Split Thread Bombing civilians in WWII / Morality of War

skeptichaggis

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This thread has been split from the Battle of Britain thread. As always in splitting threads, it may be that some posts have been moved which should have stayed in the original thread, and also that some posts have stayed in the original thread which should have been moved. Please let the mod team know if this is the case.
Posted By: Agatha




dudalb said:
Actually, the little ships taking the troops back to England is a myth. Where the Little Ships were invaluable were in taking troops from the beaches out to the bigger ships which transported them back to England.The real problem the had at Dunkirk was the docking facilaties,never very big, had been totally wrecked by the luftwaffe. The scenes they show in movies of a small yacht crowded with soldiers sailing into a British port simply seldom happened. THis it not take away credit from the volunteers with their boats, but just correcting a popular misconception.
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Your right,my grans older brother got on three boats,two got hit,one broke down. He got on a forth and made it to a destroyer and got home. It was the destroyers etc-as you point out-hat actually got them back. Actually, this morning a relative from Aberdeen was in,his older brother(he is in his 80s)survived Dunkirk as well. Ran slap bang into a fallschirmjagers bullet on Crete in 41 though so....
Quick afterword, Churchill actually sent the highland division to France after Dunkirk. The Valery disaster. Its only recently that serious criticism has been levelled at him for doing so. The whole division was pretty much lost. Schoolkids in Britain are never told that far more indians died between 1940-45 under Britain than did western Europeans under Nazi rule. Churchills response to the great Bengal famine was perfunctory at best and at worse could be called criminal. Of course most Indians died from corruption, neglect,and war prioritization and not executions.
Churchill was the right man in 1940 to take on the roll of national leader. I don't however agree with this airbrushing that goes on. He had many flaws and they should be acknowledged more openly. He was not at all nice-even brutal,but that should not be hidden just because some folk would get upset. All of his actions,good and bad,should be openly acknowledged.
 
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Is that now the verdict of history then? Churchill was a bastard and Britain was worse than the Nazis?
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
Is that now the verdict of history then? Churchill was a bastard and Britain was worse than the Nazis?
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My view is that Churchill was most certainly a scoundrel, but in Hitler he found an opponent who was by a wide margin a much greater scoundrel.

As to India; yes in Churchill's time famine devastated Bengal. But this is normal for empires. Conditions in Hitler's empire were vastly worse. Churchill didn't intend the death of these Bengalis. Hitler did intend the death of the Jews, Romani and others who were his victims.

There is no comparison. Churchill was a common or garden imperialist. Hitler was something much more monstrous than that.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Is that now the verdict of history then? Churchill was a bastard and Britain was worse than the Nazis?
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No history has always had the opinion he was the right man at the right time, but at the same time he was a real dick. And his record of dickness stretches well before WW2.
 
MG1962 said:
No history has always had the opinion he was the right man at the right time, but at the same time he was a real dick. And his record of dickness stretches well before WW2.
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Is this the right moment to mention Churchill's opinion on using gas in Mesopotamia?
 
Craig B said:
My view is that Churchill was most certainly a scoundrel, but in Hitler he found an opponent who was by a wide margin a much greater scoundrel.
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I think it is a matter of context. For a functional Western Democracy Churchill was pretty much a low life. In terms of evil meglomaniac Churchill was way to nice a guy to make the list
 
ddt said:
Is this the right moment to mention Churchill's opinion on using gas in Mesopotamia?
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But to be fair to him there, his actual comment was he felt tear gas (if it could do the job required) was a better option than something leathal
 
