WITNESS TO HISTORY

Michael Walsh

CHAPTER 15

A MOST UNCIVILIZED MEANS OF WARFARE

During the war, more bombs by weight were dropped on the city of Berlin than were released on the whole of Great Britain during the entire war.

All German towns and cities above 50,000 population were from 50% to 80% destroyed. Dresden with a population larger than that of Liverpool was incinerated with an estimated 135,000 civilian inhabitants burned and buried in the ruins.

Hamburg was totally destroyed and 70,000 civilians died in the most appalling circumstances whilst Cologne with a population greater than Glasgow's was turned into a moonscape. As Hamburg burned the winds feeding the three-mile high flames reached twice hurricane speed to exceed 150 miles per hour. Trees three feet in diameter on the outskirts of the city, were sucked from the ground by the supernatural forces of these winds and hurled miles into the city-inferno, as were vehicles, men, women... and children.

The volcanic flames thrown twice the height of Snowdon with gases as high again caused meteorological reaction as high as the stratosphere. Likewise Frankfurt and other cities like them; cities the size of Northampton, Leicester.

Between 1940 and 1945, sixty-one German cities with a total population of 25 million souls were destroyed or devastated in a bombing campaign that was initiated by the British government. Destruction on this scale had no other purpose than the indiscriminate mass murder of as many German people as possible quite regardless of their civilian status. It led to bombing retaliation resulting in 60,000 British dead and 86,000 injured.

THE MOST UNCIVILIZED FORM OF WARFARE

The eminent British war historian and strategist, Captain Sir. Basil Liddell Hart declared that using this strategy victory had been achieved

"through practicing the most uncivilized means of warfare that the world had known since the Mongol invasions." The Evolution of Warfare. Baber & Faber, 1946, p.75

"Was absolutely contrary to international law." Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

"The British Government would never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children for the purposes of mere terrorism." Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain before he was ousted as Prime Minister

CHURCHILL'S ENTHUSIASM

Winston Churchill's enthusiasm for behind the lines destruction of civilian populations could be traced back to his comment:

"The air opened paths along which death and terror could be carried far behind the lines of the actual enemy; to women, children, the aged, the sick, who in earlier struggles would perforce have been left untouched." The Great War. Vol.3 P1602

HITLER'S REVULSION

"The construction of bombing airplanes would soon be abandoned as superfluous and ineffective if bombing as such were branded as an illegal barbarity. If, through the Red Cross Convention, it definitely turned out possible to prevent the killing of a defenceless wounded man or prisoner, then it ought to be equally possible, by analogous convention, and finally to stop the bombing of equally defenseless civil populations."

"I owe it to my position not to admit any doubt as to the possibility of maintaining peace. The people want peace. It must be possible for governments to maintain it. We believe that if the nations of the world could agree to destroy all their gas and inflammatory and explosive bombs it would be a much more useful achievement than using them to destroy each other." Adolf Hitler

WHO WAS THE FIRST TO BOMB CIVILIANS?

"Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly three months after the RAF had commenced bombing German civilian targets. Hitler would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle zones." J.M Spaight., CB., CBE., Bombing Vindicated, p.47., Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry

"Churchill was obsessed with getting America into the war. He tried to frighten Roosevelt with the prospect of an early German victory. He searched for an outrage, such as the sinking of the Lusitania in the First World War, that would arouse American public opinion. German bombing of British civilians might well achieve this. But for weeks it looked as if the Germans had no intention of being so obliging." - The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley, Andre Deutsch. London 1975

THE FIRST BREACH OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

"This raid on the night of May 11th 1940, although in itself trivial, was an epoch-marking event since it was the first deliberate breach of the fundamental rule of civilized warfare that hostilities must only be waged against the enemy combatant forces, Their flight marked the end of an epoch which had lasted for two and one-half centuries." F.J.P Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p.172

"The first 'area' air attack of the war, was carried out by 134 British bombers on the German city of Mannheim, on the 16th, December, 1940. The object of this attack, as Air Chief Marshall Peirse later explained, was, 'to concentrate the maximum amount of damage in the center of the town'." The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany. (H.M Stationery Office, London, 1961)

