I now have in my possession an item that has been dropped from a Lancaster bomber. A poppy* - courtesy of the flypast of the Bomber Command memorial at lunchtime.
* - a circle of folded red cardboard
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Whilst I maintain the position that some of Bomber Commands actions qualify as a war crime, I see no reason why the crews should not be honoured, as they were acting under orders.
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I missed the Lancaster but assume the formation of Tornados over C London at around 12:30 was part of the same ceremony.
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Yes, that is correct. They went over Green Park about five minutes before the Lanc.
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>> Whilst I maintain the position that some of Bomber Commands actions qualify as a war
>> crime, I see no reason why the crews should not be honoured, as they were
>> acting under orders.
>>
The basis for many of the prosecutions at the end of WW2 was that "acting under orders" was no excuse for war crimes.
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>> The basis for many of the prosecutions at the end of WW2 was that "acting under orders" was no excuse for war crimes.
It isn't of course. The people carrying out the orders bear at least equal responsibility with their superiors.
Bombing any area that might contain civilians from a great height is, if you think about it, a 'war crime'. But most acts of war are shamelessly criminal anyway, even when those killed and maimed are military and have signed up for that risk.
It stands to reason that the troops on all sides always believe or half-believe that the enemy is led by lunatics or wrong-uns.
Repeat after me: any war is an orgy of crime.
And repeat after me: criminals aren't necessarily bad, and crime is often justifiable.
Bit confusing what? Heh heh...
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>> Bombing any area that might contain civilians from a great height is, if you think
>> about it, a 'war crime'.
Can't say that I agree.
It is if you apply a 21st century perspective to it...but of course we're talking of an event(s) over 70 years ago....when things were totally different.
I'm not just talking about a lesser value to human life (which I happen to think there was then), but considerably more restricted options for fighting in a war.
Why apply a 2012 perspective to a 1940 problem, when you know there was more to it?
What was the real alternative? Kowtow to Hitler? This country could easily have done that and to most extents he admired us Brits, or at least thought of us as sort of equals, so we could probably have negotiated our way out of it..or..been occupied, with restrictions not as severe as others had.
Where would that have left everyone else?...well we know the answer to that, don't we.
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>> Can't say that I agree.
>> It is if you apply a 21st century perspective to it...but of course we're talking of an event(s) over 70 years ago....when things were totally different.
A crime is a crime is a crime, Westpig. If it's wrong to blast a random selection of civilians from high in the sky now, it was then.
Please note though that there can be arguments in favour of crime, and that not all 'criminals' are morally contemptible.
>> I'm not just talking about a lesser value to human life (which I happen to think there was then)
Heh heh... it's what you're used to comrade...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 19:54
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>> A crime is a crime is a crime, Westpig. If it's wrong to blast a
>> random selection of civilians from high in the sky now, it was then.
Not necessarily.
Nowadays we have precision bombing...yet some still go astray. Will people in 73 years time, think our current bombing was a war crime, because every now and then an innocent soul cops it?
I think they will.....and people like me will look backwards and try to defend them, by trying to inject some perspective and understanding of the times.
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"Will people in 73 years time, think our current bombing was a war crime, because every now and then an innocent soul cops it?"
The relations of that innocent victim would not wait 73 years to come to that conclusion
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>> Nowadays we have precision bombing...yet some still go astray. Will people in 73 years time,
>> think our current bombing was a war crime, because every now and then an innocent
>> soul cops it?
>>
>> I think they will.....and people like me will look backwards and try to defend them,
>> by trying to inject some perspective and understanding of the times.
There are plenty now who think cruise missile and drone attacks constitute war crimes. I'm not sure they're wrong.
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>> Nowadays we have precision bombing...yet some still go astray. Will people in 73 years time, think our current bombing was a war crime, because every now and then an innocent soul cops it?
Haven't you noticed how many people, and not just those subjected to collateral damage, constantly scream the place down alleging just that?
You can understand the period without whitewashing it by pretending that criminal behaviour isn't criminal. War is an ugly, disgusting business. No one comes out of it smelling like a rose.
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>> Whilst I maintain the position that some of Bomber Commands actions qualify as a war
>> crime,
They might do nowadays, but they didn't then....because we were at war with a maniac...and there wasn't a great deal we could do to fight back as we had no precision weapons..nothing at all, it was carpet bombing or nothing. Smashing hell out of German cities, causing disruption to their war effort and trying to break the morale of the German people (and the innocent's suffering that went with it) was considered at the time a necessary evil...and I agree with that.
>>I see no reason why the crews should not be honoured, as they were acting under orders.
Indeed they were, although a fair few, if not most, were volunteers.
They went to their war knowing that a considerable number of them definitely would not be coming back. They were exceptionally brave men.
It's the same principle as Hiroshima and Nagasaki...should they have been dropped? In my eyes 'yes'....why should many hundreds of thousands of young American men have lost their lives fighting a fanatical, tyrannical, barbaric enemy...so, many innocent Japanese citizens died instead...the sad price they paid for their leaders going to war.
