Another Insult to Bomber Command
The people in Bomber County that made this memorial most certainly did not go to all the effort and expense of fund-raising, designing, building and engraving all the names in order to insult anyone. Quite the opposite. And, to be frank, it's a bit late now to come over all insulted. It's not to my taste either, but recognise that it is intended as a tribute; nothing more, nothing less.
Say you don't like it, by all means, but to dismiss such an effort to honour the bomber crews as an insult because we don't like the "art" is plain churlish.
The one in London is more to my taste, so I shall be flying to the UK for Rememberence weekend to visit it.
You decide where you will remember them.
Say you don't like it, by all means, but to dismiss such an effort to honour the bomber crews as an insult because we don't like the "art" is plain churlish.
The one in London is more to my taste, so I shall be flying to the UK for Rememberence weekend to visit it.
You decide where you will remember them.
Last edited by Courtney Mil; 5th Oct 2015 at 10:32.
Thread Starter
That will be me just going to London then.
Churlish? Not really, I don't recognise it as a fitting tribute at all when compared to the Memorial in Green Park or the even simpler stone on Beachy Head. The Team behind this should know that there are some that find this type of modern art memorial not to their taste - so we don't make the same mistake ever again.
Over and out...
Churlish? Not really, I don't recognise it as a fitting tribute at all when compared to the Memorial in Green Park or the even simpler stone on Beachy Head. The Team behind this should know that there are some that find this type of modern art memorial not to their taste - so we don't make the same mistake ever again.
Over and out...
Personally I prefer the uplifting ambience of the 'spike' with its echoes of Lincoln Cathedral, situated high on Canwick Hill in the middle of Bomber County, to that rather depressing neo-classical mausoleum-styled structure in Green Park....
I'm glad to read that BC veterans like the Lincoln memorial - it's their opinions which matter most, of course.
I'm glad to read that BC veterans like the Lincoln memorial - it's their opinions which matter most, of course.
It's hideous...
I said so a while back on another thread when this was first announced. I agree to the Emporer's new clothes comment (which I also stated over a year ago).
I guess this memorial will be like Marmite - like it or loath it!
LJ
PS. I quite like Marmite, though.
I said so a while back on another thread when this was first announced. I agree to the Emporer's new clothes comment (which I also stated over a year ago).
I guess this memorial will be like Marmite - like it or loath it!
LJ
PS. I quite like Marmite, though.
Gosh, what a lot of whining. Simple fact is that it's not really about any of us; it's about our exceptionally brave forefathers who did their job, probably not giving a tinker's toss as to what some 70-year-hence memorial would look like.
The bottom line is that, as with the rather abstract Holocaust memorial, or the bombed church tower in Berlin, it's there to make people think and it's certainly doing that judging by the posts.
Be thankful there is a memorial but as with Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, the memorial is irrelevant. If you don't like it, don't look at it, just remember that there were 120,000 odd individuals across the globe that fought for the right to erect such a sculpture.
The bottom line is that, as with the rather abstract Holocaust memorial, or the bombed church tower in Berlin, it's there to make people think and it's certainly doing that judging by the posts.
Be thankful there is a memorial but as with Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, the memorial is irrelevant. If you don't like it, don't look at it, just remember that there were 120,000 odd individuals across the globe that fought for the right to erect such a sculpture.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Just back from visiting the site. MiL' s boyfriend, RCAF, had been a casualty.
Sadly no access to the site,the road is not made up and it was not visible from the top of the hill. From the common trees obscure the view from several aspects.
Lots of work remains to be done.
Sadly no access to the site,the road is not made up and it was not visible from the top of the hill. From the common trees obscure the view from several aspects.
Lots of work remains to be done.
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Lots said about this which is good as it raises awareness. Regarding the spire and memorial walls; the remaining veterans and families like it which is good and we all know what opinions are like.
Regarding the £10m, if raised part of this will be used to create a digital archive. A great many documents and photos both official and otherwise will be placed online for all to see and the Uni of Lincoln is currently working with the International Bomber Command Centre to interview all of the surviving veterans to create a "living archive" This is all dependant on further lottery funding and public donations so whatever your views keep talking about it to anyone who will listen.
Regarding the £10m, if raised part of this will be used to create a digital archive. A great many documents and photos both official and otherwise will be placed online for all to see and the Uni of Lincoln is currently working with the International Bomber Command Centre to interview all of the surviving veterans to create a "living archive" This is all dependant on further lottery funding and public donations so whatever your views keep talking about it to anyone who will listen.
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I was at the unveiling on Friday, spoke with plenty of the veterans in attendance, and all that I spoke to were happy with the memorial. Many commented that it was good to have a lasting memorial up in Lincolnshire as that was where they flew from, not London.
Regarding the cost, the total is £9.5m, over half of which is accounted for by the Chadwick Centre, which will tell the story of Bomber Command and those who served in it, plus the digital archive which will bring together and make accessible photos, documents, oral histories and so on that are currently either not available or not easily accessible.
These two parts of the project will, IMHO, do more for the memory of those who served in Bomber Command than a piece of (admittedly very nice) statuary on a small footprint in a park in London that can be seen only fleetingly from the road outside the park, that cost just over half the total cost of the IBCC project (£5.6m) and does not record the names of those lost, does not offer any kind of context to the history nor make available anything for research or reading by the families of the veterans and future generations.
I'm in no way denigrating the memorial in London, it's a beautifully-executed piece of statuary and a very poignant symbol of the crews. It serves a purpose as a focus for formal ceremonies with their associated protocols and is a thought-provoking place to visit. The Lincoln memorial may not be a classically-acceptable piece of sculpture, may lack the slightly overawing formality embodied in the London memorial, but the overall project will deliver a lot more in terms of making the history accessible and keeping the names of those lost alive for future generations.
As an example, Joe & Joanna public want to teach Joe jnr about what great-grandad did in the war when he was killed. Assuming great-grandad was shot down over Germany and buried in a CWGC grave, they have the options of:
1) Going to the CWGC cemetery in Germany to see his headstone and maybe getting close to where his aircraft came down and explaining as best they can to Joe jnr the background to what happened;
2) Going to London to see the Bomber Command Memorial and explaining as best they can to Joe jnr the background to what happened;
3) Going to Lincoln, seeing his name on the walls of names to give human-scale context to how many of his contemporaries also made the ultimate sacrifice, then visiting the Chadwick Centre to see documents and photos relating to great-grandfather and his crew and learning about the history of Bomber Command and what they achieved.
For current generations who were brought up in close proximity to the stories and people involved, London is a superb memorial to those we knew and the stories we were told. Once those people have passed, who & what is left to perpetuate those stories, those names, when maybe the intervening generation was so disinterested in what dad/grandad did during the war that they ignored the stories or didn't take them in to sufficient depth to pass the history and family connections on to future generations? Can a family go to the London memorial and Joe jnr go back into school on Monday and say "I put a poppy on my great-grandad's name and saw photos of him"? Will the London memorial show in terms that the general public can understand, what 55,573 names actually look like when engraved permanently into steel, what the sheer scale of the human loss looks like?
The London memorial quotes Pericles, Lincoln will quote the men who took part, and in the case of those still with us, will quote them in their own voices. How many of you wished you could hear your late father/grandfather's voice again, years after he died? To paraphrase one voice heard on Friday: "We weren't heroes, we were young men, and spent a lot of our time being scared". Lofty quotes from classical text seem somehow inappropriate in a place where they become individuals again rather than just a number.
That's where the memorial in Lincoln comes into its own, and that's why there's room for both London and Lincoln when it comes to memorials for Bomber Command - they complement, rather than compete with, each other.
As for the material, I wasn't a fan of the weathered steel for Lincoln, but up close, the light on the rust changes minute to minute, and it almost takes on a life of its own. Having walked around the site early on Friday morning, seen the dew formed on the walls of names, the light on the walls and spire, it really changed my mind. I'd rather have the current material than shiny steel - shiny looks nice briefly then dulls and fades, draws criticism for decay or lack of maintenance.
I'm not part of the IBCC team, but having spent almost 3 years running a project with a team of volunteers to document all aircraft accidents in Lincolnshire during WW2, collating a book from the research and creating an electronic version to be given to schools in the county as an educational resource to aid teaching local history, I understand the importance of being able to relate names to events, and to ensure that those names and their deeds are recorded for future generations. It's not just about the overall number, it's about the individual men involved, their lives, their deaths. The 55,573 were 55,573 individuals, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers. Lincoln personalises them again, deals with the loss at an understandable, human, level, not just an impersonal overall total.
U-M
Regarding the cost, the total is £9.5m, over half of which is accounted for by the Chadwick Centre, which will tell the story of Bomber Command and those who served in it, plus the digital archive which will bring together and make accessible photos, documents, oral histories and so on that are currently either not available or not easily accessible.
