Bombing of Dresden

[Jim Hudson]

I have been in war. I have experienced hand to hand Infantry combat . I have wrestled with myself and my conscience for my deeds. War is inhumane and brutal and is the worst thing that humans can do to each other.

War is inflicted one upon another and when this happens, then if a country wants to be victorious then all the stops have to be pulled.

Is it more humane to kill 100,000 thousand people with fire raids, like the Tokyo burn raids or an atomic bomb?

Is it more humane to kill everyone in a village with napalm or shoot them all dead?

Is it more humane to try to force a surrender by destroying a city with all out bombing or let the war continue because the leaders will not quit?

As noted War is Hell. Sadly enough civilians have always been affected by war and sadly they end up dying along with the combatants.

As we progress technologically we have the means to destroy more cities and civilians when we have wars.

I don't buy into the idea that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime. I don't buy into the idea that the destruction of Hiroshima was an act of terrorism and a war crime. I do buy into the fact that they were acts of war, plain and simple. While tragic, they were deemed necessary at the time.

I was not there when RAF Bomber Command and the U.S. 8th AAF made the decisions to destroy Germany from the air so I can't make the judgments if they were right or wrong. To do so is revisionist history and we may be interjecting our own political prejudice into history and not necessarily teaching the truth.