As early as 1953 H.M. Stationery Office published the first volume of a work, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945, The Fight at Odds.p.122 Described as 'officially commissioned and based throughout on official documents which had been read and approved by the Air Ministry Historical Branch, its author, Dennis Richards, reveals that:

"If the Royal Air Force raided the Ruhr, destroying oil plants with its most accurately placed bombs and urban property with those that went astray, the outcry for retaliation against Britain might prove too strong for the German generals to resist. Indeed, Hitler himself would probably lead the clamor. The attack on the Ruhr was therefore an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London."

"We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland." J.M. Spaight, CB., CBE., Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry

"Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of propagandist distortion of the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May 11th 1940, the publicity it deserves." Bombing Vindicated. J.M. Spaight, CB. CBE., Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry

"Air Marshall Tedder made every effort to be a worthy pupil of his superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Marshall told high British officers that Germany had lost the war... because she had not followed the principle of total warfare." New York Times, January 10th 1946

"Retaliation was certain if we carried the war into Germany... there was a reasonable possibility that our capital and industrial centers would not have been attacked if we had continued to refrain from attacking those of Germany." J.M. Spaight, CB, CBE. Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry

"The primary purpose of these raids was to goad the Germans into undertaking reprisal raids of a similar character on Britain. Such raids would arouse intense indignation in Britain against Germany and so create a war psychosis without which it would be impossible to carry on a modern war." Dennis Richards, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945; The Fight at Odds. H.M Stationery Office

"It gave Coventry and Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton, the right to look Kiev and Kharkov, Stalingrad and Sebastopol, in the face. Our Soviet allies would be less critical of our inactivity if they had understood what we had done." J.M. Spaight, CB, CBE, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry

THE TRUTH HIDDEN FROM THE BRITISH PUBLIC

"It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern emotional engineering that, in spite of the plain facts of the case which could never be disguised or even materially distorted, the British public, throughout the Blitz Period (1940 - 1941), remained convinced that the entire responsibility for their sufferings it was undergoing rested on the German leaders.

"Too high praise cannot, therefore, be lavished on the British emotional engineers for the infinite skill with which the public mind was conditioned prior to and during a period of unparalleled strain." Advance to Barbarism, P.168. Mitre Press, London. F.J.P Veale, British Jurist

"... the inhabitants of Coventry, for example, continued to imagine that their sufferings were due to the innate villainy of Adolf Hitler without a suspicion that a decision, splendid or otherwise, of the British War Cabinet, was the decisive factor in the case." F.J.P Veale. Advance to Barbarism, P.169

"One of the most unhealthy features of the bombing offensive was that the War Cabinet - and in particular the Secretary for Air, Archibald Sinclair (now Lord Thurso), felt it necessary to repudiate publicly the orders which they themselves had given to Bomber Command." R.H.S Crosman. Labour Minister of Housing. Sunday Telegraph, Oct. 1st ,1961

"Is terror bombing now part of our policy? Why is it that the people of this country who are supposed to be responsible for what is going on, are the only people who may not know what is being done in their name? On the other hand, if terror bombing be part of our policy, why was this statement put out at all? I think we shall live to rue the day we did this, and that it, (The bombing of Dresden) will stand for all time as a blot on our escutcheon." Richard Stokes, M.P.

This Member of Parliament was referring to the Associated Press Correspondent of Supreme Allied Headquarters in Paris, which had gloatingly described:

"this unprecedented assault in daylight on the refugee-crowded capital, fleeing from the Russian tide in the East. The report had been widely broadcast in America, and by Paris Radio. It was suppressed in Britain for fear of public revulsion.

"Thus, in a minute dated 28th February, 1943, Sir Archibald Sinclair explained to Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, that it was necessary to stifle all public discussion on the subject because if the truth had been disclosed in response to the enquiries being made by influential political and religious leaders, their inevitable condemnation would impair the morale of the bomber crews and consequently their bombing efficiency." F.J.P Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p.29

WORKING CLASS TARGETED FOR HIGH KILL RATIOS

"The third and last phase of the British air offensive against Germany began in March, 1942, with the adoption of the Lindemann Plan by the British War Cabinet, and continued with undiminished ferocity until the end of the war in May, 1945.