War isn't very nice...all the hand wringing afterwards doesn't change some of the very difficult decisions that have to be made at the time. Arthur Harris did his bit to save this country...and I applaud him for that.
Last edited by: Westpig on Thu 28 Jun 12 at 15:55
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>> Smashing hell out of German
>> cities, causing disruption to their war effort and trying to break the morale of the
>> German people (and the innocent's suffering that went with it) was considered at the time
>> a necessary evil...and I agree with that.
All's fair in love and war, as they say. The Luftwaffe didn't give a toss about the residents near the docklands, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Coventry etc etc etc etc
>> It's the same principle as Hiroshima and Nagasaki...should they have been dropped? In my eyes 'yes'....why should many hundreds of thousands of young American men have lost their lives fighting a fanatical, tyrannical, barbaric enemy...so, many innocent Japanese citizens died instead...the sad price they paid for their leaders going to war.
Two interesting books I've read - MacDonald Fraser's 'quartered Safe out Here', where he describes some Japanese bloke attacking them in the last days of the war. Did the japs give up? Not a a chance.
Also Alfred Coppel's 'Burning Mountain' - the Trinity nuclear test fails. The novel goes on to depict the outcome of Operation Downfall--the 1946 invasion of Japan--by American forces.
Coppel's book was based on US military plans, as well as Japanese 'civil defence' measures... which he hypothesises would have cost millions more lives on both sides.
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>> Two interesting books I've read - MacDonald Fraser's 'quartered Safe out Here', where he describes
>> some Japanese bloke attacking them in the last days of the war. Did the japs
>> give up? Not a a chance.
>> Also Alfred Coppel's 'Burning Mountain' - the Trinity nuclear test fails. The novel goes on
>> to depict the outcome of Operation Downfall--the 1946 invasion of Japan--by American forces.
>> Coppel's book was based on US military plans, as well as Japanese 'civil defence' measures...
>> which he hypothesises would have cost millions more lives on both sides.
Meanwhile in the real world the Japanese were making proposals for peace because they were scared wittless of hoards of Russians pouring across China at them. So were the Yanks!
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 11 Jul 12 at 01:19
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Stalin only declared war on Japan after the first nuke was dropped, IIRC.
Go look it up.
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It had nothing to do with "declaring war on Japan" it was all about post war control of the pacific. I seem to recall the Japanese didn't declare war on America till after they bombed Pearl - Look it up.
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>> It had nothing to do with "declaring war on Japan" it was all about post
>> war control of the pacific. I seem to recall the Japanese didn't declare war on
>> America till after they bombed Pearl - Look it up.
>>
Well, MacArthur refused to allow any Russkies into Japan. Look it up.
Because he knew what a cock-up the four-powers rule of Berlin was.
And Japan actually DID declare war on the US before Pearl Harbor - but due to problems in transmission and decryption at the embassy the declaration wasn't delivered until after the attack. (Meanwhile the Yanks already knew - they'd decrypted it!)
Zero, do you find that people in pubs shun you a lot, or punch you repeatedly in the face? Because your devil's advocacy and argumentativeness here, if taken into the 'real' world, would earn you that treatment.
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And your "look it up" wouldn't'?
You can dish out the sarcasm but can't take it can you. Funny that.
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No, my 'look it up' was based on your assumption about Soviet involvement. Which argument was blown into a cocked hat by the fact that Stalin, who now knew about this A-Bomb thing, STILL declared war against the Japanese within a matter of hours - purely to get his foot in the door in post-war SE Asia.
Which didn't happen.
Until Uncle Joe tried it on in Korea in 1950.
Had you been aware of the facts, you wouldn't have made such a stupid statement as you did.
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I was aware of the facts and the declaration of war has no relevance.
There was NO soviet influence at all. The bomb did its job. You think they kept out of China because McArthur told them to stay away?
And Uncle Joe DIDNT try it in Korea. It wasn't inspired or planned by the Russians. It was a purely Korean thing till the yanks got too close to the Chinese border and the chinese intervened.
Read the British Government views that were released under the 30 year rule.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 28 Jun 12 at 16:41
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debating with you is like hammering jelly.
The Soviets supplied arms, training and 'advisers' to Kim Il Sung. Also, the Sovs had their own A-bombs by 1950.
Mao's forces were pretty much Soviet surrogates after the US/ROK/UN got to the Yalu.
The Sovs sat back and let things escalate, knowing that it was a stand-off. Meanwhile they could use the conflict to drain UN resources and fine-tune their own weaponry.
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>> debating with you is like hammering jelly.
And debating with you is impossible without you throwing insults around,
>> The Soviets supplied arms, training and 'advisers' to Kim Il Sung
Correct but it wasn't a soviet inspired plot to take over the south as you implied
. Also, the Sovs had
>> their own A-bombs by 1950.
