In the closing days of World War II, the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force dropped more than 3,900 tons of high explosives and fire bombs on the city of Dresden. It was not, strictly, only a military target and the story of the bombing has captured the imagination of everyone who survived it and those who study the war.

One of those people is Sinclair McKay. McKay is a literary critic for the Telegraph and The Spectator in the UK. His latest book is The Fire and Darkness: The Bombing of Dresden 1945.

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When the Allies Burned a German City to Cinders