"The bombing during this period was not, as the Germans complained, indiscriminate. On the contrary. It was concentrated on working class houses because, as Professor Lindemann maintained, a higher percentage of bloodshed per ton of explosives dropped could be expected from bombing houses built close together, rather than by bombing higher class houses surrounded by gardens." Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale, British Author and Jurist

SLAYING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD

"I am in full agreement (of terror bombing). I am all for the bombing of working class areas in German cities. I am a Cromwellian - I believe in 'slaying in the name of the Lord!" Sir. Archibald Sinclair, Secretary for Air

WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO BE SLAUGHTERED FIRST

"They (the British Air Chiefs) argued that the desired result, of reducing German industrial production, would be more readily achieved if the homes of the workers in the factories were destroyed; if the workers were kept busy arranging for the burial of their wives and children, output might reasonably be expected to fall." Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale; Distinguished British Jurist

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed." Winston Churchill to Chief of Air Staff, Sir. Charles Portal, March 28th1945

EVEN CHURCHILL WAS REPELLED

"In the course of the film showing the bombing of German towns from the air, very well and dramatically done, W.C (Winston Churchill) suddenly sat bolt upright and said to me: 'Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far'" - Personal Experiences, Lord Casey. Constable. London 1962

DEATH OF A CITY

"The long suppressed story of the worst massacre in the history of the world." R. H.S Crosman, Labour Minister

"The devastation of Dresden in February, 1945, was one of those crimes against humanity whose authors would have been arraigned at Nuremberg if that court had not been perverted." Richard.H.S Crosman, Labour Government Minister

"I have read the reviews of the biographies of Sir Arthur Harris with extremely mixed feelings and also Robert Kee's letter. (8th,July).

"On 13th, February, 1945, I was a navigator on one of the Lancaster bombers which devastated Dresden. I well remember the briefing by our Group Captain. We were told that the Red Army was thrusting towards Dresden and that the town would be crowded with refugees and that the center of the town would be full of women and children. Our aiming point would be the market place.

"I recall that we were somewhat uneasy, but we did as we were told. We accordingly bombed the target and on our way back our wireless operator picked up a German broadcast accusing the RAF of terror tactics, and that 65,000 civilians had died. We dismissed this as German propaganda.

"The penny didn't drop until a few weeks later when my squadron received a visit from the Crown Film Unit who were making the wartime propaganda films. There was a mock briefing, with one notable difference. The same Group Captain now said,

'as the market place would be filled with women and children on no account would we bomb the center of the town. Instead, our aiming point would be a vital railway junction to the east.'

"I can categorically confirm that the Dresden raid was a black mark on Britain's war record. The aircrews on my squadron were convinced that this wicked act was not instigated by our much-respected guvnor 'Butch' Harris but by Churchill. I have waited 29 years to say this, and it still worries me." A. Williams, Nottingham; The Observer, August 8th 1984

Welcome and revealing though Mr. Williams letter is, subsequent revelations as to 'Butch' Harris's murderous inclinations expose a similar naiveté on Mr.Williams part:

"What we want to do in addition to the horrors of fire is to bring the masonry crashing down on the Boche, to kill Boche and to terrify Boche." Bomber Butch' Harris, 1942. Sunday Times, January 10th 1993

Nobody knows for sure just how many people innocent civilians were bombed and burned to death in Dresden. What is beyond dispute was that its destruction was of no military significance whatsoever. It did not shorten the war by as much as a minute, nor was it intended to.

The war to all intents and purposes was won and the city itself had no military, political or industrial significance. The British Government were well aware that it was defenseless, which for those whose morality differs from mine, might have been an advantage.

Its 600,000 population (larger than Liverpool's) was swollen by an estimated further 500,000 refugees fleeing from the Red Army.

