Journey's end

the long version

In February 1945, British and American bombers rained down thousands of tons of incendiaries on the city of Dresden, creating one of the greatest firestorms in history. Their bombs killed an estimated 25,000 people, and wiped one of the most beautiful cities in Europe from the map. The controversy that erupted shortly afterwards, and which continues to this day, has long overshadowed the other events of the bomber war, and blighted the memory of the young men who gave their lives to fight in the skies over Germany. This book does not seek to condemn the bombing of Dresden, nor to excuse it, but simply to put it in its proper context as a particularly devastating set of raids in a much larger campaign.