Tweet-length accusations sneering at “intentions” are not reinterpretation (though they do get posted quite a lot here).
RAF Bomber Command tactics of the early 1940s stemmed from system limitations on navigation, aiming, target detection and identification, survivability/vulnerability, countermeasures, and other factors. The assertion that civilians were deliberately targeted has no merit.
USAAF ran into similar limitations in the bombardment campaigns against Japan, 1944-1945.
Many forum members appear to be very concerned about the morality of this or that action by the Allies, during WW2. Which leads to the question: why do you insist with such passion, that the moral must take precedence over the real?
Nobody is. You talk about targeting limitations. That’s got nothing to do with what we were talking about. The Dresden raid came in phases:
fragmentation bombs to get people in shelters
Incendiary bombs to light those shelters on fire
Fragmentation bombs again to get the people fighting the fires
There is only one reason for that kind of timing for a bombing of the middle of a populated city: kill civilians.
A few keyboard warriors certainly aren't going to influence my thinking merely by repeating a dogmatic statement over and over.
Particularly not certain posters who have repeatedly demonstrated on other threads that they do not really grasp the concept, importance and methodologies for providing logistical support for field units.
Their assertions are tenuous enough, but the posting history of many of them casts a pall of dubious value to any critique they offer about military matters.
It's not likely due entirely to being a lifelong civilian, I have met too many officers who somehow got into the command structure without a real grasp of logistics either.