borebage53
Knife & Fork pending
796 bomber planes flew in from the west and “opened the gates of hell” on the German city of Dresden in Saxony. RAF Bomber Command by night and USAF 8th Air Force in the later hours of the morning. In that one “infernal” night and the following morning an estimated 25000 people were killed.
Similar to the “firestorm” that engulfed Hamburg earlier in 1943 when 37000 people perished.
Tons of incendiaries showered from above;the fires had started,windows shattering,roofs buckling.
And pilots above in the orange skies had watched with wonder as flames joined with flames across narrow streets,and joined into an ever larger cauldron of fire that began to bend the elements:air was sucked away,hurricane-force winds of searing heat blew upwards to the sky,and those people who had not simply been burned or baked to death found themselves instead suffocated,their lungs sharp with fire with every increasingly futile breath.
The same had happened to Cologne,Frankfurt,Bremen,Mannheim,Lubeck and many more other cities too.
Two weeks after Dresden it was the turn of the smaller town of Phorzhiem,statistically the most devastating area bombardment of the war, if such a savage thing can be in any way quantified. Some 17600 people,or 31.4% of the towns population,were killed. About 83% of the town’s buildings were destroyed,two-thirds of the complete area of Pforziem and between 80% and 100% of the inner city!
Similar to the “firestorm” that engulfed Hamburg earlier in 1943 when 37000 people perished.
Tons of incendiaries showered from above;the fires had started,windows shattering,roofs buckling.
And pilots above in the orange skies had watched with wonder as flames joined with flames across narrow streets,and joined into an ever larger cauldron of fire that began to bend the elements:air was sucked away,hurricane-force winds of searing heat blew upwards to the sky,and those people who had not simply been burned or baked to death found themselves instead suffocated,their lungs sharp with fire with every increasingly futile breath.
The same had happened to Cologne,Frankfurt,Bremen,Mannheim,Lubeck and many more other cities too.
Two weeks after Dresden it was the turn of the smaller town of Phorzhiem,statistically the most devastating area bombardment of the war, if such a savage thing can be in any way quantified. Some 17600 people,or 31.4% of the towns population,were killed. About 83% of the town’s buildings were destroyed,two-thirds of the complete area of Pforziem and between 80% and 100% of the inner city!