Firestorm

This lesson develops students' understanding of the role of the pilot in RAF Bomber Command and the moral weight carried by Australian airmen who took part in the bombing of Dresden. Students examine primary sources, including RAAF oral history testimonies and historical documents relating to the impact of the Dresden raid. Students use this evidence to explore how the same event can be remembered and interpreted so differently by those who lived it, shaped by their beliefs, their orders and what they came to learn afterwards.

The VR component supports this analysis by placing students in the pilot's seat of a WWII Lancaster bomber, looking down at Dresden in the aftermath of the raid, witnessing the scale of destruction and the bomber's destructive capacity, hearing from the men who flew it, and the doubts and justifications they carried with them. The module explores how immersive VR can shape historical perspective on a morally contested act of war.