In 1941 Charles
Portal of the British Air Staff advocated that entire cities and
towns should be bombed. Portal claimed that this would quickly bring
about the collapse of civilian morale in Germany. Air Marshall Arthur
Harris agreed and when he became head of RAF Bomber Command in
February 1942, he introduced a policy of area
bombing (known in Germany as terror bombing) where entire cities
and towns were targeted.
One tactic used by the
Royal Air Force
and the United States Army Air Force was
the creation of firestorms. This was achieved
by dropping incendiary bombs, filled
with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or
petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target.
After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become
extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground
level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire. The most
notable examples of this tactic being used was in Hamburg
(August, 1943), Dresden (February, 1945)
and Tokyo (March 1945).
The creation of a firestorm
in Dresden
(1)
Alexander McKee, Dresden 1945: the Devil's Tinderbox (1982)
From a firestorm there is small chance of escape. Certain conditions
had to be present, such as the concentration of high buildings and
a concentration of bombers in time and space, which produced so many
huge fires so rapidly and so close together that the air above them
super-heated and drew the flames out explosively. On the enormous
scale of a large city, the roaring rush of heated air upwards developed
the characteristics and power of a tornado, strong enough to pick
up people and such them into the flames.
(2)
German report on the firestorm in Hamburg
on 24th July, 1943.
Coal and coke supplies stored for the winter in many houses caught
fire and could only be extinguished weeks later. Essential services
were severely damaged and telephone services were cut early in the
attack. Dockyards and industrial installations were severely hit.
At mid-day next day there was still a gigantic, dense cloud of smoke
and dust hovering over the city which, despite the clear sky, prevented
the sun from penetrating through. Despite employment of all available
force, big fires could not be prevented from flaring up again and
again.
The alternative dropping
of block busters (4000 Ib. highcapacity bombs) high explosives, and
incendiaries, made fire-fighting impossible, small fires united into
conflagrations in the shortest time and these in turn led to the fire
storms. To comprehend these one can only analyse them from a physical,
meteorological angle. Through the union of a number of fires, the
air gets so hot that on account of its decreasing specific weight,
it receives a terrific momentum, which in its turn causes other surrounding
air to be sucked towards the centre. By that suction, combined with
the enormous difference in temperature (600-1000 degrees centigrade)
tempests are caused which go beyond their meteorological counterparts
(20-30 centigrades). In a built-up area the suction could not follow
its shortest course, but the overheated air stormed through the street
with immense force taking along not only sparks but burning timber
and roof beams, so spreading the fire farther and farther, developing
in a short time into a fire typhoon such as was never before witnessed,
against which every human resistance was quite useless.
(3)
Major-General Kehrl, report on the firestorm in Hamburg
in August, 1943.
Before half an hour had passed, the districts upon which the weight
of the attack fell were transformed into a lake of fire covering an
area of twenty-two square kilometres. The effect of this was to heat
the air to a temperature which at times was estimated to approach
1,000 degrees centigrade. A vast suction was in this way created so
that the air "stormed through the streets with immense force,
bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the
fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had
never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance
was powerless." Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted,
human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames
by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens
knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive
bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated
by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as
though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what
each shelter proved to be.
(4)
Adolf Galland, The First and the Last
(1970)
A wave of terror radiated from the suffering city and spread through
Germany. Appalling details of the great fire was recounted. A stream
of haggard, terrified refugees flowed into the neighbouring provinces.
In every large town people said: "What happened to Hamburg yesterday
can happen to us tomorrow". After Hamburg in the wide circle
of the political and the military command could be heard the words:
"The war is lost".
(5)
Wilhelm Johnen, was a Luftwaffe
pilot who attempted to protect Hamburg in August
1943.
