Circle of Viewpoints 

I am thinking about Strategic Bombing from the perspective of German civilians. 

When I heard the siren, my mates and I were at the pub. The war was miles away, we thought that our boys wouldn’t let such devastation reach us, that they would protect Hitler, make those Allies bleed before throwing them back into the sea. The boys and I had a tour around Europe, smashing the enemy and their toxic notions. Known no defeat. The siren was a great whining sound that echoed off the walls of our intact shops and apartments. Wardens jogged lazily up and down the street calling us all to bomb shelters. We sauntered down to our little hut, half submerged under earth to provide extra protection, laughing and slapping each other's backs. Finally reaching the shelter and hopped in, not even bothering to shut the door. Then the first bomb fell, right in the middle of the street. The explosion rattled windows, shook cars. We all fell silent. A second fell, and then a streak of the shells started whistling down to Earth, their eerie tune painful to hear like the whin of a young child. The bombs fall closer to our shelter and in a split second where we could have been spattered with shrapnel, closed the steel door. On the other side a mixture of soil and shrapnel throw themselves at  the shelter. When the raid finally ends, we shove the door open pushing all the debris out of the way. Where is our town? The answer is simple. It doesn't exist anymore; all that is left is smoking, obliterated rubble. 

 

I am thinking about Strategic Bombing from the perspective of German Frontline Soldiers 

Morale is at an all-time low. We sit here, the horizon lit up with the sounds of Allied shells exploding kilometres away. It is a harsh life. We sit here, in the mud among a pine forest with little to nothing to eat or drink. What good are we? I’m not sure why they even make us fight any more. For a lost cause. Every time you escape reality through slumber, you awaken to a nightmare. 

We saw quite a spectacle today. A horrible spectacle. Hundreds, no thousands of Allied bombers soared across the sky. You could hear the gentle humming of their engines from miles away. Massive metal birds of demolition. No one so much as raised their head. We knew what our fate was, our fortune for serving Hitler’s fruitless cause: death. 

 

I am thinking about Strategic Bombing from the perspective of a Serviceman in Bomber Command 

Even flying hundreds of feet above Europe in the dark, the scars of war still shine through her elegant skin. The moonlit night showcases the incomprehensible cost of war. Rubble of majestic homes and villages lie scattered across the ground like a forgotten picnic. I’m anxious, but by now I’m used to nerves. They give me focus. Then it starts. The usual explosions of shells fill the air, polluting it with black smoke. Aircraft all around us turn into smoking fireballs and that is when I realize why we are up here. To end tyranny.