Corrct I didn't say they didn't, what does that have to do with Japan?
>> Mao's forces were pretty much Soviet surrogates after the US/ROK/UN got to the Yalu.
Mao did not consult with the soviets at all when his forces joined the war. The soviets were surprised, and worried, when they did.
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>>if taken into the 'real' world, would earn you that treatment.
Ahhhh... the sound of the 80s.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v439zTOJVho
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>> >> It had nothing to do with "declaring war on Japan" it was all about
>> post
>> >> war control of the pacific. I seem to recall the Japanese didn't declare war
>> on
>> >> America till after they bombed Pearl - Look it up.
>> >>
>> Well, MacArthur refused to allow any Russkies into Japan. Look it up.
>> Because he knew what a cock-up the four-powers rule of Berlin was.
And see how McArthur became after that. Tried to run America and drag them into a Nuclear war with the Russians. Complete maniac. Wasn't even a good general. He had one Bright idea - Inchon.
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The Nukes on Japan were not dropped to end the war, they were dropped to warn off the Russians.
While Bomber, Sir Arthur Harris, actually thought he was shortening or even winning the war, the Americans were under no such illusions. The war against japan was won.
Bomber Commands actions were "war crimes" because the targets had no military significance, it was callously aimed at the civilian population. Yes the maniac did the same to London (and other places). So that makes us as bad as him.
The RAF saved the country, Bomber command didn't win or shorten the war, the war was won because of American Industrial power and Russian corpses
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>> The Nukes on Japan were not dropped to end the war, they were dropped to
>> warn off the Russians.
Mmmm, my spin on history differs from yours, Zero.
The US was interested in conservation of assets (ie their men), as opposed to Japanese losses.
If the 'cruel bomb' could finish the war, then let it happen.
I've yet to meet a footsoldier who has disagreed with that premise.
Please read my post above.
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>> I've yet to meet a footsoldier who has disagreed with that premise.
Foot soldiers don't start, or run wars. They don't even end them. Read the Korean War History to see about the madness of those in charge. On both sides
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>> Foot soldiers don't start, or run wars. They don't even end them. Read the Korean
>> War History to see about the madness of those in charge. On both sides
>>
But foot soldiers will be the first to cheer when their war is over - they don't care about the ways and means, they just want the war to end. (hopefully victoriously for their side)
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"The RAF saved the country, Bomber command didn't win or shorten the war, the war was won because of American Industrial power and Russian corpses"
Err yes.
See the US strategic bombing of German oil refineries which effectively neutered the Luftwaffe post 1943 due to lack of petrol. Meanwhile the RAF killed civilians....
The reason why Bomber Command were not honoured was quite simply because despite a huge expenditure of resources, they were largely aiming at the wrong targets..
( Harris was reluctant to support the invasion of Normandy militaryhistory.about.com/od/airforce/p/bomberharris.htm
)
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>> The basis for many of the prosecutions at the end of WW2 was that "acting under orders" was no excuse for war crimes.
The main basis was that the Germans were the losers (and Lord Haw-Haw I guess!).
I agree with Zero that the bombing raids in many cases were technically war crimes (although I believe it was 1949 that more robust treaties were signed regarding the protection of civilian populations).
I also agree with WP that they were likely a necessary part of warfare to enable the Allies to win in Europe.
I am sure Churchill et al were under no illusion that if they lost, they would be facing the gibbet.
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>> I agree with Zero that the bombing raids in many cases were technically war crimes
>> (although I believe it was 1949 that more robust treaties were signed regarding the protection
>> of civilian populations).
My Belief that the raids on places like Lübeck were moral crimes, not just technical war crimes.
Ah its a major port your cry!, Yes it is. It Built U-Boats you cry! Yes it did. They didn't aim at the Uboat facilities (by then pretty much useless) tho. They aimed at the civilians. Burned them out.
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>>They aimed at the civilians. Burned them out.
In order, so the thinking went, that they would no longer be able to build U-boats if they didn't live near there.
It's also not as simple as "killing civilians" as during total war each civilian is supporting the war effort by accepting rationing, by working in munitions factories, by buying war savings, by recycling, by giving up their railings etc.
Each dead (adult) civilian shortens the war too, I'm afraid.
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Harris aimed to break the Germans' spirit as much as disrupt their war effort.
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Harries was as mad as a hatter. Churchill was a maverick, drug addled control freak and interfered in stuff he knew very little about and in stuff as PM and MoW should have kept his nose out of and cost the lives of thousands of British and Allied servicemen with his ill-conceived ideas.
The reality of course was that the bombing of Germany as was done was a sop to the Russians as the British Army was stuck at home and impotent.
AC sums it up best.
Last edited by: R.P. on Thu 28 Jun 12 at 16:21
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My country, right or wrong.
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I don't care what anyone says about Churchill or Bomber Command. The government of the day did what it thought best under very difficult circumstances and I have every admiration for them and the crews who acted under orders.
