ZGram - 2/15/2004 cont'd. - "Terror bombing Part II"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

February 15, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Herewith Part II of TERROR BOMBING by Michael Walsh of England, 
documenting the destruction of German cities during World War II:

[START]

THE CHILDREN

"Of the children these dreadful nights, what can be said? Their 
fright became horror and then panic when their tiny minds became 
capable of grasping the fact that their parents could no longer help 
them in their distress. They lost their reason and an overwhelming 
terror took over. Their world had become the shrieking center of an 
erupting volcano from which there could be no physical escape. 
Nothing that hell offered could be feared more.

By the hand of man they became creatures, human in form but not in 
mind. Strangled noises hissed from them as they staggered pitifully 
through the streets in which tar and asphalt ran as streams. Some of 
these tiny creatures ran several hundred feet. Others managed only 
twenty, maybe ten feet. Their shoes caught fire and then their feet. 
The lower parts of their legs became flickering sticks of flame. Here 
were Joans of Arcs, thousands of them. All who had perished unjustly 
on the fires of the Middle Ages were as nothing when compared with 
what was happening that night.

The sounds of many were unintelligible and undoubtedly many more 
called for their parents from whom they were parted by death or by 
accident. They grasped their tortured limbs, their tiny burning legs 
until they were no longer able to stand or run. And then they would 
crash to the ground where they would writhe in the bubbling tar until 
death released them from their physical misery." Such was the 
description provided by Martin Caidin

A FLIGHT CREW MEMBER REMINISCES

"It was murder in the city. I knew that the firestorms that came 
later were terrible, and unlike anything that ever happened. But the 
fires in the city were as bad as anything I'd ever seen in the war so 
far - and I had been on a goodly portion of the major attacks.

A few of the Lancs (Lancaster bombers of Bomber Command) got caught 
in the flue of superheated air as they passed over the city at 16,000 
feet, and it was as if they were nothing more than wood chips in a 
storm at sea. They were thrown about by the heat and even flipped 
over on their backs. Everything sort of went to hell until the Lancs 
managed to get free of the severe turbulence. We howled with glee as 
we listened in on the Jerry wireless and heard them going crazy," 
admitted a pilot of RAF Bomber Command

PHOSPHOROUS - THE OUTLAWED TERROR WEAPON

The use of phosphorous bombs, by the British government on raids 
against Germany, was outlawed under international law because its use 
has no other purpose than to strike terror in its means of causing 
death and injury. It is a napalm-like chemical which when alight 
cannot be extinguished:

America's Life Magazine (19 June 1944) described its effects: "The 
shower of molten burning particles that sprays up from a phosphorous 
shell burst sears its victims with agonized burns. Used against pill 
boxes, the flame not only burns occupants, but also suffocates them."

One again assumes that Britain's premier broadcasting network will 
drop all reference to the use of phosphorous just as indiscriminately.

The exploding phosphorous bombs sprayed their contents 
indiscriminately and clothing caught fire and had to be torn free 
from the body quickly otherwise the wearer would suffer terrible 
nightmarish burns. When the liquid splattered on to people's hair, 
the victim was doomed. There was no chance to cut off the hair. The 
chemical globules, like a burning jelly, burned fiercely setting 
aflame the entire head and indeed, the head itself burned.

EVEN THE MYTHICAL GAS CHAMBERS WOULD HAVE BEEN PREFERABLE

These terrified and pain-wracked people were seen to leap about in a 
frenzy, dashing their heads against the ground in blind panic - 
anything to douse the flames.

One can extinguish an ordinary fire by smothering it with clothes but 
such methods are useless against phosphorous. It continued to burn 
and set afire any material that was thrown over it. Such people in 
these circumstances could only be left to their sad fate amidst the 
terrifying background glow of the streets in flames.

They writhed in the rubble-strewn roads with their bodies partially 
ablaze. Others were nearer to the River Alster and dozens of these 
shrieking demented souls, trailing tongues of flaming smoke and fire, 
dashed madly to the water to fling themselves into the lifesaving 
liquid. Men, women and children too, ran hysterically, falling and 
stumbling, getting up, tripping and falling again, rolling over and 
over. Most of them managed to regain their feet and made it to the 
water. But many of them never made it and were left behind, their 
feet drumming in blinding pain on the overheated pavements amidst the 
rubble, until there came one last convulsing shudder from the smoking 
'thing' on the ground, and then no further movement.

