Originally Posted by Chugalug2
But a great many of them did not fly out of Lincolnshire. Are we to have a separate memorial centre in each bomber county?
Chug, my memory's a little hazy on the history of the project, but I seem to recall at some point in the past, possibly 2012-ish, it was to be the "Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial". Objections along similar lines to yours followed, and the project is now the International Bomber Command Memorial.
The walls of names in place at present cover 1 & 5 Group losses, with the other Groups being added as part of phase 2. Both groups operated from airfields within the county but also were responsible for stations in other counties too.
That gave rise to some of the initial confusion over operational casualty numbers when the memorial project first got underway. The three Bomber Command Rolls of Honour from Lincoln Cathedral were used as the basis for the count, originally containing some 21000 names (9000 from 1Gp, 12000 from 5Gp). However, the actual total who died flying from the county would seem to be smaller than this - approx 18000 as I recall, but I can't lay my hands on my final figure at present. I arrived at this figure from an analysis of Bill Chorley's works. Yes, I did sit and spend several evenings going through all of the volumes counting up the number of dead who departed from airfields in Lincolnshire - done in response to a friend's request... The difference between the totals would appear to be accounted for by losses from sorties undertaken by the Groups' Squadrons from airfields in other counties. So even at the end of phase 1 of the project it's not just about Lincolnshire but already includes losses from other counties.
I'd guess that the comment I referred to arose from the veterans I spoke with having flown from the county either for the entirety of their operational service or at least part of it. I did note others around in the gathering wearing badges of squadrons that did not operate from the county during the war but did not have the opportunity to speak with them.
U-M