If it wasn't for people like them, we'd be German and a great many more humans would have been oven fodder.
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I was born after the war,met plenty of people who fought in it.Read a few books on it and so many are contradictory.My mother who lived through it saw it coming in the thirties.Adolph wasn't a fool he created work and gave the German people hope.Why the hatred against the Jewish people i still not understand.Wars in my opinion do not appear out the blue there is money to be made.After the war our prince Bernard started the Bilderberg group. I'm not sure if Bernard was in the SS or not.
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>> Why the hatred against the Jewish people i still not understand.
Adolf needed a scapegoat.
Because of the perceived wealth of the Jews, they were an ideal target. Blame everyone's woes on the 'Juden'. Also, by seizing all their assets, Adolf had a war-chest of note.
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What doesn't change is that 55000 men, the cream of this country's youth, died. They fought heroically and bravely under the most extreme stress imaginable. they were a couple of generations ago, mainly people like us, from all kinds of backgrounds thrown together into a maelstrom of death and mayhem.
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That is why we should do everything in our power Rob that it doesn't happen again.Let the politicians go in the arena and fight it out.
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And that Dutch is the absolute truth. This fuss over the Euro could well have ended in war a generation ago - I'm all for Merkle going 15 rounds with Cameron !
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It is very easy afterwards i.e.with hindsight, to query anything.
The difficulties this country had 73 years ago are very different to any perspective we'd have to worry ourselves with now.
I have absolutely no doubt many of our leaders or military commanding officers made mistakes at the time, sometimes big ones.
However.
We were fighting for something very, very important, something some people even nowadays do not have. Freedom.
I am perfectly happy that 'our lot' did their best in the circumstances they found themselves in and the 'right lot' won.
Thank goodness. Because if they did not, none of us would be having this conversation in the manner that we are.
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the narzies sowed the wind , so bomber harris let them reap the whirlwind....good onyer i say and thankyou to all the brave crew who didnt make it back for egg and bacon
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>> the narzies sowed the wind , so bomber harris let them reap the whirlwind....good onyer
>> i say and thankyou to all the brave crew who didnt make it back for
>> egg and bacon
+1
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>What doesn't change is that 55000 men, the cream of this country's youth, died.
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=9558&m=213593
He would have loved to have seen this memorial to the 55,000 aircrew who became an embarrassment once their job had been done.
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>> Harries was as mad as a hatter. Churchill was a maverick, drug addled control freak
>> and interfered in stuff he knew very little about and in stuff as PM and
>> MoW should have kept his nose out of and cost the lives of thousands of
>> British and Allied servicemen with his ill-conceived ideas.
I disagree with the implications of that as it stands.
Hindsight is 20/20. Harris could have been stopped, but he wasn't. The area bombing tied up huge amounts of German resources as well as influencing morale (on both sides) and production.
Churchill certainly drank and probably used amphetamines, but he was not alone in that. He was also an egotistical maverick who made mistakes, but then he made a lot of decisions...the consequence had Britain had a wartime leader whose priority was not to make mistakes is not in doubt for me. Would Halifax have been preferable?
Have you ever read Winston Churchill's Toyshop? Department MD1 would not have existed without Churchill, as the War Office was opposed to it. Just an example of Churchill's inisistence on being an executive leader, which you could call interference. I am in no doubt that without Churchill Britain would have sued for peace, and I cannot believe the outcome would have been good.
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I don't remember him although he saw me as a baby, but my uncle was a bomber pilot killed during the war. I think he flew a Liberator but I could be wrong. He was my parents' best man and famously shut my father's hand in the door of his MG just before the wedding. He was my favourite aunt's first husband, and the father of my girl cousin who lived with us for the rest of the war. His father was a retired soldier and I used to visit him from school in the fifties, sweet old duck, terrifying driver.
The uncle's name is on the Runnymede RAF memorial, and when I go there I will look for it on this new thing.
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This is also a very poignant memorial to aircrew. Situated on the roadside outside the old Lissett airfield in E.Yorks.
Cut out of a single piece of curved sheet steel it sends a little shiver dqwn the spine as you drive toward it.
www.flickr.com/photos/tomackroyd/3981020636/
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I presume that I am not the only one that has read Patrick Bishop's book "Bomber Boys" about the aircrew of Bomber Command.
I thought that it was excellent. It doesn't glorify war, but I think handles pretty well the pros and cons of the Bomber Offensive against the Third Reich. The emphasis is always on the human beings caught up in these huge and history changing events.
I'm ambivalent on the military and moral question of the bombing, but I have no doubt whatsoever that a significant memorial to the aircrew was richly deserved. They knew at the time what a dangerous job it was yet so many of them were volunteers.
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This young man's parents were my next door neighbours for the first 15 yrs of my life....
www.twgpp.org/information.php?id=1197563
Look after him, Dutchie.