THE GRIMMEST DEATH CHOICE

Those who made it to the water found the safety they had sought so 
desperately - but incredibly, some faced a choice that stuns the mind 
with horror. Water prevents phosphorous jelly from burning because it 
denies the chemical the one thing it needs to burn; oxygen. Those 
with the blazing chemical on their arms, legs and their bodies were 
able to douse the flames by submerging the burning areas. But many 
had the blazing phosphorous jelly on their faces and heads. Certainly 
the spluttering chemicals went out as the victims ducked their heads 
beneath the water, but the moment they brought their heads up again 
to break the surface and take a breath of air, the phosphorous burst 
into flames again immediately. And so the victims were faced with the 
choice. Death by drowning or death by burning; men, women and 
children. While others watched sick and despairingly, the victims of 
phosphorous on faces and heads thrashed wildly in the brackish 
waters, screaming with pain and frustration. Spluttering and choking, 
they alternatively burned or drowned.

The American scientist and expert Martin Caidin spent many years 
trying to get details on the use of phosphorous by both the allies, 
and in his own words he has 'met with less than the success required 
by the historian to include the episode in a documentary book.' He 
noted:

"Perhaps the solution to the total absence of any reference in 
official (post war) German documents is explained in the story told 
to me by a U.S. Army officer, who learned that portions of the 
documents on the after effects of the Hamburg attacks were ordered to 
be destroyed, and that all reference to the surviving victims of 
phosphorous bombs stricken forever from the records."

A copy of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey does however concede that 
"Phosphorous burns were not infrequent." An a 'British source' (The 
Night Hamburg Died, Martin Caidin) added: "Phosphorous was used 
"because of its demonstrated ability to depress the morale of the 
Germans."

GENOCIDE FROM THE AIR

The distinguished American journalist Henry T. Gorrell gave a searing 
account of the storm of fire unleashed upon beleaguered German 
countryside: "A cataclysmic blast of exploding, splintering steel 
rent the earth before us and it seemed like the world was coming to 
an end. The Americans were blasting out a path for a forward drive

Man and beast shuddered in their tracks. Whole towns were 
disintegrating. Life seemed to disappear from the scene. It was the 
most terrifying destructive force of warfare Germany has ever seen.

".... and for an hour and a half more than 2,000 bombers and hundreds 
of guns pounded the German countryside, making the earth dance before 
this mighty man-made force... minefields went up as though touched by 
an electric switch. Near the end we were using 11-tonners (bombs) 
which crews said caused their bombers to bounce up over 500 feet when 
the huge 25-foot missiles were released," reported the Chicago Daily 
News on November17th1944.

United States General Bradley gloated to the Associated Press over a 
month after the war's end: (June 11 1945) "I can tell you that 
Germany has been destroyed utterly and completely." The notoriously 
evil German-hating General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the same review 
observed smugly, "I just wouldn't know where to begin to rebuild 
Berlin."

Eddie Gilmore of the Associated Press based in Berlin on June 9 1945 
said: "The capital of the Third Reich is a heap of gaunt, burned-out, 
flame-seared buildings. It is a desert of a hundred thousand dunes 
made up of brick and powdered masonry. Over this hangs the pungent 
stench of death. It is impossible to exaggerate in describing the 
destruction. Down town Berlin look as like nothing man could have 
contrived. Driving down the famous Frankfurt Alee, I did not see a 
single building where you could have set up as business of even 
selling apples."

CHURCHILL'S JEW GIVES A SURPRISING ANALYSIS

Professor Frederick Lindemann, the Chief Advisor to Winston Churchill 
and the inspiration and architect of the air crucifixion of Germany 
was in a reflective mood after the war.

"Towards the end of his life the Prof.' (Lindemann) made a remark on 
more than one occasion with such an air of seriousness that he seemed 
to regard it as his testament of wisdom, and I accordingly feel it 
incumbent upon me to record it here, although not in perfect sympathy 
with it.

'Do you know,' he asked, 'what the future historians will regard as 
the most important event of this age?"' Well, what is it? 'It will 
not be Hitler and the Second World War, it will not be the release of 
nuclear energy, it will not be the menace of Communism.' These 
negatives seemed very comprehensive. He put on an expression of 
extreme severity and turned down the corners of his lips. 'It will be 
the abdication of the White man.' Then he nodded his head up and down 
several times to drive home his proposition." (19)

GERMAN AND BRITISH LOSSES

The RAF and USAF terror bombing offensive cost not only the lives of 
over a million German civilians and brought about the total 
destruction of many of Europe's finest and most historical cities. 
For Britain alone it also cost the lives of 58,888 RAF aircrew, 
nearly the same number of British junior officers during the First 
World War. The great irony of this historical blunder is that it had 
the opposite effect. German morale rose, as did production.

"This lesson was lost on the British Air Force," admitted British 
General J.F.C Fuller, "which continued to hold that'strategic 
bombing' was the all and end all of air power. This fallacy not only 
prolonged the war, but went far to render the 'peace' which followed 
it unprofitable to Britain and disastrous to the world in general."

