By Land and By Air

mad when after 55 years, writers try to belittle his name. Let me explain my experience of the bombing of Dresden. As I recall there were about 500 Lancasters on that night raid, although critics would like to give us all the blame of starting the fires that cost anywhere from 80,000 to 200,000 lives. Even after almost meeting my doom three times, and running a lot of flak, I still felt that Harris was trying to win a war and save lives. Yet the armchair duds in Hollywood felt that they knew better. Was the question ever brought up - how could anyone, including Harris, know that a great firestorm would be encountered? This means that the wind rushes in from all directions and

makes an updraft causing a lack of oxygen at the centre of the fire.

Who started the firestorm? - the Americans. Who arrived first? - the Americans with their 700 planes or us with our 500, although we carried a greater bomb load and fewer Gunners. Why blame the Allies for the great destruction of Dresden in trying to limit the centre of Communications, when we dropped much heavier bomb loads in single cities of the Ruhr in 24 hours? Take for example, Duisburg, which we bombed twice on October 14, 1944, with three times as many planes, and the Americans with their usual 1,000 plane raids; there was no firestorm and thus, much less destruction. All I can say is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing when studying the effects of bombing Dresden.

Our trip to Dresden was rather uneventful. The Bomb Aimer saw the fires when we were 200 miles away. It was the only time I let him give directions in heading for the fire. The RAF and the RCAF went in by two waves with a total of 800 planes. When we left after dropping the bombs we were returning at a lower level, and I had the Rear Gunner take a fix on the fire at 60 miles. Things were

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