The RAF were as usual dropping propaganda leaflets on the city, and on the night before the raids, 13th, February, with a leaflet headed, 'Partei Flieft aus Dresden', read by the defeated population, it revealed that:

'All the schools in the city had been closed to provide shelter for an army of refugees arriving from the east.'

When the scale of Bomber Command's 'success' in what was described as 'the worst massacre in the history of the world' became known, it ill became the RAF to afterwards cowardly claim to have known nothing of the refugees.

CHILDREN MACHINE-GUNNED

The strafing of columns of refugees by both American and British fighter planes was par for the course:

".... it is said that these (zoo) animals and terrified groups of refugees were machine-gunned as they tried to escape across the Grosser Garten by low-flying planes and that many bodies riddled by bullets were found later in this park." Der Tod von Dresden, Axel Rodenberger, February 25th 1951

In Dresden,

"Even the huddled remnants of a children's' choir were machine-gunned in a street bordering a park." David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden

THE FIRESTORM OF HAMBURG

"Its horror is revealed in the howling and raging of the firestorms, the hellish noise of exploding bombs and the death cries of martyred human beings as well as the big silence after the raids. Speech is impotent to portray the measure of the horror, which shook the people for ten days and nights and the traces of which were written indelibly on the face of the city and its inhabitants.

"No flight of imagination will ever succeed in measuring and describing the gruesome scenes of horror in the many buried air shelters. Posterity can only bow its head in honour of the fate of these innocents, sacrificed by the murderous lust of a sadistic enemy...."The Police President of Hamburg

"Not even Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suffering the smashing blows of nuclear explosions, could match the utter hell of Hamburg." Martin Caidin, The Night Hamburg Died, Ballantyne Books, New York, 1960

Coventry often comes to mind when justification for the bombing campaign is sought. Notwithstanding the fact that it has since been proved that the bombing of Coventry, like the sinking of the Lusitania was deliberately set up as 'a means to an end', it might be remembered in terms of proportion that Coventry lost 100 acres through bombing.

"In those terrible ten days of mid-1943, the British bombers gutted more than six thousand acres of Hamburg." Martin Caidin

This was the equivalent of sixty Coventrys in just ten days. Three hundred times as many people died in Hamburg during the ten-day blitz as died in Coventry during the entire course of the war.

WORSE THAN HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI AND TOKYO FIRESTORMS

"The fire and horror lasted ten full days. This is what makes Hamburg - and the loss of some seventy thousand men, women and children - stand out as the worst of the disasters visited upon civilization during the insanity of World War 2." Martin Caidin

THE CHILDREN

"Of the children these dreadful nights, what can be said? Their fright became horror and then panics when their tiny minds became capable of grasping the fact that their parents could no longer help them in their distress. They lost their reason and an overwhelming terror took over. Their world had become the shrieking center of an erupting volcano from which there could be no physical escape. Nothing that hell offered could be feared more.

"By the hand of man they became creatures, human in form but not in mind. Strangled noises hissed from them as they staggered pitifully through the streets in which tar and asphalt ran as streams.

"Some of these tiny creatures ran several hundred feet. Others managed only twenty, maybe ten feet. Their shoes caught fire and then their feet. The lower parts of their legs became flickering sticks of flame. Here were Joans of Arcs... thousands of them. All who had perished unjustly on the fires of the Middle Ages were as nothing when compared with what was happening that night.

"The sounds of many were unintelligible and undoubtedly many more called for their parents from whom they were parted by death or by accident. They grasped their tortured limbs, their tiny burning legs until they were no longer able to stand or run. And then they would crash to the ground where they would writhe in the bubbling tar until death released them from their physical misery." Martin Caidin

RAF PILOT

"It was murder in the city. I knew that the firestorms that came later were terrible, and unlike anything that ever happened. But the fires in the city were as bad as anything I'd ever seen in the war so far - and I had been on a goodly portion of the major attacks.

"A few of the Lancs got caught in the flue of superheated air as they passed over the city at 16,000 feet, and it was as if they were nothing more than wood chips in a storm at sea. . . they were thrown about by the heat and even flipped over on their backs. Everything sort of went to hell until the Lancs managed to get free of the severe turbulence.