He afterwards surmised: "In effect, there is no doubt that in 
ordering the destruction of large enemy cities, which represented an 
important part of the very basis of European culture and 
civilisation, the Allied political leaders have incurred a dire 
responsibility before the bar of history." (20)

WORLD CONDEMNATION

Condemnation of England's (and America's) bombing strategy straddled 
the world. Major General H. Bratt, Royal Swedish Army said, "Even the 
senseless and highly culture-destroying terror acts, against for 
example, Lubeck and Dresden, carried out by the Allied pilots, should 
have been investigated and brought before a proper court of justice." 
(21)

Hon. Lydio Machado Bandeira de Mello, Dr. Juris. Brazilian Professor 
of Criminal Law; author of more than 40 works on law/philosophy spoke 
for thousands of world figures.

"A nation which spreads over another a sheet of inevitably deadly 
gases or eradicates entire cities from the earth by the explosion of 
atomic bombs, does not have the right to judge anyone for war crimes; 
it has already committed the greatest atrocity, equal to no other 
atrocity; it has killed - amidst unspeakable torments - hundreds of 
thousands of innocent people."

"As for crimes against humanity, those governments which ordered the 
destruction of German cities, thereby destroying irreplaceable 
cultural values and making burning torches out of women and children, 
should also have stood before the bar of justice," added Hon Jaan 
Lattik, the Estonian statesman, diplomat and historian. (22)

THE WORK OF 'SAVAGES' SAYS U.S. EXPERT DEATH TOLL PUT AT TWO MILLION


"It was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the so-called 
strategic air forces during the Second World War which culminated in 
the destruction of Dresden (a wholly non-military objective) in 
February, 1945, that completely pulverized the code of civilized 
warfare and returned the treatment of military opponents and 
civilians to the level of the primary warfare that had prevailed 
among the savages, the Assyrians, and the medieval Mongols. On the 
basis of the most authoritative British sources, Mr. Veale 
demonstrates clearly that it was the British and not the Nazis who 
introduced indiscriminate strategic bombing, despite the efforts of 
Hitler to avert this reversion to barbaric practices." (23)

America's leading revisionist went on to say: "There are no final 
figures on the number of civilians killed as a result of the 
mass-bombing, but 2,000,000 would be a very restrained figure 
(estimate)."

"Kassel suffered over 300 air raids, some carrying waves of 1,000 
bombers; British by night, American by day. When on April 4th 1945, 
the city surrendered, of a population of 250,000, just 15,000 were 
left alive," reported Jack Bell, Chicago Daily News Foreign Service, 
Kassel. (May 15th 1946).

Douglas Botting the writer and journalist agreed. "Countless smaller 
towns and villages had been razed to the ground or turned into ghost 
towns - like Wiener Neustadt in Austria, which emerged from the air 
raids and the street fighting with only eighteen houses intact and 
its population reduced from 45,000 to 860." (24)

THE REAL HEROES

"One closes these volumes feeling, uneasily, that the true heroes of 
the story they tell are neither the contending air marshals, nor even 
the 58,888 officers and men of Bomber Command who were killed in 
action. They were the inhabitants of the German cities under attack; 
the men, women and children who stoically endured and worked on among 
the flaming ruins of their homes and factories, up till the moment 
when the allied armies overran them."

- London Times reviewer on the British Official History of the 
Strategic Air Offensive.

EVEN THE APOLOGISTS FEEL SHAME

The following comment is made by Dr. Christopher C. Harmon, former 
Foreign Policy Advisor to a member of the House Armed Services 
Committee who served since 1988 as an associate professor of strategy 
at the Naval War College. As a notorious apologist for Churchill's 
policy of 'area bombing' Europe his conclusion carries even greater 
weight than that of the critics of allied bombing policy:

"The end-of-war review of the strategic air campaign by the British 
Bombing Survey Unit makes no mention of Dresden, later the 'bloody 
shirt' waved by critics who thought the strategy a national shame. 
Nor is there any reference to questions of the legitimacy of the 
strategy used since 1942, which so contravened the customs of war.

A sense of national embarrassment about the dark side of a 'virtuous 
war' may be the explanation for the British Bombing Survey Unit's 
silence. Such a sentiment may account for the disdain in which 
'Bomber Harris' was sometimes later held. Perhaps it even explains 
the near silence about area bombing in the six-volume war history by 
Winston Churchill."

