A massive war crime.
Allies had an heavy hand on bombing at the end of the war, we can see it all long of the cities of the French Atlantic coast. Instead of laying siege to the few cities of the coast still in the hand of Germans, while all the rest of the territory was freed, they chose massive bombing, like in Royan, for the one I know the best.
Yeah, that I don't care about. Laying siege to those places likely would have cost 10,000 of live in the immediate, and how many more in the aftermath. Plus, Operation Overlord was running off of a very strict timetable, and the Allies were already running late, thanks to "Monty".
Well, the point here isn't the French Atlantic Coast, which is a different case than Dresden, and pardon to have been on it, it was just because it went in the sens of the heavy hand of allies at the end of war.
But, actually, on the French Atlantic Coast, you had just to let a few divisions at each cities. There wasn't a lot of cities, and no major cities, we speak about small to middle cities (from about 10,000 to 50,000 according to the cities). Frankly, these harbors were small shut areas closed by sea. The only point that make a bombing relevant would be that Germans are really ready to blast themselves with the cities. There was less civilians in that cities than in Dresden, but bombings have been as massive, that cities have been bombed at about 80%, and strategically, as Dresden, I don't see the point, all the west was freed, Germans had not the slightest perspectives, seems you just had to let few materials to welcome Germans who would have wanted to surrender.
I'm not an expert in war strategy but seems that allies, and French forces too I must say, wanted just to quickly finish with the west coast "pockets" so they massively bombed instead of trying to give a chance with time to that cities.
