Bombing of Dresden in World War II: Encyclopedia II - Bombing of Dresden in World War II - The attacks

Bombing of Dresden in World War II - The attacks

The railway yards, near the centre of Dresden, had been targeted and bombed twice before the night of February 13 by the USAAF Eighth Air Force in daytime raids: on October 7, 1944 with 70 tons of high-explosive bombs, and then again with 133 bombers on January 16, 1945 during which 279 tons of high-explosives and 41 tons of incendiaries were dropped.^[12]

The firebombing campaign should have begun with an USAAF Eighth Air Force raid on Dresden on February 13 but bad weather over Europe prevented any American operations. So it fell to RAF Bomber Command to carry out the first raid. During the evening of February 13 796 Avro Lancasters and 9 De Havilland Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate waves and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs by the early hours of February 14. The first attack was carried out entirely by No. 5 Group, using their own low-level marking methods, which allowed the first bombs to be released over Dresden at 22:14 (CET^?) with all but one bomber releasing all their bombs within two minutes. This last Lancaster bomber of No 5 group dropped its bombs at 22:22. A band of cloud still remained in the area and this attack, in which 244 Lancasters dropped more than 800 tons of bombs, was only moderately successful.^[13]

The second attack, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather had by then cleared and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy between 01:21 and 01:45. RAF casualties on the two raids were 6 Lancasters lost, with 2 more crashed in France and 1 in England^[14].

Later on the 14th from 12:17 until 12:30 311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden, with the railway yards as their aiming point. "Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos"^[15]. There are reports that civilians fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden in February 1945 were strafed by American aircraft, but these claims have been refuted by recent work by the historian Götz Bergander. ^[16][17]. During this raid there was a brief, but possibly intense dogfight between American and German fighters around Dresden, some rounds may have struck the ground and been mistaken for strafing fire^[18]. The Americans continued the bombing on February 15 dropping 466 tons of bombs. During these four raids a total of around 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped.

The firebombing consisted of by-then standard methods; dropping large amounts of high-explosive to blow off the roofs to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining firestorm with temperatures peaking at over 1500 °C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.

After the main firebombing campaign between 13th and 15th, there were two further raids on the Dresden railway yards by the USAAF. The first was on March 2 by 406 B-17s which dropped 940 tons of high-explosive bombs and 141 tons of incendiaries. The second was on April 17 when 580 B-17s dropped 1,554 tons of high-explosive bombs and 165 tons of incendiaries.^[19]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The attacks", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki