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Old 10th Jul 2015, 07:08
  #37 (permalink)  
Chugalug2
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: West Sussex
Age: 82
Posts: 4,764
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Easy Street:-
That bunker in Uxbridge was the place from which the last-ditch defence of our great country was organised!
and worthy of preservation for that, I agree. That though was not your proposition, which was to fund it in preference to the Bomber Command Memorial. There seems to be two objections that come to mind;

1. You are comparing Apples and Pears. The first will commemorate a battle, the second those who died in one. There are two memorials already to the BoB, in London and Capel le Ferne.

2. You fight wars to win, not simply to avoid defeat. The BoB ensured the latter in 1940, but we could have still faced defeat at any time thereafter. Bomber Command ensured that didn't happen by contributing to the victory of 1945.

We seem to have a preference for celebrating those battles that avoid our defeat rather than those that ensure our victory. Trafalgar is quite rightly commemorated every year in the London Square that is its memorial. Waterloo is celebrated every 200 years, and its memorial is a London bridge (or was until it was replaced).

Danny, absolutely agree with you. The modern Royal Air Force would prefer that the WW2 Bomber Offensive had never happened, though presumably it still prefers our victory. I don't think that the one could follow the other.
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