Ted
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This thread prompted me to pull out a box from the cupboard in my study.....
When my mother died in 1985 we found the box contained a faded photograph, row of medals and a number of telegrams to my Grandparents , 'missing presumed dead' and a letter from the CO....
Uncle Ralph was a gunner in a Lancaster which crashed somewhere over Germany , his body was never found .....
There is a suitable memorial now to him and the others who did not come back.
RIP
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My wife's much loved uncle was a Flight Sgt. Air Engineer, who was lost over France, with all his crew, in I think, 1944.
We visited his war grave in Picardy on a trip from UK back to Spain and found it in a special section of a regular French church cemetery.
The war graves part was immaculately kept, but what struck us was that at 33 years old, he was one of the oldest buried there. The vast majority were in their early or mid twenties, many pilots, navigators etc., with ranks up to a Squadron Leader at 25!
This was the lost generation of WW2.
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>> with ranks up to a Squadron
>> Leader at 25!
That's a Grandpa age. 22 here. www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces/Lloyd%20Chadburn.htm
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 13:56
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Wing Commander Guy Gibson had won:
The Victoria Cross
Distinguished Service Order & Bar
Distinguished Flying Cross & Bar
Legion of Merit (United States)
And shot down* and killed by the age of 26.
*ironically he was shot down by a friendly Lancaster bomber!
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In 1943 Leonard Cheshire was the youngest Group Captain in the RAF at age 26.
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Sir Hugh Spencer Lisle Dundas CBE DSO and Bar DFC, Group Captain at 24 in 1944
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>> Sir Hugh Spencer Lisle Dundas CBE DSO and Bar DFC, Group Captain at 24 in
>> 1944
Known as Cocky. Pictured/mentioned in many accounts of the Battle of Britain.
The youngest pilots in the BoB were still in their teens and recently out of school. Geoffrey Wellum, now 90, was 18 and flew with Bob Tuck and Brian Kingcome in 92 Sq at Biggin Hill.
He led his contingent at the RBL festival of remembrance last year. Walks with a stick now but still looks good for a few more years.
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>> In 1943 Leonard Cheshire was the youngest Group Captain in the RAF at age 26.
I remember him presenting me with a prize on speech day at school (a 7/6 copy of The Invisible Man I still have) . There is a Cheshire Home down the down that the school was associated with then.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cheshire
He flew 102 missions, and he wasn't leading from the rear.
To debate whether people like this should be considered war criminals is to lose all perspective.
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I did say that there was no blame attached to those flying under orders, but as you mention perspective, that would change if your family were one of the estimated 350-600k civilian deaths.
Of course it debatable, thats one of the reason the war was fought. To be able to debate it.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 15:36
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Wouldn't want to silence debate. Thanks to the likes of Cheshire I can also say it's nonsense to debate whether he was a war criminal.
Maybe he debated it with himself all the same, he was certainly a compassionate man as well as a brave one. But I don't think he was "only following orders" either - he was clearly a man of great initiative who did what he did as well as he could.
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>> it's nonsense to debate whether he was a war criminal.
>> Maybe he debated it with himself all the same, he was certainly a compassionate man as well as a brave one.
My very thought Manatee. Others must have wrestled with similar doubts. Many though must have been simply too young, too caught up in the excitement and terror of it all, to give much attention to moral questions.
I have found one of my glamorous uncle Harry's hairbrushes, a massive chunk of ivory with the bristles set directly into it and an elaborate engraved monogram on the back. It was one of a pair (I think my sister has the other). Harry was the adored only child of rich parents as this very expensive item shows. His wife, my mother's close sister, was widowed while pregnant and my cousin orphaned before she was born. When small she used to say her daddy was 'in an aeroplane', repeating what she had been told.
A story among very many.
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>> Wouldn't want to silence debate. Thanks to the likes of Cheshire I can also say
>> it's nonsense to debate whether he was a war criminal.
>>
>> Maybe he debated it with himself all the same, he was certainly a compassionate man
>> as well as a brave one. But I don't think he was "only following orders"
>> either - he was clearly a man of great initiative who did what he did
>> as well as he could.
Well put it like this, there was certainly a large degree of discomfort in the circles that sent these men off to bomb German cities. That is patently clear given the time it took for official memorials like this to be sanctioned or accepted. And thats good, because thats what separated our leadership then and since from the one we defeated.
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>> >> Well put it like this, there was certainly a large degree of discomfort in the
>> circles that sent these men off to bomb German cities.
It's one thing to have people concerned about the innocent loss of life....and quite another to think it a war crime.
Most people at that time were glad that we were socking it back to the Germans. The innocent involved in it were put to the back of the mind..or compared with our own innocent, with the thought ours are more important.
Too much hand wringing at the time and we'd have lost the lot.
>> And thats good, because thats what separated our leadership then and since from the >> one we defeated.
