Worst bombing?

Question

Dresden? Hamburg? Berlin? London? Coventry? Tokyo? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Kokura? Other?

Answer 1

Dresden, see the book "The destruction of Dresden, 1945"

Answer 2

The fire bombing of Dresden by the 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, caused the destruction of 15 square kms including 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, etc. with a conservative estimate of around 30,000 civilians killed. At the time, the Germans used it as propaganda to advocate against following the Geneva conventions and to attack people's perception of the Allies claim to absolute moral superiority. The military claimed the railroad center was a military target, which it was, altho it was up and running a week later. Feb 1945 was only 3 months away from May 1945 (end of the Euopean war), the outcome of the war was not in doubt, so why bomb a 'cultural' medieval city of 600,000?

The firebombing of Dresden,Coventry and London...and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, genocide should also include civilian victims of aerial bombardment. Even after saying this, i still don't think the Allies were close to the moral depravity of the Nazis and their wholesale holocaust of the Euopean Jews.

The bombing of civilians is a great tragedy, none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated.

Answer 3

Your wording implies that there is something wrong with the targets. They all achieved a purpose (other than London or Coventry) and that was to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war. 35,000-50,000 died at Hamburg. The number at Berlin is unknown but 50,000 is a fair bet. London lost many thousands. Coventry's losses were minor by comparison. The tragedy was that the British knew of the raid and prevented an evacuation to keep th Ultra secret (breaking the German Enigma code). Tokyo lost as many as 135,000 during the fire bombing raids in March 1945 If you want numbers Tokyo wins. Neither Hiroshima or Nagasaki has as many deaths. I have not read of raids on Kokura but it cannot have been on the levels of the other major cities.

Answer 4

From the standpoint of devastation, probably Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be tops.
But the "worst" could be the fire-bombing of Dresden in WW2, because it was totally pointless... Dresden was in no way a valuable military target.

Answer 5

The words fire storm and carpet bombing come from RAF bombs of Dresden and other targets in Germany.

To my thinking all the destruction of all the bombings mentioned, all rank as the worst.

Answer 6

Dresden.

Answer 7

The fire bombing of Tokyo on March 10, 1945 killed over 100000
people, so it's easily the most deadly single bombing raid.

Answer 8

When the USA bombed Hanoi, During vietnam war.More bombs were dropped on Hanoi,than all the bombs,by all combatants in world war11.Except the atom bombs Think of london,pearl harbour,dresden,tokyo.Now all of these combined,more bombs were dropped on Hanoi in a singe week.

Answer 9

Hands down Dresden. After I read Kurt Vonnegut's (one of my favorite authors) Slaughter House V or the Children's Crusade..I knew how ba dit was. Sad part is, it's overlooked many times in history.

Answer 10

Hanoi, Vietnam; during Operation Rolling Thunder, they drop more bombs at Hanoi than Germany during WWII