"Then they [Air Force] came to me and said, 'Do you want the town of
Kleve taking out?' By taking out, they meant the whole of the heavy
bombers putting onto Kleve. "Now I knew that Kleve was a fine old
historical German town. Anne of Cleves, one of Henry the Eighth's
wives, came from there. I knew that there were a lot of civilians in
Kleve, men, women and children. If I said no, they would live. If I
said yes, they would die. "Terrible decision you've got to take. But
everything depended on getting a high piece of ground. The German
troops would have to come through Kleve and we would have to breach the
Siegfried Line and get there. Your own lives, your own troops, must
come first, so I said, yes, I did want it taking out. But (when) all
those bombers went over, the night just before zero hour, I felt a
murderer. And after the war I had an awful lot of nightmares - and it
was always Kleve." --General Sir Brian Horrocks, interviewed for "The
World At War" programme 19, "Pincers, August 1944 - March 1945".
