From: The Guardian
As a prisoner of war held in Dresden, I still suffer the memories of those terrible events and my anger refuses to subside
Victor Gregg
A flower lies on a
grave at the Heidefriedhof cemetery during a memorial to mark the 68th
anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Photograph: Joern Haufe/Getty
Images
I wasn't new to murder and bloodletting. I had enlisted two
years prior to the outbreak of the second world war and by the time I
was 21 I had taken part in one major battle and various smaller ones. I
had been in fights where the ground in front of me was littered with the
remains of young men who had once been full of the joy of living,
laughing and joking with their mates. As each year of the war went by,
the fighting got more ferocious, new weapons were introduced and fresh
young men became the targets. How I remained a sane person through all
this I don't know.
Then came the evening of the 13 February, 1945 – 68 years ago this week.
I was a prisoner of war held in Dresden. At about 10.30pm that night,
the air raid sirens started their mournful wailing and because this
happened every night no notice was taken. The people of Dresden believed
that as long as the Luftwaffe kept away from Oxford, Dresden would be
spared. The sirens stopped and after a short period of silence the first
wave of pathfinders were over the city dropping their target flares.
As
the incendiaries fell, the phosphorus clung to the bodies of those
below, turning them into human torches. The screaming of those who were
being burned alive was added to the cries of those not yet hit. There
was no need for flares to lead the second wave of bombers to their
target, as the whole city had become a gigantic torch. It must have been
visible to the pilots from a hundred miles away. Dresden had no
defences, no anti-aircraft guns, no searchlights, nothing.
My account of this tragedy, Dresden: A Survivor's Story, was published on the day of the anniversary this week. I gave a number of interviews around the publication,
in which I insisted that the affair was a war crime at the highest
level, a stain upon the name Englishman that only an apology made in
full public view would suffice to obliterate. MORE
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