IT'S frequently claimed that at Yalta in early February, Stalin and General Antonov demanded Dresden be bombed but there's no mention of this request in the official record of the conference (Letters, May 17 & 18). Dresden apologists talk of its supposed military/industrial targets and leave the reader to assume these targets were attacked. The fact is Bomber Command wanted to burn one last big city before the war ended.

The final phase of Bomber Command's operations was a disgrace. Its main effect was to tarnish the heroic efforts of the early years when it was the only way we could carry the war to Germany. Dresden's population of 600,000 was more than doubled by refugees. Post-war efforts to play down the numbers killed are execrable. They were in the order of magnitude of Tokyo – around 100,000.

Rev Dr John Cameron,

10 Howard Place, St Andrews.

IT is, I suppose, a moot point as to whether or not President Franklin Roosevelt would have taken the decision to drop two atom bombs on Japan as suggested by your correspondent Otto Inglis (Letters, April 18), as by August 1945 he was, bereft of life, an ex-president, as John Cleese might have been tempted to say.

David Gray,

2 Caird Drive, Glasgow.

FURTHER to Dan McPhail's letter (May 17) regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General McArthur always maintained that the war would have ended earlier if the US had modified its surrender terms. In 1960 McArthur told former President Hoover that if President Truman had acted on President Hoover 's advice advocating change in surrender terms "it would have obviated the slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki".

General Curtis Le May said: "Without the atomic bombs and the Russian entry into the war, Japan would have surrendered in two weeks". The atomic bombs did not end the war. The Japanese had already sued for peace before the destruction of the two cities.

The use of the atomic bombs convinced Stalin that the Soviets must have their own bomb as a deterrent to the bloodthirsty Americans. The bombs were dropped to tell Russia that the US had the upper hand, and led directly to the Cold War.

Mass murder is mass murder. There is no excuse for it.

Margaret Forbes,

Corlic Way, Kilmacolm, Inverclyde.