". . . we howled with glee as we listened in on the Jerry wireless and heard them going crazy." A RAF pilot. Bomber Command

"The brutal, allied air offensive against Germany proved to be costly, ineffective and of doubtful morality." An Analyst

PHOSPHOROUS - THE OUTLAWED TERROR WEAPON

The use of phosphorous bombs, by the British government on raids against Germany, were outlawed under international law because its use has no other purpose than to strike terror in its means of causing death and injury. It is a napalm-like chemical which when alight cannot be extinguished. Of its use in a purely military sense:

"The shower of molten burning particles that sprays up from a phosphorous shell burst sears its victims with agonized burns. Used against pill boxes, the flame not only burns occupants, but also suffocates them." Life Magazine, 19th June 1944

MARTIN CAIDIN

"The exploding phosphorous bombs sprayed their contents indiscriminately and clothing caught fire and had to be torn free from the body quickly otherwise the wearer would suffer terrible nightmarish burns. When the liquid splattered on to peoples hair, the victim was doomed. There was no chance to cut off the hair. The chemical globules, like a burning jelly, burned fiercely setting aflame the entire head and indeed, the head itself burned.

"These terrified and pain-wracked people were seen to leap about in frenzy, dashing their heads against the ground in blind panic - anything to douse the flames.

"One can extinguish an ordinary fire by smothering it with clothes but such methods are useless against phosphorous. It continued to burn and set afire any material that was thrown over it. Such people in these circumstances could only be left to their sad fate amidst the terrifying background glow of the streets in flames.

"They writhed in the rubble-strewn roads with their bodies partially ablaze. Others were nearer to the River Alster and dozens of these shrieking demented souls, trailing tongues of flaming smoke and fire, dashed madly to the water to fling themselves into the lifesaving liquid.

"Men, women and children too, ran hysterically, falling and stumbling, getting up, tripping and falling again, rolling over and over. Most of them managed to regain their feet and made it to the water. But many of them never made it and were left behind, their feet drumming in blinding pain on the overheated pavements amidst the rubble, until there came one last convulsing shudder from the smoking 'thing' on the ground, and then no further movement.

"Those who made it to the water found the safety they had sought so desperately - but incredibly, some faced a choice that stuns the mind with horror. Water prevents phosphorous jelly from burning because it denies the chemical the one thing it needs to burn; oxygen.

"Those with the blazing chemical on their arms, legs and their bodies were able to douse the flames by submerging the burning areas. But many had the blazing phosphorous jelly on their faces and heads. Certainly the spluttering chemicals went out as the victims ducked their heads beneath the water, but the moment they brought their heads up again to break the surface and take a breath of air, the phosphorous burst into flames again immediately.

"And so the victims were faced with the choice. Death by drowning or death by burning; men, women and children. While others watched sick and despairingly, the victims of phosphorous on faces and heads thrashed wildly in the brackish waters, screaming with pain and frustration. Spluttering and choking, they alternatively burned or drowned." Martin Caidin

Martin Caidin spent years trying to get details on the use of phosphorous by both the allies, and in his own words he has 'met with less than the success required by the historian to include the episode in a documentary book.' He noted:

"Perhaps the solution to the total absence of any reference in official (post war) German documents is explained in the story told to me by a U.S Army officer, who learned that portions of the documents on the after effects of the Hamburg attacks were ordered to be destroyed and all reference to the surviving victims of phosphorous bombs stricken forever from the records." - Martin Caidin

"Phosphorous burns were not infrequent." U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey

Phosphorous was used

"because of its demonstrated ability to depress the morale of the Germans." Official British source

INVASION

"A cataclysmic blast of exploding, splintering steel rent the earth before us and it seemed like the world was coming to an end. The Americans were blasting out a path for a forward drive.

"Man and beast shuddered in their tracks. Whole towns were disintegrating. Life seemed to disappear from the scene. It was the most terrifying destructive force of warfare Germany has ever seen.

