WWII

The bombing campaign the Allies undertook during the Second World War has been coming under scrutiny lately. A recent example of this was Keith Lowe's book Inferno. The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, which tells the tragic story of what happened when this port became a target for American and British bombers.

In the summer of 1943 the allies raided this city for ten days and dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on it, causing fires that burnt for a month and could be seen 200 miles away.

This book is full of first hand accounts from both sides and deals with the tragedy in an even handed way. Lowe is willing to let the facts speak for themselves and they are so bad that they do not need unnecessary commentary.

Read this book and be reminded that the Axis side wasn't the only one to commit atrocities.