 Re: Allied Aerial Recon Photos
My Father was a USAAC 8th Air Force Photo Interpreter, he ran the 13th and 14th Photo Squadron PI Departments based out of Mount Farm Air Base which I believe was outside Oxford.
When I wa a lad, I learned about the war by looking at a foot locker of Aerial Photos he brought back. He would show me how to ID factories, railheads, etc by using the stereoscope viewer and noting false shadows, painted camoflage, etc.
One of the photo sets was of Dresden beginning about 90 days before the bombing and you could clearly see the traffic in/out of the railhead, the material storehouses and amount of troops being moved through the city.
When I was shown the aftermath images, I was shocked. But then he showed me the images of Stalingrad, St. Petersburg and the other major cities of the Eastern Front as well as the Wester Front (Holland, Belgium) to compare with what they had done to what we had done.
I asked him if he felt any guilt for making the recommendation to hit a target and hit it again and again (Hamburg, Keil and Frankfurt) and he said that it was his job but the final decision was up to Senior commanders. He later spent 2 years occupation duty and many years working and travelling in Europe.
I lived in Hamburg for 2 years in the 1980's and the neighborhood I lived in had been obliterated during the war as had much of Hamburg. All of it was rebuilt, mostly paid for by the Marshall Plan. I never told anyone in Hamburg that my father may have been responsible for the bombing.
I do find it amazing how both the Germans and the Japanese have "revised" their histories and now play the victims rather than the aggressors. (The Japanese much more than the Germans).
You would be amazed to know just how many Japanese and German youths have NO real idea of the full extent of their countries guilt in the history of the 20th Century.
Anyway, apologies to the Moderator, since you tried to bring the discussion back to the original line but I felt I had something to add to the mix through direct contact with a participant and evidence that pertained to the subject at hand.
What is interesting is that through my family (UK War Bride Mother, her Brother & Uncles in UK Royal Navy and Army, USAAC Dad, his 3 sisters and their husbands who served on the Home Front) my Wifes family (18 kids on both sides who served in US Army, Navy, Air Corps & Marine Corps in ETO and PTO, US Merchant Marine and on the Home Front) I have been able to be "educated" about WWII in ways that transcend the history books. | 
Find some of those Girls Gone Wild like you see in the TV ads for those CD's and have some serious discussions about Bayrish culture.
and new wine.
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