MG1962 said:
No history has always had the opinion he was the right man at the right time, but at the same time he was a real dick. And his record of dickness stretches well before WW2.
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Thank you. As I said Churchill was the right man to face up to the Nazis in 1940. Churchill was racist,arrogant, a terrible tactician who constantly meddled with people like wavell-then blamed them for taking his advice. He was hit and miss,his support of striking through Italy was a plus,the way he went about it was a con.
He was almost solely responsible for the task force z disaster and gave the go ahead for Dieppe even after being told its chances were literly nil.
He also put his foot down and refused to so much as negotiate with the Nazis. This encouraged the conquered to resist,the wavering to stiffen and a particular american president to move a little more from isolationism. Yes,there were other factors for all these things but Churchill deserves real credit.
As a military stratagist he sucked,nevertheless on hearing of pearl harbor he said"that's it,we've won"knowing american might would win out in the end.
The fact that he turned out to be one of the saviors of western democracy can not excuse the horrific death toll under his empires"benign"rule,he was in charge-he is responsible. Excusing him for the good he did would be like excusing a serial child killing pediatrician on the basis of the children's lives they had saved.
Take William Wilberforce for example. While not the main reason,he was a prime mover in changing attitudes to slavery. He was also extremely racist. History should note both things,not ignore some inconvenient facts.

Churchill said this great quote-at least he gets most credit. "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"
I'm reading a lot on the Omdurman battle and campaign right now. No one liked him even then,he exposed men to unescessery danger and was thought a bore.
 
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ddt said:
Is this the right moment to mention Churchill's opinion on using gas in Mesopotamia?
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There were those in the U.S. military who wanted to use poison gas when dealing with the dug-in Japanese fortifications in the Pacific, but FDR nixed the idea. One of the alternatives that was developed was to pour gasoline down the air vents and then set it alight. Flamethrowers became a favoured weapon when dealing with such entrenched positions.
 
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Craig B said:
Originally Posted by Noztradamus View Post
RUsure? Post 1900 Japan was pretty much building all her own naval ships ...
The only Japanese ordered ships building in foreign yards at the start of the 1904 war were 2 (very incomplete) battleships in England, and 5 submarines (of very limited range) in the USA
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Can you expand on that? It seems that every battleship commissioned prior to 1904 was built abroad.
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As I said: post 1900. Japan was building its own protected cruisers late 1890s, destroyers/torpedoboats 1900. From 1901 the number of surface ships ordered originally from foreign yards can be counted on the fingers of one hand (2 battleships in 1904, a battlecruiser in 1910, two destroyers in 1913).

(Two armoured cruisers were purchased from Italy in 1903 after the original Argentine purchasers ran into financial problems, and a number of ships were acquired in less commercial transactions in 1904-5.) But that's it.
 
I rather think that Churchill (like Wilberforce a hundred year before him,) was a man of his times. Was he racist? Yeah, most probably he was. Gandhi sure didn't like Churchill one iota. He was also an imperialist. He supported the Boer Wars in South Africa, and the continued subjugation of India.

Despite all of these negative qualities, I don't think he meant any real harm to the various citizens throughout the empire. Yeah, yeah. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," and all that. I just don't see calling him an outright "scoundrel," though. And let's face it: He was a hell of a leader when it mattered the most.
 
ddt said:
Is this the right moment to mention Churchill's opinion on using gas in Mesopotamia?
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Not just Mesopotamia.
I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year.
It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women.
...
I quite agree that it may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now there. Pray address yourself to this. It is a big thing and can only be discarded for a big reason. I shall of course have to square Uncle Joe and the President; but you need not bring this into your calculations at the present time. Just try to find out what it is like on its merits.
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From July 1944. See https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Winston_Churchill/Chemical_Weapon_Use
 
Craig B said:
Not just Mesopotamia. From July 1944. See https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Winston_Churchill/Chemical_Weapon_Use
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To be fair, if I were in Churchill's shoes, I would support this statement 100%.

Remember, London was being bombed practically 24/7 during the BoB. As he stated:

"On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."

So yeah, Churchill was more than a little irritated with Germany. Hitler literally threw out all forms of human decency, and was a huge threat the freedom of Great Britain. Even with hindsight, I wouldn't have found the use of poison gas on German troops to be any sort of tragedy had it actually occurred on a wide scale.
 
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Noztradamus said:
As I said: post 1900. Japan was building its own protected cruisers late 1890s, destroyers/torpedoboats 1900. From 1901 the number of surface ships ordered originally from foreign yards can be counted on the fingers of one hand (2 battleships in 1904, a battlecruiser in 1910, two destroyers in 1913).

