Jeremy Sleath, 49, of Leam Terrace, contacted the Courier after reading about an underage drinking crackdown called operation Dresden by Warwickshire Police.

He felt it was “crass insensitivity” to relate the exercise to the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945 which killed between 24,000 and 40,000 civilians.

He said: “The crass insensitivity by the police beggars belief in naming their operation in this way exactly 63 years to the day after the fire-bombing of Dresden on February 13 and 15. It was an action by Bomber Command that many view as a war crime.

“Many of the tens of thousands of dead were literally incinerated in the firestorms and most were civilians .

“I hope the police issue an immediate apology for this sick joke, or are the wags at the police headquarters already dreaming up ‘witty’ names for their August litter crackdown - operation Hiroshima and Nagasaki perhaps?”

Police confiscated 140 litres of alcohol from underage drinkers across the county during the operation between February 8 and 17.

Mr Sleath, who is interested in history, also has the diaries his father - an officer with the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces - wrote in 1944 and 1945.

He said: “He was moving behind the front lines and saw many of the horrors of the war. There were no military targets in the Dresden bombing raids - just people and buildings.”

Around 13 square miles of the of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, was destroyed in the raids.

A police spokesperson said: “All police investigations and initiatives are given an operational name in order to identify it from other operations and initiatives.

“At Warwickshire Police we currently use a system of names of countries and towns to identify different types of initiatives and operations.

“An alphabetical list of operational names is drawn up by the controlroom supervisor and each investigation or operation is allocated the next name on the list as they are required.

“The majority of operational names are not publicised outside of Warwickshire Police, but due to the high profile nature of this operation, on this occasion it was made public.

“We apologise if the use of this particular town as an operational name has caused distress to a member of the public. The name was not specifically selected but was merely the next name on the list.”