cowhorse:-
...these bombings were pure savagery without any strategic value (Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki etc). It is easy to get carried away by oversimplifying to whole situation.
Good advice at the end, so why not heed it yourself? The connection between Dresden, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima isn't Strategic, it is that they are all quoted by the chattering classes rather than, for example, Berlin, Hamburg, and Tokyo, all of which arguably suffered worse. Dresden was in the way of the Red Army advance on Berlin. Stalin wanted it levelled. He was obliged. He was especially pleased because, as has been already pointed out, he left it as he found it to illustrate the "savagery" of the Allied Bombing Offensive. Pot calling Kettle black? Never mind, Berlin fell and with it the Third Reich.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were indeed Strategic Targets because their destruction with one bomb apiece ended the war in the Far East. You can't get more Strategic than that! Millions of lives saved at the cost of thousands, because the need for invasion was averted. These are the sombre balance sheets of war. If you don't like them, join the club! The greatest crime of all is war itself. It is as old as mankind and we will take it with us wherever we roam. No amount of wishful thinking or protest movements or unilateral disarmament will alter that, on the contrary such self delusion will merely encourage war.
Bomber Harris was right to use the crude cudgel he was handed in the shape of Bomber Command to the greatest extent possible. It wasn't a war winning weapon as many Air Force VSO's still believed, but it was certainly a weapon that helped win the war.
It was a close run thing for, given a few months reprieve and a victory at Kirsk, Hitler could have used some of the many high tech weapons being created by his scientists, not the least of which would have been "dirty" atomic devices aimed at New York, London, and Moscow.