Blog No. 311 – More information about Cliff in Bomber Command, 1944/ 1945, Part 2 – 21 July 2025

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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Before the air raid - this photo shows the long sweep of Striesener Strasse in the 1920s.  Many people died in this area in February 1945.

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After the air raid on Dresden - this photo shows an identical view of Striesener Strasse after the air raid in February 1945.

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Dresden after the raid; this photo speaks for itself.

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On 23 February 1945, the 6th year of WW 2, Cliff had his 24th birthday.  

In the evening of Tuesday 13 February – precisely 10 days before his birthday – Clif had been an Official Observer on a Lancaster Bomber of RAF Bomber Command taking photos of an air raid on Dresden.

At 9.51 pm on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden’s air-raid sirens sounded as they had done many times in the previous five years.  For Dresdeners, such warnings were almost always false alarms, but this one was different.  Then minutes later the first marker flares were dropped by Mosquitos of 627 squadron.  No searchlights probed the skies above the unprotected city; the guns had mostly been moved East to counter the Russian advance.  By the next morning, 796 RAF Lancasters and 311 USAAF Flying Fortresses had dropped more than 4,500 tones of high explosives and incendiary devices.  At least 25,000 inhabitants had perished in the terrifying firestorm, and thirteen square miles of the city’s historic centre, including incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art, lay in ruins.  It was Ash Wednesday 1945.

The Lancasters bombers on the first wave of the Dresden air raid began dropping their bombs at about 10.13 pm Dresden time.  Those Lancasters from Bomber Command Number 5 Group dropped 881.1 tons of high explosives on Dresden and 43% of these high explosives were incendiary devices.

The second wave of Lancaster Bombers began its attack on Dresden three hours later.  The aircraft in this second wave were from Bomber Command Numbers 1, 3 and 6 Groups, supported by Pathfinders from Number 8 Group.

So far as I can work out, Cliff was still attached to Number 3 Group, so his Lancaster formed part of the second wave of the Dresden air raid.  This accords with Cliff’s comment to my brother Bill that the Dresden air raid was “like an atomic bomb going off”.  It is unlikely Cliff would have seen enough of the damage done to Dresden if he had been a crew member in the first wave of the Dresden raid.  By the time the firestorm really got under way at Dresden, the planes in the first wave were already on their way home; Dresden was in their rear and they were relieved they were still alive.  The firestorm in Dresden did not take hold until the planes in the first wave were on their way home.

I have not yet established the exact Squadrons which took part in the Dresden raid, but I am certain at least one of the Squadrons from Methwold took part and that Cliff was a crew member on one of the Methwold Squadrons. 

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Cliff told my brother Patrick that he was an Official Observer during the raid on Dresden and that he took official photos during the raid.  As a child, I remember dad had a camera which he never used.  The camera was made of metal and rectangular in shape.  Looking back, I think it is likely the camera was one Cliff was issued with by Bomber command so he could take photos when performing duties as an Observer.  I have no idea what happened to Cliff’s camera.

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Most people who have read anything or heard anything about Dresden probably “learned” what they “know” from a book called “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.  Kurt Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in Dresden when the firebombing took place in February 1945.  He survived the raid because he was housed in a concrete structure at the Dresden Zoo – Slaughterhouse 5.  Vonnegut wrote a horrifying and mesmeric book – but the book is a work of fiction which does not attempt to relate the realities of what happened in the Dresden raid.  The facts were horrifying enough and did not need the exaggeration depicted in Slaughterhouse-Five.

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Dresden was undoubtedly a legitimate bombing target in February 1945.

The vilification of the airmen of Bomber Command - and of everyone connected with Bomber Command – is disgusting.

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Through the grimmest of years from 1940 until D Day on 6 June 1944, the only publicly visible signs of offensive action being taken against Nazi Germany were the continuous bombing raids carried out by Cliff and his colleagues in RAF Bomber Command.  Cliff and his colleagues suffered unbelievable trauma and they helped beat back the ever increasing tide of barbarism from Nazi Germany – barbarism that seemed at the time unstoppable.

Despite this, successive UK governments refused to build a memorial to those who served in Bomber Command.  The RAF Bomber Command Memorial was not unveiled until 28 June 2012 – 67 years after the end of WW 2.  It was eventually built to remember the sacrifice of the 55,573 aircrew from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Czechoslovakia and other allied countries who served in Bomber Command.

This is what wiki says was done to the Bomber Command memorial.  

In May 2013 the memorial was vandalised. The word "Islam" was spray-painted on the memorial and on the nearby Animals in War Memorial in Hyde Park.

The people who vandalised the memorial were scumbags, but they had at least tacit approval from the government.

This is also from wiki.

In March 2015, Les Munro, Royal New Zealand Air Force squadron leader and one of the last surviving members of the Dambusters Raid, intended to sell his war medals and flight logbook at auction to raise funds for the upkeep of the memorial. The auction was cancelled after Michael Ashcroft donated £75,000 (equivalent to £105,000 in 2023) to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund towards the upkeep, with a further NZ$19,500 donated by the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland, New Zealand, to whom Munro then offered his medals for display. Munro, aged 96, died that August.

The airmen who achieved the impossible in the famous Dambusters Raid were – of course – serving with Bomber Command.  Why was it ever necessary for Les Munro to want to sell his personal mementoes simply to ensure that his colleagues were not completely forgotten?  God bless you Les Munro.

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By helping others to heal We help ourselves heal Remember those who preceded us. Give abundant Love Always

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Money cannot buy the important things needed to live.  It cannot buy courage or love.

Banish hatred from your heart. 

Bravery multiplies with use.  

We can always find courage; it is free but its value cannot be calculated.  Not one of Britain’s servicemen opposed Hitler because of a desire for money.

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We should never forget those who sacrificed their lives and livelihood to enable us to slowly kill ourselves by stuffing our faces with far too many hamburgers.  They survived on very little food.  They would be aghast to learn that their descendants have now forgotten how to cook and they have also forgotten how to eat healthy food.