'\A' I• ... ~ •.. ..I • .. ,, .~ v~ I ,.. .. ' June 27, 1978 .. ' Dear George: The presence at the National GaJle~y of the Dresden exhibit has prompted several friends to ask me why the United States Air Force bombed Dresden near the end of ' ' the war. I was Chief of Operations Intelligence for Tooey Spaatz at that time. Day to day operations were "laid on" by the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, as you will remember. But any change from target priori ties that been agreed upon, were cleared in advance with our '. headquarters. Although my intelligence section was not asked to express any views or take any part in the Dresden ..... operation, my distinct recollection is that Fred Anderson told me that the Soviet Union had requested it. At that time, the Soviet ground forces were moving rapidly from the east. I was told that the Germans were using the ,. marshaling yards at Dresden to assemble both troops and supplies. We had no target maps for Dresden, and this in .. itself confirms that there was no advance planning. On other occasions, I know that the Soviets requested - usually through Washington, as I understood it - that we attack certain targets. It was not until years after the war, that Soviet propaganda created the prevailing view that this was an atrocity for which the United States and Great Britian were solely responslble. , ; . ...!, . i'.t~ 'l ~ j, 2. ~ I got in touch ~ith Tooey Spaatz about this a years before he died. He responded that he knew of no ''· r: records that clarified this question. I would have thought that certainly a most thorough investigation would , have been made in light of Soviet propaganda. I wonder whether you have any information on this subject, or could tell me where such information can be obtained. General George S. Brown Quarters 6 Fort Meyer, Virginia 22211 bee: JU\. 11 1978 IRA C. EAKER 1612 K STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON, D.O. 20006 881-1280 July 11, 1978 Dear Justice Powell: General George Brown has asked me to respond to your letter to him of June 27, 1978, respecting the bombing of Dresden. In doing so, I believe George was mindful of the fact that I have written on this subject during past years on several occasions. Enclosed are two accounts or reactions to the Dresden bombing episode: One is my foreword prepared at General Nathan Twining's request, to David Irving's book, "The Destruction of Dresden." The second enclosure is a definitive researched article by Melden E. Smith, Jr. entitled: "Dresden Revisited: New Perspectives on a Lingering Controversy." The facts, as I know them, can be summa­ rized as follows: a. There is no question but that Russian leadership indicated on several occasions that it would be most helpful to their advance into Germany if Britis~ and American heavy bombers would hit Dresden. When I went to Russia on the first Shuttle Bombing Mission Marshal Novikoff, head of the Red Air Force, made this suggestion to me, in­ dicating that Dresden was the principal logistic and communication center supporting the German defense against Marshal Zukov's advance. Later, when General Fred Anderson led the second Shuttle Bombing raid from the UK landing at the same Poltava base I had used on the first mission, he was again asked if it would be possible to hit Dresden on the way home. Both Anderson and I communicated these requests to General Spaatz and they were passed on to the combined Chiefs of Staff. At Yalta, a senior Russian general on Stalin's staff made the request that Dresden be considered for early attack by the strategic bombers, since as a rail and supply center it was a vital part of the German defenses on the Eastern Front. ·"' Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. July 11, 1978 Page 2 b. Apparently, for propaganda purposes, post-war, Russia has denied any connection with the bombing of Dresden and even labeled it entirely as a British and American "atrocity." c. Melden E. Smith, in his account, en­ closed, presented accurately the positions taken by all the senior Allied air commanders. My own statement in the preface to Irving's book, states my attitude clearly. ' It is regretable that British and American historians have too often joined the Russians in rewriting the history of the air campaigns in World War II. If you have any further questions regard­ ing Dresden, I shall be happy to supply the answers in-so-far as I know them. Sincerely, (Ret.) Mr. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Supreme Court of the United States Washington, D. C. 20543 "Dresden Revisited: New Perspecti ves .. ~ on a Lingering Controversy" MELDEN E. SMITH, JR. presented before The 1978 Missouri Valley History Conference After thirty-three years, the bombing of Dresden in mid-February 1945 remains the most controversial air attack of the Second World War in Europe. Much has been written about Dresden's wartime fate and how it came about. The legend of Dresden has not only been sustained through serious historical accounts, but has also been perpetuated by novels and plays. Perhaps, most prominently, the bombing of Dresden has not only been invoked by many as a serious indictment of aerial bombing as a method of waging warfare, but also as an indictment of the most senior British and American air commanders responsible for the prosecution of the air campaign against Germany. As Forrest C. Pogue wrote recently, "In the years since, the city has become a symbol of Allied brutality and mindless destruction." What actually occurred? Briefly, during the night of 13/14 February 1945, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command attacked Dresden in two waves approximately three hours apart with 2J4 four-engined Lancaster bombers in the first wave and 5J8 of the same type of aircraft in the second wave. Just past noon on the 14th, Jll American Eighth Air Force B-17's appeared over the city to unload their bombs. Yet, by the time the second wave of RAF Lancasters_ , appeared over the city the previous night, Dresden was already in the grips of a firestorm. Not discriminating in their allegations regarding the motives of so many other nighttime or daytime bombing attacks over Germany, the German propaganda network immediately called the triple blow against Dresden a "terror attack." Because of the intense devastation caused by these attacks, especially the two-wave RAF assault, this allegation appeared to be credible. -2- After the passage of a third of a century, is this characterization either fair or valid? Further, why has the' bombing of Dresden been singled out from many other destructive bombing attacks during the course of the long bomber offensive against Germany? The reasons are complex but understandable. By this time additional evidence is available, but, in my opinion, it needs to be rearranged and re-examined and a new synthesis needs to be constructed placing this wartime episode more correctly in its context in the Second World War. First, the bombing of Dresden occurred during the final three months of the strategic bombing offensive against Europe. This part of the bombing campaign has been ·the most controversial period in the minds of historians of the Second World War and the period when the strategy and the motives of senior air commanders have come under severest questioning. David Macisaac has written that it was the period when, the American air forces drifted away from their intended precision attack, and came to meld their efforts with those of RAF Bomber Command in an effort to club Germany into surrender. , The earlier hopes of the summer and early fall of 1944 that ttie war in Europe might be over by the end of that year had faded in the West and, indeed, appeared to be shockingly reversed with the sudden, forceful German attack in the Ardennes. Frustrated on the ground, the Allied command now had the bombers the air commanders lacked throughout the earlier years of the bombing offensive. 7 Obviously, there was great pressure from the highest political and military levels upon this assembled bo~ber armada and its commanders to redress the frustrating military situation confronting the ground forces. In this light, it would have been unthinkable not to use this tremendous air power whenever possible. As General Carl Spaatz, the senior American airman in Europe, wrote to his chief in Washington, General H. H. Arnold, in October 1944, "It may still be possible to beat up the insides of Germany enough by air action to cause her to collapse next spring, particularly if the Russians continue pressure against the eastern area." At this same time, anyone familiar with the weather patterns over Western Europe from October through March would realize that conditions for more precise visual bombing attacks would be very bad. Yet, and I think this was easily justifiable, the pressure of the air offensive should not have slackened even if less precise pathfinder or radar bombing methods had to be employed. Actually, under these operational conditions, there seemed to be little difference to those on the ground between British and American methods of bombing. Yet, by early April, the strategic situation had changed completely. The Rhine had been crossed and German resistance on the ground ha? , essentially collapsed and the bombing offensive was terminated. Because Dresden received such a concentrated attack so late in the war, so close to this sudden German military collapse, it has naturally caused many to question its necessity. Both political and military appreciations were changing dramatically by the middle of March as the Third Reich disintegrated.