To some extent I'd agree...but...I still think you're applying a modern slant on a 70 year old problem. What was acceptable and necessary then, isn't now (and I'm glad we've evolved)..
It's well written what Churchill was like. In another time he'd possibly have been an impossible warmonger. In reality, Thank God he was there to save this country and many others too.... and the same principle applies to Arthur 'Bomber' Harris.
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>> Well put it like this, there was certainly a large degree of discomfort in the
>> circles that sent these men off to bomb German cities. That is patently clear given
>> the time it took for official memorials like this to be sanctioned or accepted. And
>> thats good, because thats what separated our leadership then and since from the one we
>> defeated.
There was more than discomfort. It was considered shocking then, possibly more so than now. Only circumstances could arguably be said to justify it. At the beginning of the war there was certainly a convention that civilians were in general not to be attacked.
It's also undeniable that Britain did much more area bombing, and much more effectively than did Germany with the almost total destruction of dozens of German cities, and the loss of many more civilian lives than were lost in the Blitz.
Arguably this has influenced what followed all over the world, from Korea onwards and now we almost expect civilians to be the first to suffer.
It's not simple is it?
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 19:12
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No its not. There was also a huge post war outcry that we didn't bomb the concentration camps, despite the fact that it might well have killed those that might or might not die at the hands of the germans anyway!
The overriding thing about bombing targets was that nothing must give away the possible source of intelligence - Ultra. Carpet bombing of cities was consistent with non intelligence led targeting. Every target also had to have a plausible additional intelligence source. Often the "other" source suffered reprisals.
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>> No its not. There was also a huge post war outcry that we didn't bomb
>> the concentration camps, despite the fact that it might well have killed those that might
>> or might not die at the hands of the germans anyway!
I know Rooseveldt was lambasted due to the fact that he'd been informed of the camps, and refused to divert bombing raids to destroy the rail lines leading to them, to stop the transportation. His argument was that if the transportation was stopped, then the hapless victims would have just been executed immediately, as opposed to being exploited (not strong enough a word) in the nazi war machine, where at least they had a small hope of survival.
Same as the SS operation involving the ransoming of Jews wasn't closed dawn - though the OSS was aware of it - because at least that way SOME of them managed to get out.
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leonard cheshire, werent he pathfinder squadron? creme de le creme as a nav
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>> leonard cheshire, werent he pathfinder squadron? creme de le creme as a nav
He marked at low level using Mosquito and later Mustang a/c. Not sure he was offically a 'Pathfinder' though. The wiki link upthread suggested he was seen by some as treading on Pathfinder toes.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 15:45
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And then took a de-motion to Wing Commander so he could get back on Ops! His VC was awarded, not as they usually are, for a single short sharp act of extreme bravery, but for nearly 2 years on operations as a Pathfinder and as a Master Bomber, flying round the target for the duration of a raid to re-mark targets etc.
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>> Wing Commander Guy Gibson had won:
>> The Victoria Cross
>> Distinguished Service Order & Bar
>> Distinguished Flying Cross & Bar
>> Legion of Merit (United States)
>>
>> And shot down* and killed by the age of 26.
>>
>> *ironically he was shot down by a friendly Lancaster bomber!
and the croix de guerre... pay attention zeddo , wouldnt want you as my wing man :0
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Sorry old chap, came out of the sun that one.
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>> came out of the sun that one.
>>
And you believe everything the tabloids report?
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there is a gibson street/ strada/strassa...in holland somewhere where his plane hit the deck
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plenty of nazis being shot after nurenberg on you tube
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"at least" they received a fair trial beforehand. Not all were convicted of everything, and not all were shot, and some death sentences were reduced.
Mussolini, on the other hand, was summarily executed. It must have been possible that Churchill and Co. would have been too - had the Germans over-run us.
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Nazis had a blacklist of people for the chop. 2300 listed aparently. I can't easily find a reference at the mo'.
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You mean the Sonderfahndungsliste. 2800 names.
It was accompanied by the 'Informationsheft GB' - The German handbook to Great Britain. I saw a translation once, its really rather funny n parts.
The real shocker is the list of Nazi sympathisers in the UK. Those who were destined for power and privilege.
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That's the one. I believe one or two on the "friends of the Germans" were rather offended to be on that list!
Last edited by: NIL on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 17:30
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>> The real shocker is the list of Nazi sympathisers in the UK. Those who were
>> destined for power and privilege.
Like becoming head of a major motorsport organisation, perhaps?
Oh, wait...
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>> >>
>> there wasn't a great deal we could do to fight back as we had no
>> precision weapons..nothing at all, it was carpet bombing or nothing. Smashing hell out of German
>> cities, causing disruption to their war effort and trying to break the morale of the
>> German people (and the innocent's suffering that went with it) was considered at the time
>> a necessary evil...
>>
All good points, except that it didn't work.
German morale was not broken, and production continued to increase.
The war crimes question surely hinges on whether they knew at the time that the bombing campaign had such little practical benefit?