". . . and for an hour and a half more than 2,000 bombers and hundreds of guns pounded the German countryside, making the earth dance before this mighty man-made force. . . minefields went up as though touched by an electric switch.

"Near the end we were using 11-tonners (bombs) which crews said caused their bombers to bounce up over 500 feet when the huge 25-foot missiles were released." Henry T. Gorrell (UP) Chicago Daily News, November 17th, 1944

"I can tell you that Germany has been destroyed utterly and completely." U.S. General Bradley, Associated Press, London, June 11th 1945

"I just wouldn't know where to begin to rebuild Berlin." U.S. General Eisenhower, Associated Press. London, June 11th, 1945

"The capital of the Third Reich is a heap of gaunt, burned-out, flame-seared buildings. It is a desert of a hundred thousand dunes made up of brick and powdered masonry. Over this hangs the pungent stench of death. . . it is impossible to exaggerate in describing the destruction. . . down town Berlin looked as like nothing man could have contrived. Driving down the famous Frankfurt Alee, I did not see a single building where you could have set up as business of even selling apples." Eddie Gilmore, Associated Press, Berlin, June 9th, 1945

IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS

"Towards the end of his life the Prof.' (Lindemann) made a remark on more than one occasion with such an air of seriousness that he seemed to regard it as his testament of wisdom, and I accordingly feel it incumbent upon me to record it here, although not in perfect sympathy with it. He asked:

'Do you know what the future historians will regard as the most important event of this age?'

"Well, what is it?

'It will not be Hitler and the Second World War, it will not be the release of nuclear energy, it will not be the menace of Communism.'

"These negatives seemed very comprehensive. He put on an expression of extreme severity and turned down the corners of his lips.

'It will be the abdication of the White man.'

"Then he nodded his head up and down several times to drive home his proposition." - The Prof., R.F Harrod, McMillan, 1959, p261

The terror bombing offensive cost not only the lives of over a million German civilians and brought about the total destruction of many of Europe's finest and most historical cities, but also cost the lives of 58,888 RAF air crew. . . nearly the same number of British junior officers during the First World War. The great irony of this historical blunder is that it had the opposite effect. German morale rose, as did production.

"This lesson was lost on the British Air Force which continued to hold that 'strategic bombing' was the all and end all of air power. This fallacy not only prolonged the war, but went far to render the 'peace' which followed it unprofitable to Britain and disastrous to the world in general." General J.F.C Fuller, The Second World War, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948

"In effect, there is no doubt that in ordering the destruction of large enemy cities, which represented an important part of the very basis of European culture and civilization, the Allied political leaders have incurred a dire responsibility before the bar of history." Major General J.F.C Fuller

"Even the senseless and highly culture-destroying terror acts, against for example, Lubeck and Dresden, carried out by the Allied pilots, should have been investigated and brought before a proper court of justice." Major General H. Bratt, Royal Swedish Army

"A nation which spreads over another a sheet of inevitably deadly gases or eradicates entire cities from the earth by the explosion of atomic bombs, does not have the right to judge anyone for war crimes; it has already committed the greatest atrocity, equal to no other atrocity; it has killed - amidst unspeakable torments - hundreds of thousands of innocent people." Hon. Lydio Machado Bandeira de Mello, Dr. Juris. Brazilian Professor of Criminal Law; author of more than 40 works on law/philosophy

"As for crimes against humanity, those governments which ordered the destruction of German cities, thereby destroying irreplaceable cultural values and making burning torches out of women and children, should also have stood before the bar of justice."  Hon Jaan Lattik. Estonian statesman, diplomat and historian

"It was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the so-called strategic air forces during the Second World War which culminated in the destruction of Dresden (a wholly non-military objective) in February, 1945, that completely pulverized the code of civilized warfare and returned the treatment of military opponents and civilians to the level of the primary warfare that had prevailed among the savages, the Assyrians, and the medieval Mongols.

