Target Dresden

On the night of 13-14 February, 796 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes of RAF Bomber Command, dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiaries on the city. A firestorm developed, which led to large areas of the city being burned out. At the time of the attack, Dresden was crowded with refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet Army resulting in between 40,000 and 50,000 casualties.

On the morning of the 14th a second attack was carried out by the United States Army Air Force, with two further US attacks mounted on 15 February and on 2 March 1945. Why, so close to the end of the war, should a beautiful city, a centre for fine art and porcelain, with arguably no tactical significance, have been so completely obliterated by the British & US Air Forces?

Was Dresden a legitimate target or was it merely a matter that the British and Americans wanted to demonstrate to the advancing Russians the power of their combined air forces? Target Dresden chronicles the development of bombing from the earliest days through the Zeppelin and Gotha raids of the First World War to the development of strategic bombing of WWII and examines how it affected post war thinking. Packed with facts Target Dresden gives the story behind the raids which were the most controversial conventional bombing attacks of World War Two.