With hindsight it was a waste of our scarce resources, which would have been more effectively deployed protecting convoys, by sea and most importantly with air cover and U-boat detection.
But at the time they probably didn't think too hard, and just agreed with public sentiments for revenge.
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>> All good points, except that it didn't work.
>> German morale was not broken, and production continued to increase.
>>
>> The war crimes question surely hinges on whether they knew at the time that the
>> bombing campaign had such little practical benefit?
>>
>> With hindsight it was a waste of our scarce resources, which would have been more
>> effectively deployed protecting convoys, by sea and most importantly with air cover and U-boat detection.
>>
>> But at the time they probably didn't think too hard, and just agreed with public
>> sentiments for revenge.
>>
I agree. Some argued for it at the time, it was decided to go with it...and as you say, history tells otherwise.
In other areas, we went for it...and it worked.
Difficult decisions in difficult times.
Would anyone nowadays let a Barnes Wallis loose?.......(that should attract the armchair critics attention).
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>> (that should attract the armchair critics attention).
I doubt it, not after a comment like that
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>> I doubt it, not after a comment like that
>>
It only took 7 minutes
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Now't wrong with revenge!
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The Guardian, bless them, condemn the memorial.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/29/bomber-command-memorial-artistic-jingoism?newsfeed=true
Bless them also, they don't know how to create a firestorm.
"Firestorms were not unfortunate mistakes – the RAF knew how to create them by first dropping incendiaries, then high explosives that turned fires into infernos."
Now Tokyo was a proper firestorm, killing probably 3-4 times as many as Dresden - if more realistic numbers are used.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 20:17
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>> The Guardian, bless them, condemn the memorial.
The Guardian's Comment is Free pages are a blogspace for correspondents and others rather than an expression of the 'editorial line'. The paper has hosted, without endorsement, controversial segments on it's feature pages as long as I've read it - since the early seventies.
My Father would probably have recognised the practice back to the thirties.
Other 'broadsheets' do/did the same; it's what distinguishes them from the 'tabloids'.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 29 Jun 12 at 20:31
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I genuinely cannot fathom how anybody can brand the crew of WWII bombers 'war criminals'. They joined up to fight Hitler and to protect our country and, once joined up, they had very little choice in what they did. Penalties for refusing to obey orders were harsh and often left the crews with little or no choice but to bomb civilians. I have read several books (including 'Bomber Boys' alluded to earlier) in which surviving crewmen speak of their anguish at dropping bombs on people who were, in effect, no different to their friends and families at home.
Of course, if you join any of the Services there is always the chance that you will be required to take a life at some point in your service. Those that join up know this, but that should not mean that we view all members of the armed forces as potential 'war criminals'. Morality changes significantly in times of conflict and something that may seem abhorrent during times of peace suddenly becomes acceptable, even essential, during war.
I have nothing but admiration for anybody who has served in any of the Services. Today is Armed Forces Day and I will be quietly reflecting on those who have been killed during times of conflict, both military and civilian.
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Sometimes of course history shows unexpected benefits have flowed from a distinctly dubious decision even at the time.
It was questionable even in 1945 whether the nuclear bombs were actually necessary as claimed in order to persuade Japan to surrender. There was already a strong peace movement among the Japanese leaders. A wait and see policy might well have produced a bloodless surrender.
But an unintended effect that has benefitted us all since is that it gave a convincing shock to the world, and ultimately secured the success of the western policy during the cold war - ie half a century of (uneasy) peace between the great powers.
I don't suppose anyone at the time foresaw that, although perhaps giving a demonstration to the Russians of American power was in their minds, as well as defeating Japan.
So Dresden was right at the time but wrong with hindsight, and Hiroshima was wrong at the time but right with hindsight.
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>> It was questionable even in 1945 whether the nuclear bombs were actually necessary as claimed
>> in order to persuade Japan to surrender. There was already a strong peace movement among
>> the Japanese leaders. A wait and see policy might well have produced a bloodless surrender.
I agree with most of your post, but am undecided at this bit.
Even if the above were true, it wasn't a definite and could easily have been a wrong call...and many hundreds of thousands of GI's would have died... because of a dithering Emperor and fanatical Japanese military leaders who may or may not have been reined in by the civilian leaders.
I don't see why the US, who were kicked in the nads by Japan at Pearl Harbour, should lose all those men, when they had the means to end the war swiftly...and did so.
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>> I don't see why the US, who were kicked in the nads by Japan at
>> Pearl Harbour, should lose all those men, when they had the means to end the
>> war swiftly...and did so.
>>
I posted above about this - the Coppel and GMF reasoning about it.
The very fact that the US had to drop TWO bombs shows that the Imperial Staff weren't particularly bothered by the first one.
Also, the fact remains that on some of the remote isalnds they were still capturing Japanese soldiers who hadn't heard about the surrender up until the 70s.
