Bomber Harris a 'colonial warmonger'

[rolling20]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8424625/Topple-Racists-says-colonial-warmonger-Sir-Arthur-Bomber-Harris-removed.html
So the so called educated are saying Harris was a colonial war monger. As far as I can remember he was only involved in mining and farming in Africa and then fought in the German SW Africa campaign. These ridiculous protests are now branching out to a more general sphere. What next?

[Wensleydale]

...and of course, being the Mirror, it writes that Harris was responsible for bombing German Cities which were "typically working class areas". Oh dear.

[Skylark58]

...and of course, being the Mirror, it writes that Harris was responsible for bombing German Cities which were "typically working class areas". Oh dear.

The article is actually in the Daily Mail

[just another jocky]

The article is actually in the Daily Mail

So just another brand of toilet paper then? :}

[Martin the Martian]

I have the utmost respect and admiration for those at the sharp end of Bomber Command but, honestly, I'm never been at all sure about their commander-in-chief. Too me he was from the same mould as many of those Great War generals who could not see the wood for the trees and were of the 'one last push' mentality and to hell with the casualties.

The bombing campaign may have held a lot of German artillery and manpower back from being deployed to the Eastern Front, but in my opinion Harris was far too blinkered to see that if the Blitz had not broken civilian morale in London it was unlikely to happen in reverse. Too many times he promised area bombing would solely bring about German surrender when it failed to do so, even when it was clear invasion would be the only means to end the war. He resisted when his bombers were needed in the lead up to the Allied invasion to hit logistics and communications targets in France, and I believe he arefused to allow any four-engined bombers to be diverted to support Coastal Command in the Battle of the Atlantic when the U-boats were wreaking havoc on merchant shipping.

There was disquiet about area bombing at the time, and ever since, and even I remain unconvinced that, in the end, the results were worth the sacrifice of so many young men.

I apologise if my thoughts offend, but that's how I feel.

[Chugalug2]

It was only a matter of time of course. The statue of Bomber Harris has been a target for the Hampstead Thinkers from the very moment it was unveiled by the Queen Mother. That it hasn't yet been cocooned a la Churchill's statue I find surprising, though on reflection he was just as despised by the Establishment (including those of his own Service). Now that attention has been drawn to him let us hope he is put on the at risk register and appropriately protected.

Four posts before the obligatory Daily Wail denunciation appears? Tut tut, we really must sharpen our ideas up mustn't we?

[DODGYOLDFART]

I was a small lad living in the southern outskirts of London for most of WWII. I still have strong memories of the Blitz, the Bedecker raids and then the doodlebugs and V2 rockets. I also remember standing in the playground of my school and cheering as our bombers and the USAF streamed overhead on their way to targets on the continent. This was vengeance personified for the damage Hitler did to our country. So I for one am happy to applaud Bomber Harris for what he did, including the morale boost he gave to my family and school friends.

Perhaps I should also mention that I had members of my family flying in those bombers and thank God they were among the lucky ones who served with pride and without regret. So stuff the Hampstead Thinkers and their cohorts.

[Video Mixdown]

I remain unconvinced that, in the end, the results were worth the sacrifice of so many young men.
This issue was discussed extensively only a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/486619-dam-busters-race-smash-german-dams.html
Is it really necessary to do it yet again?

[OJ 72]

What must be remembered is, that after Dunkirk, Bomber Command was the only force that was capable of taking the fight to the enemy. Churchill himself said that:

'The fighters are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.'

Harris was a complex individual, as many war leaders are, and he certainly believed that Bomber Command could win the war on its own. However, what these 'enlightened' protesters fail to realise (or singularly don't want to realise) is that Harris did not set the bombing policy...he was carrying out direction from the War Cabinet. The 'Area Bombing Directive' was issued on 14 Feb 42...a week before Harris took over as C-in-C Bomber Command...so the die was already cast. It is undoubtedly true, that he certainly put his shoulder to this particular wheel, and carried out its tenets to the best of his, and his Command's abilities. However, the fact that he is constantly portrayed as the architect of this policy is simply untrue.

