Stalin's bombing
Sir: The bombing of Dresden was certainly a strategic imperative as Mr Caldwell states (Letters, 30 July). But it was neither Eisen- hower, nor Harris, nor Churchill who origi- nally targeted that city. It was Stalin. I was present at the meeting of the British, United States and Soviet Chiefs of Staff on 5 February 1945 in the Yusupov Palace, Stalin's headquarters during the Yalta Conference, when the Soviet Chiefs requested the Allies to deliver massive attacks on German communications in the Berlin-Leipzig-Dresden area and specifical- ly to bomb those cities urgently. The reason they gave was that German divisions were being transferred across Europe to the Soviet front. I recall them referring particu- larly to the targeting of Dresden as an important German communications centre (uzel svyazi — literally 'communications knot'). As an army major I was the British Chiefs of Staff interpreter at Yalta and at the other big three conferences (Teheran and Potsdam).
In his book Churchill, a Life (page 824 paperback) Martin Gilbert writes: 'That night (13/14 February) . . . British bombers struck at the city of Dresden . . . A few hours later American bombers dropped [more] bombs on the burning city . . . The Russian purpose, explained at Yalta eight days earlier, was achieved: refugees on the road, fleeing westward from the firestorm, disrupted the movement of German rein- forcements seeking to pass . . . to the front further east.'
Hugh Lunghi
23 Glen Road, Fleet, Hampshire
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