(Two armoured cruisers were purchased from Italy in 1903 after the original Argentine purchasers ran into financial problems, and a number of ships were acquired in less commercial transactions in 1904-5.) But that's it.
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I have a book by wargames foundry on Japanese and Korean armies of the 19th century. In 1853 japan had few modern firearms,in 1900 it had a fully modern industrial army. While most of the early real heavy stuff,like you say,was built abroad many Japanese arms factorys were churning out copys of Krupp cannon etc.
War worked well for japan before 1942. First there was the unexpected victory in the sino Japanese war followed by further gains in the boxer rising. The best gains came from the Russo Japanese war and then ww1.
 
Nihilianth said:
I rather think that Churchill (like Wilberforce a hundred year before him,) was a man of his times. Was he racist? Yeah, most probably he was. Gandhi sure didn't like Churchill one iota.
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I hope not that Gandhi called Churchill a racist, because that's the pot calling the kettle black. While working as a lawyer in South Africa, Gandhi advocated for the rights of coloured people (i.e., Indians) but not those of blacks.
 
Nihilianth said:
To be fair, if I were in Churchill's shoes, I would support this statement 100%.

Remember, London was being bombed practically 24/7 during the BoB. As he stated:

"On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."

So yeah, Churchill was more than a little irritated with Germany. Hitler literally threw out all forms of human decency, and was a huge threat the freedom of Great Britain. Even with hindsight, I wouldn't have found the use of poison gas on German troops to be any sort of tragedy had it actually occurred on a wide scale.
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My fault for missing a para. But first, consider the utter amorality of Churchill's comparison of changing attitudes to the bombing of cities with trivia such as fashions in skirt length. He simply had no moral qualms.

In the case under consideration, the proposed target was not the German military, but civilians in cities. Here's a para I omitted, thinking the target was generally known. My apologies.
If the bombardment of London became a serious nuisance and great rockets with far-reaching and devastating effect fell on many centres of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do anything that would hit the enemy in a murderous place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb starting points. I do not see why we should have the disadvantages of being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the cad. There are times when this may be so but not now.
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Note the "I say, I'm being a cad again, but who gives a toss? Not me."

ETA. Churchill's military and religious advisors strongly opposed the idea, and he was finally persuaded by them to set it aside.
I am not at all convinced by this negative report. But clearly I cannot make head against the parsons and the warriors at the same time. The matter should be kept under review and brought up again when things get worse.
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So even at that time, the weight both of military and moral opinion was very far removed from your 100% support, I'm glad to say.
 
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MG1962 said:
But to be fair to him there, his actual comment was he felt tear gas (if it could do the job required) was a better option than something leathal
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Fair enough. Wiki has the relevant quote, and it's not half as bad as I remembered. CS gas and the like are routinely used by police all over the world for crowd dispersal. The tear gases used at the time were much less safe than CS, though.

Nihilianth said:
To be fair, if I were in Churchill's shoes, I would support this statement 100%.
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I must say, I find this statement to be very odd indeed. Have you noticed the date, 7 July 1944? The Normandy invasion force was secure, it only had yet to break out, but who really doubted that would happen?

And where he says
It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church.
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the difference is that in 1925, the Geneva Protocol was signed forbidding the use of chemical weapons in warfare.

Nihilianth said:
Remember, London was being bombed practically 24/7 during the BoB. As he stated:

"On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."
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Which cities have been bombed that were declared open cities? After the war, the only bombardment that has been classed as a war crime in prosecutions was the bombardment of Belgrade in 1941, because it preceded a declaration of war.

Nihilianth said:
So yeah, Churchill was more than a little irritated with Germany. Hitler literally threw out all forms of human decency, and was a huge threat the freedom of Great Britain. Even with hindsight, I wouldn't have found the use of poison gas on German troops to be any sort of tragedy had it actually occurred on a wide scale.
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It doesn't sound like wanted to use it on German troops. Paragraph 6:
[...] We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention [...]
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and paragraph 7:
I quite agree that it may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent.
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sounds more like he wanted to use poison gas all over Germany like one sprays a crop field with insecticide.

