Churchill – Hindus are a ‘foul race’ – wishes he could bomb them
© IWM (E 15905)
23 February 1945
On 23 February 1945, Winston Churchill, having only days earlier approved the saturation bombing of the German city of Dresden which killed tens of thousands of civilians, now expressed a wish that a similar fate could be inflicted on Indian cities. According to the diary records of his Downing Street secretary John Colville, during a dinner with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, the head of RAF Bomber Command.
‘The PM said the Hindus are a foul race “protected by their mere pullulation (rapid breeding) from the doom that is their due” and he wished Bert Harris could send him some of his surplus bombers to destroy them.’1
FOOTNOTE
- Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Vol VII The Road to Victory, William Heinemann Ltd 1986 p. 1232.
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