A few days later we heard
further details of the agony of this badly hit city. The raging fires
in a high wind caused terrific damage and the grievous loss of human
life out-stripped any previous raids. All attempts to extinguish them
proved fruitless and technically impossible. The fires spread unhindered,
causing fiery storms which reached heats of 1,000°, and speeds
approaching gale force. The narrow streets of Hamburg with their countless
backyards were favourable to the flames and there was no escape. As
the
result of a dense carpet bombing, large areas of the city had been
transformed into a single sea of flame within half an hour. Thousands
of small fires joined up to become a giant conflagration. The fiery
wind tore the roofs from the houses, uprooted large trees and flung
them into the air like blazing torches.
The inhabitants took refuge
in the air-raid shelters, in which later they were burned to death
or suffocated. In the early morning, thousands of blackened corpses
could be seen in the burned-out streets. In Hamburg now one thought
was uppermost in every mind to leave the city and abandon the battlefield.
During the
following nights, until 3rd August 1943, the British returned and
dropped on the almost defenceless city about 3,000 block-busters,
1,200 land-mines, 25,000 H.E., 3,000,000 incendiaries, 80,000 phosphorus
bombs and 500 phosphorus drums; 40,000 men were killed, a further
40,000 wounded and 900,000 were homeless or missing. This devastating
raid on Hamburg had the effect of a red light on all the big German
cities and on the whole German people. Everyone felt it was now high
time to capitulate before any further damage was done. But the High
Command insisted that the 'total war' should proceed. Hamburg was
merely the first link in a long chain of pitiless air attacks made
by the Allies on the German civilian population.
(6)
Margaret Freyer was living in Dresden
during the firestorm created on 13th February, 1945.
The firestorm is incredible, there are calls for help and screams
from somewhere but all around is one single inferno.
To my left I suddenly see
a woman. I can see her to this day and shall never forget it. She
carries a bundle in her arms. It is a baby. She runs, she falls, and
the child flies in an arc into the fire.
Suddenly, I saw people
again, right in front of me. They scream and gesticulate with their
hands, and then - to my utter horror and amazement - I see how one
after the other they simply seem to let themselves drop to the ground.
(Today I know that these unfortunate people were the victims of lack
of oxygen). They fainted and then burnt to cinders.
Insane fear grips me and
from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously:
"I don't want to burn to death". I do not know how many
people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn.
(7)
Otto
Sailer-Jackson was a keeper at Dresden Zoo on
13th
February, 1945.
The elephants gave spine-chilling
screams. The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat
on her back, her legs up in the sky. She had suffered severe stomach
injuries and could not move. A 90 cwt. cow elephant had been flung
clear across the barrier moat and the fence by some terrific blast
wave, and stood there trembling. I had no choice but to leave these
animals to their fate.
I had known for one hour
now that the most difficult task could ever bring was facing me. "Lehmann,
we must get to the carnivores," I called. We did what we had
to do, but it broke my heart.
(8)
Members of the RAF bombing crews became increasingly
concerned about the morality of creating firestorms. Roy Akehurst
was a wireless operator who took part in the raid on Dresden.
It struck me at the time, the thought of the women and children down
there. We seemed to fly for hours over a sheet of fire - a terrific
red glow with thin haze over it. I found myself making comments to
the crew: "Oh God, those poor people." It was completely
uncalled for. You can't justify it.
(9)
Homer
Bigart, New
York Tribune (16th
August, 1945)
The radio tells us that
the war is over but
from where I sit it looks suspiciously like a rumor. A few minutes
ago - at 1:32 a.m. - we fire-bombed Kumagaya, a small industrial city
behind Tokyo near the northern edge of Kanto Plain. Peace was not
official for the Japanese either, for they shot right back at us.
Other fires are raging
at Isesaki, another city on the plain, and as we skirt the eastern
base of Fujiyama Lieutenant General James Doolittle's B-29s, flying
their first mission from the 8th Air Force base on Okinawa, arrive
to put the finishing touches on Kumagaya.
