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A White Rose for Dresden
Sixty years ago Sunday, Allied bombers attacked Dresden and the thousands of residents and refugees who lived there. Traces of the militarily dubious decision to bomb the city remain visible today.On the evening of Feb. 13, 1945, nine Mosquito fighter planes and 244 Lancaster bombers from the Royal Air Force's 5th fleet took off from their base in the south of England. Dresden's air raid sirens started to wail at 9:39 p.m. Around 20 minutes later the first target-marking bombs fell on the stadium just outside of the city center. The first air raid lasted about 30 minutes and was so dense that the entire inner city was engulfed by a firestorm. "There, between exploded trams, I saw the first scorched dead, charred, shrunken, some of them just brushed by the flames but still asphyxiated," a soldier recounted. "Women, children, men -- the horrible death had taken them all." Rest at the link. Posted by: True German Ally 2005-02-13 |
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