Even Dresden, in Feb 45, for which he is constantly (wrongly) castigated by the so-called 'intellectual elite' was part of a larger series of raids under the code name of THUNDERCLAP. (as an aside, we certainly weren't overly sensitive when picking op names...MILLENNIUM for the 1000 Bomber Raid; CHASTISE for the Dams Raid, and perhaps most prescient of all, GOMORRAH for the Hamburg Raids of Jul/Aug 43).

The fact that Churchill had direct links to Dresden can be easily demonstrated. On 25 Jan 45 Churchill rang Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Secretary of State for air, and in a typically Churchillian turn of phrase queried:

‘What plans Bomber Command had for basting the Germans in their retreat from Breslau’.

Breslau was a major city in Silesia just 100 miles east of Dresden that was under direct threat from the Soviet advance.

War, and especially 'Total War' ('Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg' - 'Total War – Shortest War' [Goebbels in the Sportspalast, Berlin Feb 43]) is never simple, and when national survival is at stake then single-minded individuals such as Sir Arthur Harris are needed by our nation. That nearly 80 years on, and given the hindsight of history, we cannot praise him (and the 55 573 aircrew who didn't return) without applying what I can pejoratively describe as 'the woke mores of today' sadly says more about what we have become as a nation than the lives of the men that people attempt to denigrate.

[neilki]

Burn the history books. Topple the statues. Bury all remnants of past injustice.
nothing bad has ever happened when people ignore the lessons of history....

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

those Great War generals who could not see the wood for the trees and were of the 'one last push' mentality and to hell with the casualties.
Eventually that tactic won that war though.

[brokenlink]

My parents/grandparents are all from South London and were there during the Battle of Britian and the Blitz. They endured.
Dodgy I am with you on that one, that these revisionists can peddle their midguided views in the public domain is thanks to the freedom bought with the blood of thousands of men, women and children, irrespective of nationality, during conflict.

[Recc]

I was a small lad living in the southern outskirts of London for most of WWII. I still have strong memories of the Blitz, the Bedecker raids and then the doodlebugs and V2 rockets. I also remember standing in the playground of my school and cheering as our bombers and the USAF streamed overhead on their way to targets on the continent. This was vengeance personified for the damage Hitler did to our country. So I for one am happy to applaud Bomber Harris for what he did, including the morale boost he gave to my family and school friends.

Interestingly, if you had moved out of the suburbs, and into central london, (or Coventry or Plymouth) those sorts of attitudes became less common (or even a minority view). There was gallup poll in 1941 that looked at public attitudes to 'reprisal' bombings which found that support for them overwhelmingly came from areas that had experienced the fewest air raids. I imagine that the people who had experienced area bombing had a much better idea of who was actually being targeted for 'vengeance' than the wider public.

[A320LGW]

I don't support the motives of these people seeking to topple the statues for the reasons cited.

However, did the west not celebrate when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in a campaign fuelled by western support? What about the facts of politics and history then and that statue serving 'as a reminder' to the future populations of Iraq?

[Asturias56]

Can't see the point of removing statues - - if you have to attach an explanatory notice but where do you stop? Knock down the Roman Wall (clearly imperialist) or the Louvre or..........?

Bomber Harris? Not a great leader - he rarely ever went anywhere near an operational station, blinkered (fought tooth & nail against letting Coastal have any decent aircraft) and bombastic. He also slithered around clear orders at times. Not worthy of the people he sent out to fight

[Fonsini]

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

1984 George Orwell

[Lingo Dan]

Can't see the point of removing statues - - if you have to attach an explanatory notice but where do you stop? Knock down the Roman Wall (clearly imperialist) or the Louvre or..........?