"On the basis of the most authoritative British sources, Mr. Veale demonstrates clearly that it was the British and not the Nazis who introduced indiscriminate strategic bombing, despite the efforts of Hitler to avert this reversion to barbaric practices." Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D. American historian

"In terms of personal success, there has been no career more fortunate than that of Winston Churchill. In terms of human suffering to millions of people and destruction of the noble edifice of mankind there has been no career more disastrous." The European and English Journal

"One closes these volumes feeling, uneasily, that the true heroes of the story they tell are neither the contending air marshals, nor even the 58,888 officers and men of Bomber Command who were killed in action. They were the inhabitants of the German cities under attack; the men, women and children who stoically endured and worked on among the flaming ruins of their homes and factories, up till the moment when the allied armies overran them." London Times reviewer on the British Official History of the Strategic Air Offensive.

"There are no final figures on the number of civilians killed as a result of the mass-bombing, but 2,000,000 would be a very restrained figure (estimate)." Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D. American historian

The impression created by apologists and propagandists suggest that London (and other British cities) fared equally badly. It is however a fact that more Londoners died in the 1952 smog (combination of fog and pollution) than died during the blitz. (Daily Mail, March 13, 2002.

KASSEL

"Kassel suffered over 300 air raids, some carrying waves of 1,000 bombers; British by night, American by day. When on April, 4th, 1945, Kassel surrendered, of a population of 250,000, just 15,000 were left alive." Jack Bell, Chicago Daily News Foreign Service, Kassel, May 15th 1946

"Countless smaller towns and villages had been razed to the ground or turned into ghost towns - like Wiener Neustadt in Austria, which emerged from the air raids and the street fighting with only eighteen houses intact and its population reduced from 45,000 to 860." In the Ruins of the Reich, Douglas Botting. George, Allen & Unwin. London. 1985

AND THE OTHER CITIES:

Berlin, Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Dusseldorf, Hanover, Bremen, Wuppertal, Vienna, Duisburg. Munich, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Kiel, Gelsdenkirchen, Bochum, Aachen, Wurzburg, Darmstadt, Krefeld, Munster, Munchen Gladbach,, Braunschweig, Ludwishafen, Remscheid, Pforzheim, Osnabruck, Mainz, Bielefeld, Gieben, Duren, Solingen, Wilhelmshafen, Karlsruhe, Oberhausen, Heilbronn, Augsburg, Hamm, Knittelfeld, Luneburg, Cuxhaven, Kulmback, Hagen, Saarbrucken, Freiburg, Graz, Koblenz, Ulm, Bonn, Bremmenhaven, Wanne-Eickel, Woms, Lubeck, Schweinfurt, Kleve, Wiener Neustadt, Wiesbaden, Paderborn, Bocholt, Hanau, Hildesheim, Emden, Siegen, Pirmasons, Hale, Bayreuth, Kreuznach, Witten, Aschaffenburg, Kaiserlautern, Gladbeck, Dorsten, Innsbruck, Neumunster, Linz, Klagenfurt, Reutlingen, Recklinghausen, Reuel, Regensburg, Homberg, Elmshorn, Wetzler, Vilach, Hamelin, Konigsburg, Moers, Passau, Solbad Hall I.T, Coburg, Attnang-Puchheim, Friedsrichhafen, Frankfurt-Oder, Danzig, Bozen, Chemnitz, Rostock, Schwerte, Plauen, Rome, Bad Kreuznach, Neapel, Genoa, Mailand, Turin.

Note: Martin Caidin, heavily quoted in 'A Most Uncivilised Means of Warfare' is one of the world's leading authorities on military-science subjects, with a world-wide reputation as an expert in fields that cover military and civilian aviation, rockets and missiles, astronautics, and the effects of conventional and nuclear weapons.

He is a foremost authority on atomic warfare and his research findings are referred to throughout the world. Positions held include Atomic Warfare Specialist, N.Y. State Civil Defence Commission, Intelligence and Public Information, U.S. 5th Air Force, Consultant to the Commander of the U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center. He is the author of over 20 books, has worked at Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air Force Base, and is the winner of the James J. Strebig Memorial Trophy, awarded by the Aviation Writers Association.

Next -- Chapter 16 -- THE CONQUERORS BLOODLUST