- Are We Beasts? Churchill and the Moral Question of World War 11 
'Area Bombing' Christopher C. Harmon, Naval War College Newport, 
Rhode Island. USA

IN REMEMBRANCE OF OTHER SILENCED CITIES

Berlin, Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, 
Dusseldorf, Hanover, Bremen, Wuppertal, Vienna, Duisburg. Munich, 
Magdeburg, Leipzig, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Kiel, Gelsdenkirchen, 
Bochum, Aachen, Wurzburg, Darmstadt, Krefeld, Munster, Munchen 
Gladbach,, Braunschweig, Ludwishafen, Remscheid, Pforzheim, 
Osnabruck, Mainz, Bielefeld, Gieben, Duren, Solingen, Wilhelmshafen, 
Karlsruhe, Oberhausen, Heilbronn, Augsburg, Hamm, Knittelfeld, 
Luneburg, Cuxhaven, Kulmback, Hagen, Saarbrucken, Freiburg, Graz, 
Koblenz, Ulm, Bonn, Bremmenhaven, Wanne-Eickel, Woms, Lubeck, 
Schweinfurt, Kleve, Wiener Neustadt, Wiesbaden, Paderborn, Bocholt, 
Hanau, Hildesheim, Emden, Siegen, Pirmasons, Hale, Bayreuth, 
Kreuznach, Witten, Aschaffenburg, Kaiserlautern, Gladbeck, Dorsten, 
Innsbruck, Neumunster, Linz, Klagenfurt, Reutlingen, Recklinghausen, 
Reuel, Regensburg, Homberg, Elmshorn, Wetzler, Vilach, Hamelin, 
Konigsburg, Moers, Passau, Solbad Hall I.T, Coburg, Attnang-Puchheim, 
Friedsrichhafen, Frankfurt-Oder, Danzig, Bozen, Chemnitz, Rostock, 
Schwerte, Plauen, Rome, Bad Kreuznach, Neapel, Genoa, Mailand, Turin. 
Also many Norwegian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch, French, Hungarian, 
Romanian and other countries cities.

Note: Martin Caidin, heavily quoted in 'A Most Uncivilised Means of 
Warfare' is one of the world's leading authorities on 
military-science subjects, with a world-wide reputation as an expert 
in fields that cover military and civilian aviation, rockets and 
missiles, astronautics, and the effects of conventional and nuclear 
weapons.

He is a foremost authority on atomic warfare and his research 
findings are referred to throughout the world. Positions held include 
Atomic Warfare Specialist, N.Y. State Civil Defence Commission, 
Intelligence and Public Information, U.S. 5th Air Force, Consultant 
to the Commander of the U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center. He is the 
author of over 20 books, has worked at Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air 
Force Base, and is the winner of the James J. Strebig Memorial 
Trophy, awarded by the Aviation Writers Association.
Index

1. B. Liddell Hart. The Evolution of Warfare. Baber & Faber, 1946, p.75

2. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

3. 14th September 1939, Neville Chamberlain, House of Commons

4. Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale. Mitre Press, London.

5. The Great War. Vol.3 P1602


6. Bombing Vindicated, p.47.,


7. F.J.P Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p.172

8. The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany. (H.M Stationery 
Office, London, 1961.

9. Bombing Vindicated. J.M. Spaight, CB., CBE., Principal Secretary 
to the Air Ministry

10. New York Times, January 10th 1946

11. Dennis Richards, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945; The Fight at 
Odds. H.M Stationery Office

12. Advance to Barbarism, P.168. Mitre Press, London. F.J.P Veale, 
British Jurist

13. Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale, British Author and Jurist

14. Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale, British Author and Jurist

15. Winston Churchill to Chief of Air Staff, Sir. Charles Portal, 
March 28th1945

16. Personal Experiences, Lord Casey. Constable. London, 1962

17. A. Williams, Nottingham; The Observer, August,8th,1984

18. Unconditional Hatred, Captain Russell Grenfell, Royal Navy. 
Devin-Adair Company, N.Y. 1958

19. 'The Prof'.R.F Harrod, McMillan, 1959. Page 261/2. A biography of 
F.A Lindemann (Lord Cherwell), Chief Scientific Advisor to Winston 
Churchill.

20. General J.F.C Fuller, The Second World War, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948

21. Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Reappraisal. Amber Publishing Co. N.Y

22. Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Reappraisal. Amber Publishing Co. N.Y

23. Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D. American historian

Bibliography

Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale. Mitre Press, London.

The Night Hamburg Died. Martin Caidin. Ballantine Books, New York. 1960.

Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Reappraisal. Amber Publishing Co. N.Y

Unconditional Hatred, Captain Russell Grenfell, R.N. Davin-Adair 
Company, N.Y. 1958.

For Those Who Cannot Speak, Michael McLaughlin. Historcal Review 
Press, Brighton, UK

Death of a City, Michael McLaughlin. Historcal Review Press, Brighton, UK

History of the Second World War, Captain B.H Liddell Hart, Cassell, London.

[END]

Source : http://www.ety.com/HRP/rev/terrorbombing.htm