To Destroy A City - Strategic Bombing and Its Consequences in World War II (2003)

Herman Knell was nineteen and living in Würtzburg in March of 1945 when hundreds of Allied planes arrived overhead, unleashing a torrent of bombs on the city. Würtzburg's tightly packed medieval housing exploded in a firestorm, killing six thousand people in one night and destroying 92 percent of the city's structures. Despite the fact that Würtzburg had no strategic value, the city emerged from World War II second only to Dresden in material destruction inflicted from the air. The experience led Knell to years of research on the history, development, and effects of the strategy of area bombing.To Destroy a City is the result of the author's long and unrelenting investigation. His analysis of this form of warfare, which reached its zenith during World War II, covers the history and the development of wide-area bombing since 1914, examines its wartime effectiveness and the consequences. But the extra dimension that Knell's book offers is his firsthand experience of the tension, fear, tentative defiance, and, finally, utter catastrophe of being on the receiving end of overwhelming air power. For Americans, who fortunately did not experience bombing during the war, this is essential reading. A German survivor of the Allied air campaign in World War II provides a unique and thought-provoking perspective on strategic, wide-area bombing.;Abbreviations; Acknowledgments; Preface; Introduction; Part I: Wurzburg; 1. Wurzburg As Target; 2. The Raids Begin; Part II: The History of Strategic Bombing; 3. The Road to Area Bombing; 4. The Bomber Practitoners; 5. Bombing in World War I; 6. Between the World Wars; 7. Bombing in World War II; Part III: The Effect and Effectiveness of Strategic Bombing; 8. Military and Civil Defense; 9. Gas in Aerial Warfare; 10. Loss of Cultural Assets; 11. Psychological Effects of Bombing; 12. The Viceims and Their Treatments; 13. Strategic Bombing and International Law; 14. Conclusion. Hermann Knell. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 335-344) And Index.