And when he says that "nearly everyone recovers", I must question what percentage he has in mind for "nearly", and again what gases he had in mind; certainly not simple tear gases on the one hand, see his remark on "constant medical attention"; and on the other hand, certainly not very lethal gases like sarin and tabun, which Germany had developed in the interbellum. Did he know about their existence?
 
Don't forget that Germany wad expected to use Gas on British cities. Anti Gas precautions and drills were extensive. Every citizen had to carry their gasmask at all times. Even horses were issued with masks. As for Diepe it was a failure but it was a vital raid. It laid the foundations for the thorough preparation for D-Day. Lots of valuable lessons were learned that endured it's success.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Don't forget that Germany wad expected to use Gas on British cities. Anti Gas precautions and drills were extensive. Every citizen had to carry their gasmask at all times.
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The above Churchill quote was from 1944. The Battle of Britain was long over, with not a whim of gas. Was this still the case? Were they still expecting the V1's and V2's might carry gas?
Captain_Swoop said:
Even horses were issued with masks.
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Interesting. I thought the main problem in using gas in WW1 - apart from which way the wind blows - was that there were no effective gas masks for horses. Did Britain have effective ones during WW2?
 
They were effective but getting the horse to wear them was the tricky bit
 
ddt said:
The above Churchill quote was from 1944. The Battle of Britain was long over, with not a whim of gas. Was this still the case? Were they still expecting the V1's and V2's might carry gas?
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It could be a case of war exhaustion. That is, by July of 1944, with the Western allies firmly ashore in Normandy and Russia on the march in the east, there could be no doubt of the final outcome of the war. But the Reich would not recognize what any even halfway rational person could figure out: Germany was going to lose. But instead of surrendering and ceasing the bloodshed, it stubbornly fought on.

A foe who was clearly beaten and yet refuses to stop fighting is obviously going to cause a lot of frustration. What else do you have to do to convince them the fight is lost? Do they want to fight until total annihilation?

(As bad as this stubbornness was in the German leadership, in Japan it was even worse.)
 
Corsair 115 said:
It could be a case of war exhaustion. That is, by July of 1944, with the Western allies firmly ashore in Normandy and Russia on the march in the east, there could be no doubt of the final outcome of the war. But the Reich would not recognize what any even halfway rational person could figure out: Germany was going to lose. But instead of surrendering and ceasing the bloodshed, it stubbornly fought on.

A foe who was clearly beaten and yet refuses to stop fighting is obviously going to cause a lot of frustration. What else do you have to do to convince them the fight is lost? Do they want to fight until total annihilation?

(As bad as this stubbornness was in the German leadership, in Japan it was even worse.)
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Fair point. Hitler kept hoping for a miracle, to almost the last day. And indeed ordered outrageous things, like his Nero Decrees, which were fortunately not followed up.
 
In Italy a German bombing raid hit a Allied ship in dock. The resulting explosion blew up the mustard gas on board. No one is yet sure how many died,initially they denied gas was on board but plenty of soldiers, medics etc were ww1 vets so they finally admitted the truth.
One thing Churchill can't be blamed for is Dresden,Cologne etc. Many tiny sub factory's were in among small backstreets and alleyways. Also,as weird as it sounds many important parts,including fuses,parts for radios etc,were built in citizens homes. A German would get a job to make a few extra marks assembling these bits by candlelight. Watchmakers would assemble important intricate parts of weapons in the comfort of home. Each week the assembled bits were collected to be sent to the factory where they would be fitted to Messerschmitts and stuff.
Even after Goebbels yelled "do you want total war"and speer took over,even after millions were being used as slave labour the German war economy was schizophrenic and underproducing. Competing departments and rampant infighting made sure that Germany never made as much as could have been done.
 
Craig B said:
Do whatever you want; but that won't stop me citing sources I think contain correct views.
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Correct or factually accurate? These two things are not necessarily synonymous if the former is more about ideology rather than evidence.