These two parts of the project will, IMHO, do more for the memory of those who served in Bomber Command than a piece of (admittedly very nice) statuary on a small footprint in a park in London that can be seen only fleetingly from the road outside the park, that cost just over half the total cost of the IBCC project (£5.6m) and does not record the names of those lost, does not offer any kind of context to the history nor make available anything for research or reading by the families of the veterans and future generations.
I'm in no way denigrating the memorial in London, it's a beautifully-executed piece of statuary and a very poignant symbol of the crews. It serves a purpose as a focus for formal ceremonies with their associated protocols and is a thought-provoking place to visit. The Lincoln memorial may not be a classically-acceptable piece of sculpture, may lack the slightly overawing formality embodied in the London memorial, but the overall project will deliver a lot more in terms of making the history accessible and keeping the names of those lost alive for future generations.
As an example, Joe & Joanna public want to teach Joe jnr about what great-grandad did in the war when he was killed. Assuming great-grandad was shot down over Germany and buried in a CWGC grave, they have the options of:
1) Going to the CWGC cemetery in Germany to see his headstone and maybe getting close to where his aircraft came down and explaining as best they can to Joe jnr the background to what happened;
2) Going to London to see the Bomber Command Memorial and explaining as best they can to Joe jnr the background to what happened;
3) Going to Lincoln, seeing his name on the walls of names to give human-scale context to how many of his contemporaries also made the ultimate sacrifice, then visiting the Chadwick Centre to see documents and photos relating to great-grandfather and his crew and learning about the history of Bomber Command and what they achieved.
For current generations who were brought up in close proximity to the stories and people involved, London is a superb memorial to those we knew and the stories we were told. Once those people have passed, who & what is left to perpetuate those stories, those names, when maybe the intervening generation was so disinterested in what dad/grandad did during the war that they ignored the stories or didn't take them in to sufficient depth to pass the history and family connections on to future generations? Can a family go to the London memorial and Joe jnr go back into school on Monday and say "I put a poppy on my great-grandad's name and saw photos of him"? Will the London memorial show in terms that the general public can understand, what 55,573 names actually look like when engraved permanently into steel, what the sheer scale of the human loss looks like?
The London memorial quotes Pericles, Lincoln will quote the men who took part, and in the case of those still with us, will quote them in their own voices. How many of you wished you could hear your late father/grandfather's voice again, years after he died? To paraphrase one voice heard on Friday: "We weren't heroes, we were young men, and spent a lot of our time being scared". Lofty quotes from classical text seem somehow inappropriate in a place where they become individuals again rather than just a number.
That's where the memorial in Lincoln comes into its own, and that's why there's room for both London and Lincoln when it comes to memorials for Bomber Command - they complement, rather than compete with, each other.
As for the material, I wasn't a fan of the weathered steel for Lincoln, but up close, the light on the rust changes minute to minute, and it almost takes on a life of its own. Having walked around the site early on Friday morning, seen the dew formed on the walls of names, the light on the walls and spire, it really changed my mind. I'd rather have the current material than shiny steel - shiny looks nice briefly then dulls and fades, draws criticism for decay or lack of maintenance.
I'm not part of the IBCC team, but having spent almost 3 years running a project with a team of volunteers to document all aircraft accidents in Lincolnshire during WW2, collating a book from the research and creating an electronic version to be given to schools in the county as an educational resource to aid teaching local history, I understand the importance of being able to relate names to events, and to ensure that those names and their deeds are recorded for future generations. It's not just about the overall number, it's about the individual men involved, their lives, their deaths. The 55,573 were 55,573 individuals, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers. Lincoln personalises them again, deals with the loss at an understandable, human, level, not just an impersonal overall total.
U-M
Last edited by ursa_major; 5th Oct 2015 at 13:56.
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I am with Ursa Major on this having grown up in Lincolnshire. (and lived in within the flightpath of Waddington a couple of times).
I do like the London memorial, and stood silently for a few minutes at it the other weekend. Impressive as it is, I would like to see more than just a statue of Crews and am pleased that something has been built in Bomber County.
V1
I do like the London memorial, and stood silently for a few minutes at it the other weekend. Impressive as it is, I would like to see more than just a statue of Crews and am pleased that something has been built in Bomber County.