I rode in the City of Saco
(Maine), piloted by First Lieutenant Theodore J. Lamb, twenty-eight,
of 103-21 Lefferts Blvd, Richmond Hill, Queens, New York. Like all
the rest. Lamb's crew showed the strain of the last five days of the
uneasy "truce" that kept Superforts grounded.
They had thought the war
was over. They had passed most of the time around radios, hoping the
President would make it official. They did not see that it made much
difference whether Emperor Hirohito stayed in power. Had our propaganda
not portrayed him as a puppet? Well, then, we could use him just as
the war lords had done.
The 314th Bombardment Wing
was alerted yesterday morning. At 2:20 p.m., pilots, bombardiers,
navigators, radio men, and gunners trooped into the briefing shack
to learn that the war was still on. Their target was to be apathetically
small city of little obvious importance, and their commanding officer.
Colonel Carl R. Storrie, of Denton, Texas, was at pains to convince
them why Kumagaya, with a population of 49,000, had to be burned to
the ground.
There were component parts
factories of the Nakajima aircraft industry in the town, he said.
Moreover, it was an important railway center.
No one wants to die in
the closing moments of a war. The wing chaplain. Captain Benjamin
Schmidke, of Springfield, Mo., asked the men to pray, and then the
group commander jumped on the platform and cried: "This is the
last mission. Make it the best we ever ran."
Colonel Storrie was to
ride in one of the lead planes, dropping four 1,000-pound high explosives
in the hope that the defenders of the town would take cover in buildings
or underground and then be trapped by a box pattern of fire bombs
to be dumped by eighty planes directly behind.
"We've got 'em on
the one yard line. Let's push the ball over," the colonel exhorted
his men. "This should be the final knockout blow of the war.
Put your bombs on the target so that tomorrow the world will have
peace."
(10)
Studs
Terkel interviewed John
Ciardi of the USAAF
about his experiences
during the Second World War for his book, The
Good War (1985)
When we got to Saipan,
I was a gunner on a B-29. It seemed certain to me we were not going
to survive. We had to fly thirty-five missions. The average life of
a crew was something between six and eight missions. So you simply
took the extra pay, took the badges, took relief from dirty details.
On the night before a
mission, you reviewed the facts. You tried to
get some sleep. The army is very good at keeping you awake forever
before you have a long mission. Sleep wouldn't come to you.
You get to thinking by this time tomorrow you may have burned
to death. I used to have little routines for kidding myself: Forget
it, you died last week. You'd get some Dutch courage out of
that.
We were in the terrible
business of burning out Japanese towns. That meant women and old people,
children. One part of me - a surviving savage voice - says, I'm sorry
we left any of them living. I
wish we'd finished killing them all. Of course, as soon as rationality
overcomes the first
impulse, you say. Now, come on, this is the human race,
let's try to be civilized.
I had to condition myself
to be a killer. This was remote control. All we did was push buttons.
I didn't see anybody we killed. I saw the
fires we set. The first four and a half months was wasted effort.
We lost all those crews for nothing. We had been trained to do precision
high-altitude bombing from thirty-two thousand feet. It was all beautifully
planned, except we discovered the Siberian jet stream. The winds went
off all computed bomb tables. We began to get winds
at two hundred knots, and the bombs simply scattered all over Japan.
We were hitting nothing and losing planes.
Curtis LeMay came in and
changed the whole operation. He had been head of the Eighth Air Force
and was sent over to take on the Twentieth. That's the one I was in.
He changed tactics. He said. Go in at night from five thousand feet,
without gunners, just a couple of rear-end observers. We'll save weight
on the turrets and on ammunition. The Japanese have no fighter resistance
at night. They have no radar. We'll drop fire sticks.
I have some of my strike
photos at home. Tokyo looked like one leveled bed of ash. The only
things standing were some stone buildings. If you looked at the photos
carefully, you'd see that they were gutted. Some of the people jumped
into rivers to get away from these fire storms. They were packed in
so tight to get away from the fire, they suffocated. They were so
close to one another, they couldn't fall over. It must have been horrible.
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