Bomber Harris? Not a great leader - he rarely ever went anywhere near an operational station, blinkered (fought tooth & nail against letting Coastal have any decent aircraft) and bombastic. He also slithered around clear orders at times. Not worthy of the people he sent out to fight

Unlike Keith Park, who was frequently out and about to the front-line stations in his Hurricane.

[OJ 72]

Asturias56...I suspect that any of Harris' surviving 'Old Lags' would take deep exception to your comment that:

'Bomber Harris? Not a great leader - he rarely ever went anywhere near an operational station...'

As Squadron Historian and Adjutant in the early 90s I had the immense privilege of meeting, talking with (in depth) and, best of all, drinking with dozens of ex-Bomber Command aircrew, groundcrew and their families..and almost to a man and woman they would not hear anything bad said about 'Butch' as he was very affectionately known to them. They would have followed him to hell and back, and to the survivors it must have felt like that at times.

The main problem with 'Bomber', 'Bert', or 'Butch' Harris has been the revisionist view of the strategic bomber offensive that was started as early as Feb/Mar 45 by one Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, who, after Dresden, feared that his legacy could be tarnished by association with Bomber Command and Harris.

[ATSA1]

Yes Harris was cold blooded man, but he had a job to do, to wage war against the enemy with all that he could muster. as others have pointed out, for a long time at the beginning of the War, the Bomber Offensive was the only means we had of striking back at the enemy, and helping our Allies, in taking some of the heat off of them.

War is a dirty business, and people get killed, on both sides, Military or Civilian..Area bombing was a blunt tool to get at Hitler, but precision bombing, even in daylight with a Norden bombsight, was just not accurate enough.

I am also sure that if the Manhattan Project had come to fruition 6 months earlier, Berlin would have been the recipient of Little Boy and maybe Dresden would have got Fat Man...maybe that would have convinced the Nazis to pack it in...What would we have made of Harris then?

[Pontius Navigator]

Unlike Keith Park, who was frequently out and about to the front-line stations in his Hurricane.
Park and Mallory were GROUP Commanders responsible for their squadrons.

Harris was a COMMAND Commander. His responsibility was for the Groups. Even 30 or more years later Group Commanders would make annual visits to their units and frequently fly with their crews. Where Command chiefs visited it was usually as a farewell trip around their Units before they retired.

​

[Archimedes]

Can't see the point of removing statues - - if you have to attach an explanatory notice but where do you stop? Knock down the Roman Wall (clearly imperialist) or the Louvre or..........?

Bomber Harris? Not a great leader - he rarely ever went anywhere near an operational station, blinkered (fought tooth & nail against letting Coastal have any decent aircraft) and bombastic. He also slithered around clear orders at times. Not worthy of the people he sent out to fight

Well, you say that, but it appears that multiple Bomber Command veterans would’ve disagreed with you (Hamish Mahaddie, I think it was, who said that after a speech by Harris, the men of his station would’ve happily stuffed bombs in their pockets and flown over to Germany by flapping their arms vigorously). He also spent a lot of time in HQ because of the PM’s penchant for phoning him at all hours of the day. Churchill skilfully promoted the offensive Harris prosecuted and then dropped Bomber Command like a hot brick - ‘history shall be kind to me. I know, for I shall write it’ - when he realised the devastation the Command he’d so assiduously supported had inflicted.

Also, don’t let the head of the AHB hear you say that he avoided ‘clear orders’. Harris manoeuvred himself around Air Ministry Directives which he thought stupid, but not orders. There is an important difference between the two. Not that Max Hastings or AC Grayling have ever understood this.

[PAXboy]

My father was in Bomber Command (Night Fighters) he and his colleagues always held Harris in high esteem. They knew that he was made a scape goat but never forgot how he supported them. By all means criticise the carpet bombing of cities (remembering to include the USA in your condemnation) but state that these raids were authorised by the War Cabinet. Politicians make final choices - just as they this year.

