Dresden Read Free

of any kind. The inferno was growing fiercer and noisier by the minute, but even so, above the noise I could hear the pulsating throb of hundreds of heavy aircraft bearing down on us. There was no need for flares to lead these bombers to their target, the whole city had become a gigantic torch and must have been visible to the pilots from a hundred miles away. The people around me started to gather in small bunches as if to shield each other from the onslaught. Dresden had no defences, no anti-aircraft guns, no seachlights, nothing. The planes were thousands of feet up but even so it was possible to make out their outlines reflected in the glow of the flames.
    As the bombs struck the ground we realised that this second raid had nothing in common with the first raid. The new bombs were were so big that it was possible to see them falling through the air. Even the incendiaries were of a different type. Instead of the smallish metre-long sticks that had dropped the first raid, we were now subjected to huge four ton objects that hit the ground and exploded so that a ball of fire blossomed from the point of impact incinerating anything, man-made or human, within a radius of nearly two hundred feet. Raining down with this terror came the blockbusters, thin walled ten ton missiles that demolished whole blocks of buildings in one explosion.
    Only five hundred yards of open land separated us from the heart of the first raid on the old part of the city and yet not one bomb landed on us. We laid our bodies down in submission to the slaughter we all sensed was coming. We could feel the terrible heat, our bodies shook as the ground vibrated with the impact as these enormous bombs hit the ground sending great clouds of debris up into the heavens above. As if this was not enough, another terror was making its presence felt.
    It wasn’t really what you could call a wind or even a gale, the air that was being drawn in from the outside to feed the inferno was like a solid object, so great was its force. The women were clutching onto the men sensing the danger of being sucked across the open ground into the centre of the enormous bonfire, that had once been the centre of Dresden. Further along the line the station was engulfed. I am not certain that this was the main Railway Station of Dresden but it was a station of sorts. I never got near it, so I cannot say.
    It had a centre arch, we could all see, which suddenly collapsed and still not one bomb had landed on the lines leading into the city. As if it was a great car park in the sky, the heavens were full of airplanes. As they approached we could hear and see the bombs falling, dropping their loads of death and destruction. On the ground me and my companions were all helpless.
    The second raid had been in progress for about a quarter of an hour when halfway between us and the station the ground erupted in huge clouds of smoke and flame. After the concussion came the enormous pull of the wind as air rushed in to replace the vacuum that had been caused by the blasts. It was a very testing time for those of us who could still maintain our composure. It was the officer who again stepped into the breach. He ordered us to move further down the line. In spite of the danger of staying where we were about half of the group, which now numbered about two hundred people, refused to move. We left them, there was nothing to be done for these people who were in a pitiless state, petrified with terror and unable to move their limbs.
    Not so our gallant leader, who I believe wanted to take us back into the furnace once the second wave of bombers had concluded their business.
Chapter Five

Aftermath
    After half an hour the second wave, much stronger than the first, started to thin out although there were still some stragglers. It was what was happening on the ground that made the difference. Everything was in full flame, everything that could burn was alight including a lot of stuff I thought could never