Part 2 (Sebastion Cox - The Dresden Raids: Why and How)

       Sebastion Cox's chapter deals, unsurprisingly, with why Dresden was bombed and how it was bombed. At 44 pages it is the largest chapter of the book and is exclusively the content and context of the Dresden bombing. Cox offers interesting insights into the context raid, describing the gloomy atmosphere of the Allied High Command at the time and potential reasons why.
       "....the heady hopes of optimism of the previous summer had been replaced by a distinctly chill air of pessimism. This pessimism was the result of the failure of the Arnhem airborne landings (Operation Garden Market) and the subsequent ability of the German Army to deliver a further temporary, if at the time deeply worrying, reverse to the Allies during the Ardennes offensive. These events suggested strongly that the German capacity for resistance was as yet very far from being overcome." (page 19)
       Once again the thinking of victory in Berlin by Christmas had cursed the allies, who had to face the harsh reality of the Wehrmact's continued defiance despite the inevitability of defeat. The notion that the war was to soon end in Europe is dispelled by Cox, the Ardennes offensive exasperated the frailty of Allied High Command's hope in a quick victory. To place things in retrospect as to the seemingly daunting task ahead of the Allies, Germany would continue to battle the Allies across Germany for another blood-soaked 85 days after Dresden was bombed.
       The Ardennes Offensive highlighted the seemingly insecure hold the Allies had on the German border. In reality the Ardennes destroyed what was left of the offensive capabilities of the German Army, though this was unknown to the Allis at the time.
       Other reasons, as stated by Cox, exist in perpetuating the negative atmosphere of the Upper Echelons of the Allied Command hierarchy.
       "Major-General Frederick Anderson, USSTAF's Deputy Commander Operations, delivered a harangue on the grave danger the jet fighter posed, and postulated a German strength of 500-700 serviceable jet aircraft by June 1945. At the same time the threat posed by the V-2 rockets had not been neutralised, a renewed maritime threat, in the form of schnorkel-equipped submarines had arisen............ In this more downbeat atmosphere after the Ardennes it seemed possible that both air and naval supremacy might yet be challenged by German technological ingenuity." (page 20)
       Cox is making the excellent point that Allied commanders were further depressed by the apparent inexhaustible depths of German military engineering. With the German military possibly rising from its grave to inflict renewed defeats on the Allied forces the continuation of the aerial bombing campaign can seem very reasonable.
       In light of these contextual evidence, the implementation of Operation "Thunderclap" can be seen as a reasonable, be it brutal, reaction to the German armies attempt to reverse the tide of the war. With the recommencing of the Russian offensive in the east attacking east German cities appeared to be targets too irresistible by Bomber Command.
       The question that is next to be raised further along in Cox's chapter is why Dresden was chosen as a target by the RAF.  Cox states this:
       "Dresden was ranked at number twenty in the list of the hundred German towns of leading economic importance to the German war effort......Thus, although Dresden was 80 percent larger than Chemnitz in terms of population, the latter's economic importance on this measure was ranked three places higher at seventeen." (page 54-55)
       So Cox is establishing that Dresden is a significant military target based on British Army Intelligence assessments. Ranked number twenty for economic importance, which was given in 1943 as stated early in the chapter by Cox (page 53) certainly implies that this report was not merely written amongst the frenzy of the final winter to give a legitimate, though fake, excuse for the attack.
       The mention of Dresden as 80 percent larger than Chemnitz, yet is ranked 3 places lower on the rankings is something to consider. Larger cities, as most bomber crews would testify, are significantly easier to bomb due to their size offering a better display on radar. So the desire of Bomber Command to bomb targets based on their economic qualities, rather than the fact that they are just a city, is key to showing the legitimacy of Dresden as a military target.
       However, as Cox explains, Dresden could have been misjudged in the regards of it's military and economic significance.
       ".....targets marked on the 1941 map target map are not necessarily those with most military value, but rather those which can be easily identified from aerial photographs: rail facilities, power stations, barracks and steel and chemical works. Just how inadequate the intelligence picture was is shown by the 1944 edition of the German army high command's handbook of manufacturers of weapons, munitions and equipment, which listed 127 factories in Dresden of sufficient importance to merit their own three-letter manufacturer's code." (page 55)
       So the 1943 report, which is based on the 1941 report, gives Dresden  lower ranking based on the intelligence available to the RAF, which fails to mention the 127 factories (which Cox has gotten from Frederick Taylor's researches) because of their obscurity from the air. Cox is pointing out these factors to promote the argument of Dresden's legitimacy as a target for aerial bombing.
       However one could still raise the issue of intentions, though this is none of my project's business the argument of unknown knowledge that over a hundred factories more than the British knew of can lead to the assumption of did the Allies bomb it on intelligence that portrayed it as a target of much less value.
       Cox also disproves the myth of the once off, cruel raid by saying,
"Despite claims to the contrary, the proportion of incendiaries carried as a percentage of the bomb-load was by no means unusual for a Bomber Command area raid." (page 31)
A perfect way to end this analysis with the busting of another myth of the Dresden bombing as a malicious blow to German culture by a vengeful Coalition of western interlopers.