[tdracer]

Things are always clearer with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. There is considerable evidence that the strategic bombing campaign was not an efficient use of resources - but few knew or even suspected that during the war.
Revisionist history is just that - applying modern standard to historical events gives a distorted view of what happened and why. Similar revisionist history has been applied to the US dropping the A-bombs on Japan ('Japan wasn't a threat, they were about to surrender anyway, etc.'). Given that my dad was training for the invasion of Japan when the dropped the bombs - he was going to be a platoon leader on the second wave of the initial landings and had been told to expect 80% casualties - I remain unconvinced that we didn't need to drop the bombs. In fact a pretty good argument can be made that dropping the bombs and preventing the need for an invasion of the mainland saved move lives - both Japanese and Americans - than any single act in history.

[Finningley Boy]

Is Harris' statue on Sadiq Khan's hit list then? What will be interesting will be what statues go up in place of say Harris? John Lennon perhaps?

FB

[Bergerie1]

tdracer,

My father was a POW in Singapore. I agree 100% with what you say about the A bomb probably saving more lives than it took. There is also good reason to believe that it saved the prisoners' lives too. None of these issues are easy to disentangle from modern points of view.

[MAINJAFAD]

Is Harris' statue on Sadiq Khan's hit list then? What will be interesting will be what statues go up in place of say Harris? John Lennon perhaps?

FB

Shouldn't be, Butch may have been into Bombing, but Slavery wasn't his thing.

[wwal97]

Interestingly, if you had moved out of the suburbs, and into central london, (or Coventry or Plymouth) those sorts of attitudes became less common (or even a minority view). There was gallup poll in 1941 that looked at public attitudes to 'reprisal' bombings which found that support for them overwhelmingly came from areas that had experienced the fewest air raids. I imagine that the people who had experienced area bombing had a much better idea of who was actually being targeted for 'vengeance' than the wider public.

I signed up for an account just to praise your astute and human observation of what I can only describe as merciful reflection.

[Bing]

Eventually that tactic won that war though.

Starving Germany through blockade won the war, the Armies could have just sat in their trenches for duration and achieved more or less the same effect. By 1916 Germany was receiving ~5% of what she had been before the war in terms of food and material which was unsustainable.

[XV490]

Asturias56...I suspect that any of Harris' surviving 'Old Lags' would take deep exception to your comment that:

'Bomber Harris? Not a great leader - he rarely ever went anywhere near an operational station...'

As Squadron Historian and Adjutant in the early 90s I had the immense privilege of meeting, talking with (in depth) and, best of all, drinking with dozens of ex-Bomber Command aircrew, groundcrew and their families..and almost to a man and woman they would not hear anything bad said about 'Butch' as he was very affectionately known to them. They would have followed him to hell and back, and to the survivors it must have felt like that at times.

The main problem with 'Bomber', 'Bert', or 'Butch' Harris has been the revisionist view of the strategic bomber offensive that was started as early as Feb/Mar 45 by one Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, who, after Dresden, feared that his legacy could be tarnished by association with Bomber Command and Harris.

OJ – Glad to see your conversations with veterans did not include the misnomer 'Butcher', which I moaned about some years back on this forum after Andrew Marr used it in his British history series.

[Asturias56]

I agree that Harris, and the crews of Bomber Command, were left high & dry by Churchill - whose weasel words after Dresden were very shabby indeed.

people forget that for much of the war - certainly until; '44 Bomber Command was the only way to actually strike at Germany in W Europe. 1940-42 there was no option at all, after Dieppe it was clear any ground invasion was going to be a very serious exercise indeed. I'm not convinced by Harris - his Berlin Campaign was badly thought out and kept going long after it was clear it was costing a lot of crews - but to me the crews were the bravest of the RAF - and they were not given anything like the honour they should have had

[beamer]

Bollocks to the revisionist snowflakes, I raise my glass to Sir Arthur Harris and all who served in Bomber Command.

