[bobbysocks]

dresden will always be a topic of controversy much like hiroshima. people have opinions and like sports or religion you are not going to sway them from their point of view. when i was going through my father's papers i ran into this article about it. i can not vouch for the "correctness" of the information but think it would be pretty close...but anyways here it is in it entirety:

editorial by walter brown md - excepts of the article.

the dresdeners

every year just before valentine's day there are stories published about the bombing of dresden germany on feb 13-14, 1945. the articles written by revisionists accuse the united states and great britian of firebombing unnecessarily. television and radio carried reports of similar themes. the media once again did not have the moral or ethical sensibilities to look for the facts concerning the dresden raid and present them accurately.

the time was early 1945. russian troops were advancing on germany from the east at a rapid clip. our ground troops had finally won the batle of the bulge and were heading for germany from the west. the nazis had pulled many of their troops and most of their war equipment back from the russian front and purposely amassed them in the marshaling yards in dresden. those weapons were to be thrown up against the american soldiers in attempts to slow forward progress across germany towards berlin. the german leaders apparently thought we would not bomb dresden-that their valuable guns and vehicles would be safe. they were warned by the allies in advance to move the equipment into the city or expect the worst. days before the bombing, leaflets were dropped on the city advising the citizens of the situation. the germans continued to move equipment into the city.

the night of february 13, the raf area bombed the city in night raids just as they had been doing in their attacks on german industrial cities for previous years of the war. the following day 461 b-17s of the first air division precision bombed the marshaling yards with good results. general lew lyle, flying lead aircraft, attests to the target for the day and the military reasons for the raid on dresden. the target was the marshaling yards in dresden. john greenwood, president of the 8th afmmf, flying as lead navigator gives a detailed account of the mission. his story was recently written up in the new york times. most telling, however, is the evidence of harry gobrecht who flew the mission with the 303rd bomb group and is their official historian. harry has done extensive research into all the missions the 303rd flew and has found classified mission reports on the dresden raid. these secret documents leave no doubt as to the purpose of the mission to dresden.

questions asked as to why dresden was bombed so close to the end of the war are senseless as those journalists who write according to their own aganda and for reasons other than historical accuracy. no one knew at the time that the war would end three months later. the german army was still fighting and the allied soldiers were being killed.

the 8th air force ( and all allies ) was still losing fighters and bombers every day. perhaps the dresden raid was instrumental, as most bombing raids were, in saving allied lives and hastening the surrender of the nazi regime. perhaps the "political revisionists" should consider the facts of the war as they existed at the time. and perhaps they should consider what the alternative outcomes of the war would have been.

peter f. ardizzi, editor
"keystone tale winds"
p,o, box 102
warminster, pa 18974-0511

(*** i do not know how old this article is or if the publication is still in existance. but it does site names and references for research if you are so inclined to dig deeper)