-Caveat Lector- From http://www.smh.com.au/news/0108/24/world/world7.html }}}>Begin - WORLD War papers reveal bombers' terror tactics By Richard Norton-Taylor in London Britain and the United States bombed small towns in Germany in the final stages of World War II because they would burn easily and not because they were strategically important, documents found in the British Public Record Office reveal. The documents cast new light on the Allied bombing campaign after Dresden was razed in February 1945, killing at least 30,000 people, many of them refugees fleeing the Russians. The following month the RAF dropped more bombs on Germany than in any previous month, and more than 30,000 tonnes fell on towns and cities, including Wuerzburg, southern Germany. According to the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, Wuerzburg had only one potential target, a power-switching station. A BBC TV program, Bombing Germany, to be aired in Britain last night, records that on the night of March 16, 226 Lancaster bombers took off for Wuerzburg. The crews were told the town was an important communications centre. Yet it was clear to them that their mission was a fire attack on residential areas. In just 17 minutes they dropped nearly 1,000 tonnes of bombs on Wuerzburg; 82per cent of the town was destroyed, and almost 5,000 people were killed. To use heavy bombers in every way possible to hasten a German collapse, new targets for area bombing were needed. In January 1945 Wing Commander Arthur Fawssett, intelligence officer for targeting at Bomber Command, made a list. Towns were selected because they were easy for the bombers to find and destroy. One of the main selection criteria was that the towns had "structural features" that made them "suitable or otherwise for fire attack". The Americans also attacked targets of little strategic importance - a few days after the Dresden raid they struck mainly rural towns, including Ellingen, a small town in Bavaria with 1,500 inhabitants, on which about 70 tonnes of bombs were dropped. A note by US Air Force general Frederick Anderson to his press office said such an operation was "not expected in itself to shorten the war ... However, it is expected that the fact that Germany was struck all over will be passed on, from father to son, thence to grandson; that a deterrent for the initiation of future wars will definitely result." A few days after the Wuerzburg raid, Winston Churchill drafted a memorandum for the chiefs of staff. "The moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land." Churchill had previously backed the bombing campaign. 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