V1
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Going to Lincoln, seeing his name on the walls of names to give human-scale context to how many of his contemporaries also made the ultimate sacrifice, then visiting the Chadwick Centre to see documents and photos relating to great-grandfather and his crew and learning about the history of Bomber Command and what they achieved.
Another possible good reason it being the way it is if it used a lanc in the design, you would possibly get the "what about all the other types" questions.
The Bomber command memorial in London neatly skirts that issue by showing a super renditioning of a bomber crew, which when all told is what it is all about, though the roof structure echos the geodetric design of the Wellington bomber, one wonders how many notice that.
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I sit on ursa_major's side of the fence.
The Capital City of UK, and indeed the Empire, of those who fought and died is a place for a formal statuary monolith. Lincoln, at the heart of "Bomber Country" isn't like that ... but the mental echo of the spire poking through the murk saying "You're almost home now" does it for me.
And the rest of package sells it to me completely, having just visited the 8th AF Museum in Savannah, GA. The artefacts and the history they bring back to life are far more important, IMO.
MPN11 ... Formerly of RAF Waddington
The Capital City of UK, and indeed the Empire, of those who fought and died is a place for a formal statuary monolith. Lincoln, at the heart of "Bomber Country" isn't like that ... but the mental echo of the spire poking through the murk saying "You're almost home now" does it for me.
And the rest of package sells it to me completely, having just visited the 8th AF Museum in Savannah, GA. The artefacts and the history they bring back to life are far more important, IMO.
MPN11 ... Formerly of RAF Waddington
Ursa Major
I agree in part, but to add balance, in the London area you could:
1. See some of the names are on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede.
2. Visit the Bomber Hall at the RAF Museum (where you can probably see a full size version of your relative's aircraft).
3. Visit the Bomber Command Memorial.
4. Watch the QBF from Green Park in June with normally the BBMF lanc and then go to the Memorial.
All of those I would rather do than visit the 2 carbuncles in Lincoln. The wall of names is great, but it doesn't need to be in rusty steel. The marble wall in Washington for the Vietnam War is far better and has a similar number of names (~58,000). I think we could have done better for our Veterans by providing something more classic. Of course they like it, anything is better than they had before - which was nothing! However, like my school reports "could do better"!
LJ
I agree in part, but to add balance, in the London area you could:
1. See some of the names are on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede.
2. Visit the Bomber Hall at the RAF Museum (where you can probably see a full size version of your relative's aircraft).
3. Visit the Bomber Command Memorial.
4. Watch the QBF from Green Park in June with normally the BBMF lanc and then go to the Memorial.
All of those I would rather do than visit the 2 carbuncles in Lincoln. The wall of names is great, but it doesn't need to be in rusty steel. The marble wall in Washington for the Vietnam War is far better and has a similar number of names (~58,000). I think we could have done better for our Veterans by providing something more classic. Of course they like it, anything is better than they had before - which was nothing! However, like my school reports "could do better"!
LJ
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" which is nearly twice the cost of the far more tasteful Bomber Command memorial outside the RAF Club in Piccadilly."
last time I looked outside the RAF Club all I could see was a London Transport Bus Shelter..................
last time I looked outside the RAF Club all I could see was a London Transport Bus Shelter..................
UM:-
But a great many of them did not fly out of Lincolnshire. Are we to have a separate memorial centre in each bomber county?
The whole essence of the RAF Bicester project was to avoid any such partisan and parochial territorial problems by having a Bomber Command Heritage Centre on neutral ground (ie Oxfordshire), easily accessible from all directions and on the very periphery of the town, at a perfectly preserved pre-war and wartime unpaved airfield that housed a Bomber OTU where they formed into the crews (of their own accord on the hangar floor) in which they would live or die.
It wasn't to be of course and I think a great opportunity was lost. I haven't any objections to the form of the IBCC, I do however have some reservations about its location.
Many commented that it was good to have a lasting memorial up in Lincolnshire as that was where they flew from, not London.
The whole essence of the RAF Bicester project was to avoid any such partisan and parochial territorial problems by having a Bomber Command Heritage Centre on neutral ground (ie Oxfordshire), easily accessible from all directions and on the very periphery of the town, at a perfectly preserved pre-war and wartime unpaved airfield that housed a Bomber OTU where they formed into the crews (of their own accord on the hangar floor) in which they would live or die.
It wasn't to be of course and I think a great opportunity was lost. I haven't any objections to the form of the IBCC, I do however have some reservations about its location.