The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

The Dresden raid on February 13–14, 1945, was carried out by Bomber Command in two successive waves with 796 Lancasters, carrying 2,646 tons of bombs (including 1,181 tons of incendiaries). Dresden’s light defenses resulted first all from the transfer of antiaircraft artillery to the Eastern Front and second from a successful diversionary raid that attracted the nearby night fighters away from the city. The first wave was not very effective, but the follow-up raid with the bulk of the Lancaster force in clear conditions achieved an exceptional level of concentration. Low humidity and dry, cold weather, combined with a very large number of small fires quickly started, proved ideal conditions for the generation of another firestorm. The flames consumed fifteen square miles of the city, an area that exceeded the damage at Hamburg. Recent estimates from a historical commission in Dresden have confirmed that the original figure suggested by the city’s police president in March 1945 of approximately 25,000 dead is the best available estimate. Out of 220,000 homes, 75,000 were destroyed.135 The firestorm, like the Hamburg conflagration, left bodies mummified or reduced to ash, making the final count difficult. A further 1,858 skeletons were unearthed when the city was slowly rebuilt after 1945. The aiming point in this, as in all area attacks, was the historic city center, which was entirely burnt out. The next day the Eighth Air Force carried out its first raid on the marshaling...