Let's take Dresden, for example. I always find it interesting why this attack gets lots of notice yet the far more devastating raid on Hamburg two years earlier is almost unknown except for those who have actually read up on the aerial campaigns during WWII. I always find it interesting how few folks mention that the only reason Dresden is notable is because of the freak occurrence of a firestorm. Had that not happened, the raid would be a footnote, much like the equally strong raid on Chemnitz which occurred the next night and again about two weeks later. (Those raids are a footnote because no firestorm happened and thus no high level of casualties.) I always find it interesting how little is said about how Dresden had a number of military-industrial targets within the city.

Then of course it's always interesting how infrequently the indirect effects from area bombing* are not cited, effects which certainly aided the Allied effort. The weight of Allied air attacks cause a huge distortion in the allotment of heavy artillery, for example. There were a great many excellent dual-purpose German artillery pieces which were pointed at the sky instead of being pointed at Allied tanks and soldiers.

*Which was not the only thing Bomber Command did contrary to popular belief. It also conducted plenty of more targeted raids on transportation infrastructure and oil refineries. It was also responsible for about three-quarters of all attacks conducted against V-1 sites.
 
Why this stuff?
Corsair 115 said:
Let's take Dresden, for example. I always find it interesting why this attack gets lots of notice yet the far more devastating raid on Hamburg two years earlier is almost unknown except for those who have actually read up on the aerial campaigns during WWII. I always find it interesting how few folks mention that the only reason Dresden is notable is because of the freak occurrence of a firestorm. Had that not happened, the raid would be a footnote, much like the equally strong raid on Chemnitz which occurred the next night and again about two weeks later.
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Why not address the specific views and interpretations presented in the linked BBC article? So what if some or many people know little about the Hamburg raid? Are firestorms mentioned in the linked article? I don't remember that they are.
 
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What's the fuss about the bombing of Germany? It was a war to the death. Either Germany was destroyed or we would be. In the context of the time and against that enemy it was completely justified. They were trying to do the exact same thing to the UK, all that stopped them was a lack of resources.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What's the fuss about the bombing of Germany? It was a war to the death. Either Germany was destroyed or we would be. In the context of the time and against that enemy it was completely justified. They were trying to do the exact same thing to the UK, all that stopped them was a lack of resources.
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Quite so. No pious rubbish about attic factories making weapons system components in Dresden. Whack the whole lot of 'em, eh?
 
skeptichaggis said:
In Italy a German bombing raid hit a Allied ship in dock. The resulting explosion blew up the mustard gas on board. No one is yet sure how many died,initially they denied gas was on board but plenty of soldiers, medics etc were ww1 vets so they finally admitted the truth.
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The John Harvey sunk in Bari in December of 1943. Thankfully a US doctor named Alexander recognised the symptoms and had the roughly twelve hundred people effected treated for mustard.
Interestingly this incident helped the development of chemotherapy by study of the effects of vesicants on human tissue.
 
ddt said:
I hope not that Gandhi called Churchill a racist, because that's the pot calling the kettle black. While working as a lawyer in South Africa, Gandhi advocated for the rights of coloured people (i.e., Indians) but not those of blacks.
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I forgot about that. Gandhi was a sort of a son-of-a-bitch himself.
 
Craig B said:
I don't agree, and I commend this to your attention.
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The BBC article(the BBC not exactly known for historical accuracy) did not present any evidence against the MASS of proof for civilian embedded war production. The city's of Germany were filled with small,often family run,businesses making important weapon parts. The article does however correctly point out that carpet bombing was the only viable tactic. Was terror part of it,yes,but primarily it was about the destruction of the German army/air force production capability.
Oh,and by the way,while I have and enjoy several max hastings books he is capable off willful blindness. There is a tendency of historians of hastings generation to unfairly single out and critizize the operations of bomber command. All strategic bombing operations of ww2 involved carpet bombing.
This was how strategic bombing was done in ww2. The fact Churchill had no problem with it and may even have approved is meaningless given the technology available meant the only option was carpet bombing. Even when a city had a small production base they were still hubs for transporting logistics and moving troops.
Churchill done plenty good and plenty bad. We should however blame him for what he does hold responsibility for(shared blame for Bengal famine,task force z etc)than what he does not-the bombing of Germany.
It should be noted that bombing plans for the invasion of japan were not altered under Attlee,they could not have been. Carpet bombing would have been used by bomber command there as well. Of course the war ended first.
 
