A. Stewart MacDonald D.F.C., MD. C..M. 
     
    
   
   
    
     conditions, he would not send us back for several weeks, 
     
     as he knew the enemy would be ready for us. In the 
     
     courses he set, a target was prepared with caution. We 
     
     never went straight for a target, but made several course 
     
     changes heading for towns, and then changing, as the 
     
     fighters would rush to the town we were headed for. He 
     
     was very fair; our planes were stacked in layers of 500 
     
     feet from 20 to 17 thousand feet in height. One never flew 
     
     the same height, but we always dreaded flying at the 
     
     lower heights as the bombs would be falling on us — this 
     
     was worse in the daytime when I could see the bombs 
     
     dropping nearby. Even a rat when cornered will put up 
     
     its biggest attempt. Therefore, when the Germans were 
     
     cornered at the last stages of the war, Hitler in his rat- 
     
     like fashion was equal to anything — he even forgot the 
     
     future of his adopted country, Germany. Hitler’s aim was 
     
     to destroy Germany’s usefulness for years to come - one 
     
     can see his insanity when one considers the part in world 
     
     affairs performed by Germany today. 
     
    

    
     As one looks back on the wars in the past, one can 
     
     see the large number of people killed during the last part 
     
     of the wars. It was this fact that induced the Americans to 
     
     use the Atomic bomb on Japan to shorten the war. 
     
    

    
     In the same way, the British had that idea in 1945 
     
     - it was no doubt the thinking of Bomber Harris when he 
     
     and the head of the American Air Force, decided to bomb 
     
     Dresden, a city far into Germany and once a Capital. 
     
    

    
     It was, no doubt, a reminder that no place was safe in 
     
     Germany until they surrendered. I have bombed Stettin, 
     
     well beyond Berlin, in nine hours, but in Dresden it took 
     
     eleven hours and fifteen minutes, which was about the 
     
     limit of travelling time of the Lancaster and the Halifax 
     
     planes. We always considered Bomber Harris the one man 
     
     who considered the good of the airmen, and it makes me 
     
    
   
   
    
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