I fell down a bit of a #wikipedia rabbit hole reading up on #Dresden after finishing #Slaughterhouse5 yesterday. I'd always assumed the #Firestorm was almost accidental, but they knew *exactly* what they were doing.

And they'd already practiced on #Hamburg.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

I consider myself well-informed and I know Hamburg well and now I wonder how I'd missed the ~37,000 people killed by allied bombers in 1943?
Many of the bodies were never identified.
In some cellars they could only work out how many had died by the quantity of ash on the floor.

Europe is a graveyard

If you want to read more about the ww2 firebombing of Hamburg this book provides a broad historical account. It includes accounts from both the victims as well as the soldiers in the planes.

"Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg, 1943" by Keith Lowe

@Ruth_Mottram

@Pepijn @Ruth_Mottram

@chronohh has just tooted about a mapping work of #Hamburg aerials of the time:
https://norden.social/users/chronohh/statuses/110609255055924626
https://mprove.de/chrono?m=NA204902932&o=0.9&d=1&s=1&c=-2,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,a