Craig B said:
My fault for missing a para. But first, consider the utter amorality of Churchill's comparison of changing attitudes to the bombing of cities with trivia such as fashions in skirt length. He simply had no moral qualms.

In the case under consideration, the proposed target was not the German military, but civilians in cities. Here's a para I omitted, thinking the target was generally known. My apologies. Note the "I say, I'm being a cad again, but who gives a toss? Not me."

ETA. Churchill's military and religious advisors strongly opposed the idea, and he was finally persuaded by them to set it aside. So even at that time, the weight both of military and moral opinion was very far removed from your 100% support, I'm glad to say.
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Ah, thank you. I suppose I should have checked your source for further context before responding. So it was partially my fault as well.

However, I would say that Churchill was a pretty passionate guy, who easily got his blood up. Did he actually mean what he said?

There is also the idea of knocking out an enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible, in order to protect yourself. This is actually a theme I have taken to because of the Ender's Game series of books. Yes, I get it: Killing tons and tons of people (essentially, a holocaust of the enemy) is not exactly desirable. But when said enemy has constantly threatened your safety, security, and freedom time after time, you do have to make it a point to use whatever means necessary to put an end to said enemy.

The age-old question about the end of WWII:

Was the US right or wrong to use the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities?

In Ender's Game, was it right or wrong to destroy an alien species that has attacked Earth, while there was no real way to communicate with said species until it was too late?
 
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Craig B said:
Why this stuff? Why not address the specific views and interpretations presented in the linked BBC article? So what if some or many people know little about the Hamburg raid? Are firestorms mentioned in the linked article? I don't remember that they are.
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It's called context. Without placing the campaign in the full context of the technological, operational, and logistical limitations of the time it cannot be properly analyzed. Far too often the Combined Bomber Offensive is viewed through the prism of today's world rather than the world as it existed when that offensive was waged. My comments go to that point.

Interesting fact: on the same night the RAF sent 796 bombers to attack Dresden it sent 368 bombers to attack the synthetic oil plant at Böhlen.

Let's recall too that German cities were hardly undefended. They were protected by an extensive radar network, a command and control system for handling interceptions, day and night fighter squadrons, and plenty of anti-aircraft artillery batteries. (In September of 1944, for example, there were more than 10,000 heavy artillery pieces being used in the anti-air role.)

Those defences often extracted a heavy toll on the attacking bombers, and it was hardly a walk in the park for many crews. The chances of a crewman successfully surviving being shot down in a Lancaster was just 11%. At a mission loss rate average of 3% the chances of a crew surviving a tour of 30 missions was only 40%. And a 3% loss rate was a good figure; it was often worse. No. 6 Group, for example, averaged a 5.5% loss rate from March-June 1943; that translated in a crew having just an 18% chance of surviving its 30-mission tour.


Craig B said:
Quite so. No pious rubbish about attic factories making weapons system components in Dresden. Whack the whole lot of 'em, eh?
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From Reap the Whirlwind by Spencer Dunmore and William Carter:

Pre-war Dresden could hardly have been described as a major industrial centre. But the war had changed the city's industrial face. By early 1945, Dresden had two companies engaged in aircraft and engine repairs plus twenty-four engineering and armament firms. Products included small arms and ammunition, machine tools, electric gauges and measuring instruments, radio receivers and transmitters for ships and aircraft, electric generators and motors for U-Boats, gear wheels and differentials for vehicles, firefighting equipment, grinding wheels, small steam turbines for minesweepers, cameras and lenses for U-Boat periscopes, anti-aircraft and artillery weapons, tank landing and assault craft, chemicals, and explosives. The city had long been an important railway centre with many repair shops and yards. Through Dresden passed the lines that connected Berlin with Prague and Vienna and that linked eastern and southern Germany. The city was also a freshwater port, the Elbe being a much-used artery for freight traffic.
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