Imagine that - you are hard at work on an airforce base, and some bloke takes a potshot at you from the hills...
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History is generally written by the victors. There hasn't been universal agreement that the nuclear bombs were necessary or were even responsible for ending the war.
IIRC Einstein and others in arguing that the nuclear weapons shouldn't have been used said that, had Germany done the same to two British or American cities and then gone on the lose the war, then undoubtedly the people responsible would have been tried and executed for war crimes.
I'm aware that all accounts are more or less loaded. This one suggests Japan had been trying to discuss surrender from as early as January 1945.
www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
Perhaps a more common view is that the Hiroshima bomb was justified but that the Nagasaki one three days later was unnecessary.
As somebody said upthread, it might have been the right thing to do, but for the wrong reasons. Had it not happened, then nuclear weapons would probably have been used elsewhere by now.
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we would still be fighting the japs today probably if the allies hadnt given them a double order of mushroom for breakfast
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I'll do you the credit of assuming that's a comedy response rather than a serious comment :-(
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>> had Germany done the same to two British or American cities and then gone
>> on the lose the war, then undoubtedly the people responsible would have been tried and
>> executed for war crimes.
No. If WW2 (European edition) was still ongoing in August 45, they'd not have nuked Berlin.
However, as the Japanese were little yellow monkeys, no problem at all.
The mindset of race was well entrenched (and still is in many circles).
Do you give a toss about millions killed in a brutal slaying in Rwanda? Or the hundreds of Brits killed in the Tsunami in Thailand?
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>> I genuinely cannot fathom how anybody can brand the crew of WWII bombers 'war criminals'. They joined up to fight Hitler and to protect our country and, once joined up, they had very little choice in what they did. Penalties for refusing to obey orders were harsh and often left the crews with little or no choice but to bomb civilians. I have read several books (including 'Bomber Boys' alluded to earlier) in which surviving crewmen speak of their anguish at dropping bombs on people who were, in effect, no different to their friends and families at home.
Quite Badwolf. I wouldn't call them 'war criminals' either, unlike some eminent figures and many foot-soldiers on the other side.
But: why did they agonize, if they didn't realize, or suspect anyway, that the actions they had carried out were - technically speaking if you like - crimes?
To make out that the same act is criminal when carried out by one side but not when carried out by the other does very little for clarity of thought.
War plasters all participants with filth and confronts them with knotty philosophic contradictions to give them ulcers far into the future. It is a generally bad idea and best avoided.
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War is the crime, that's the problem. The debate then moves to when, if ever, crimes are justified.
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>> To make out that the same act is criminal when carried out by one side
>> but not when carried out by the other does very little for clarity of thought.
I certainly didn't intend to put that point across and apologies if I wasn't clear enough. I have no doubt that there were some German aircrews who were just as aghast at their actions as some of the British were.
>>War plasters all participants with filth and confronts them with knotty philosophic >>contradictions to give them ulcers far into the future. It is a generally bad idea and best >>avoided.
Quite so. I am very glad that I am approaching an age that would render me unavailable for call-up should anything big happen. I am of the opinion that war solves precisely nothing and would be extremely reluctant to give my life, and to deprive my family of a husband, father, brother and uncle just to prove that point.
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"I am of the opinion that war solves precisely nothing "
Hilaire Belloc summed up the basic quandary quite well.
Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.
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When it comes to war we are all hyprocits in my opinion.I sometimes cringe when people pray to their God for he kill.I used to work with one off the first SAS men who fought in the war.Stan he died a few years ago.When he retired the company asked him to parede his war medals.He declined he told me he didn't want to be reminded of the past.Father in law served his time in North Africa he had seen enough.His best mate got blown up.I have talked to Germans also who had gone through hell.Also Dutch villages when one German got killed and all the men of the village where shot as reprisal.
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The whole object of a war is to defeat the enemy.
Anything which helps that end is OK - as long as you win.
If you lose you are a war- criminal.
In any event the victors get to write the history (mostly).
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Promising looking programme on ITV tomorrow at 2100hrs - "Bomber Command" including some interviews with Veterans.
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I don't think Zero'll be watching...
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Don't see why not - he has a view, same as I do. My view is that the Bomber campaign was "questionable" for a number of complex reasons. But ultimately, rightly or wrongly it's part of our nation's history, a history that deserves to be remembered not least for the sacrifices made by a generation of youngsters. We need to remember that.
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Of course he will. As RP said its our history.
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Perhaps I should have appended a smiley to the end of my last post. 'Twas meant in jest.
:-)
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A good programme, served to remind me of the enormity of the sacrifice these guys made - the word "stress" hadn't been invented, but dear God they must have known what it meant. We really have no idea.
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And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil b*****, and be spilled.
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I would guess that being a gunner, squeezed in that tight, cold, lonely and oh so flimsy and exposed turret and being shot at, must be the nearest thing to scared you could imagine.
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Bomber command - Zero