[navstar1]

Well said Beamer so will I

[Fortissimo]

Interestingly, if you had moved out of the suburbs, and into central london, (or Coventry or Plymouth) those sorts of attitudes became less common (or even a minority view). There was gallup poll in 1941 that looked at public attitudes to 'reprisal' bombings which found that support for them overwhelmingly came from areas that had experienced the fewest air raids. I imagine that the people who had experienced area bombing had a much better idea of who was actually being targeted for 'vengeance' than the wider public.

On the other hand, one of the Bomber Command veterans who had been a 21-yr old Lancaster captain is on record talking of his experience of having his home bombed while he was on ARP duty (too young to volunteer at 17). Word reached him as he started his 8 hour shift, which he completed. When he got home, "My house was just a pile of rubble. The kind lady who lived next door was plastered to the wall like some hideous gelatinous graffiti and my bruised, battered and shocked parents were in a shelter. … I salvaged a pair of Scout shorts and a school prize, and these became my sole possessions. At that moment I swore to become a bomber pilot and make the buggers pay." Which he did!..

Flt Lt 'Steve' Stevens DFC sadly died at Easter, but at least this fine and brave gentleman did not live to see the current nonsense.

[PAXboy]

My father told us that, when his civilian parents (his father was in the RFC flying SE5a) were killed in their beds by a V2 in October 1944, it was no trouble at all to go out on operations.

As with all history - it is written by the wiiner. What we need is less editing of the past, less clinging to the past. More of understanding everything, including their social and political attitudes at the time. We have the advantage of that hindsight and should remember it all, good and bad.

We need to look and acknowledge. Judgement is way past. Just think how many more wars there have been since then? Whatever historians and archiologists discover - there have always been civilian casualties. War is what humans do because we are tribal animals and every tribe/state/company/corporation thinks it is better and more deserving than any other.

[layman]

Harris as a "colonial warmonger"? He was a product of his time and circumstances. We had a very different way of looking at the world back then.

Some quotes in relation to Harris about his inter-war service .. from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet)
"He said of his service in India that he first became involved in bombing during the usual annual North West Frontier tribesmen trouble." and later,
"Harris is recorded as having remarked "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand."" and
"He helped devise area bombing in Iraq in 1923."

Colonial: - probably hard to argue he wasn't a "colonialist"
Warmonger: - in his time probably not. Using today's social norms, probably yes.


Thread Drift:
tdracer

I've seen it claimed several times that the A-bombs were a (significant) adjunct to Japan's decision to surrender, but it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria, and threatened invasion of the Japanese islands, that were the icing on the cake of 4 years of allied (primarily US) endeavours against Japan.

For example, in Paul Ham's "Hiroshima Nagasaki" two quotes highlight this:
12 August - Kantaro Suzuki (Japanese Prime Minister) is quoted as saying "If we miss today, the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido. This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war while we can deal with the United States." (page 395)
17 August - Hirohito (in his surrender speech to the Japanese military) said "Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war to continue (fighting) would only result in further useless damage and eventually endanger the very foundation of the empire's existence." (p. 380)

9 August - Hiroshima
11 August - Nagasaki
9 August - Russian launch 'surprise' (and very successful) attacks with forces in excess of 1.5 million soldiers
10-14 August - 1,000 plus B-29 bombing sorties on Japan
10 August and on - numerous raids and shore bombardments by US 3rd fleet (including elements of the BPF)
15 August - Japanese surrender

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Bollocks to the revisionist snowflakes, I raise my glass to Sir Arthur Harris and all who served in Bomber Command.
No 'uptick' option so have a + 1 :ok:

[Recc]

On the other hand, one of the Bomber Command veterans who had been a 21-yr old Lancaster captain is on record talking of his experience of having his home bombed while he was on ARP duty (too young to volunteer at 17). Word reached him as he started his 8 hour shift, which he completed. When he got home, "My house was just a pile of rubble. The kind lady who lived next door was plastered to the wall like some hideous gelatinous graffiti and my bruised, battered and shocked parents were in a shelter. … I salvaged a pair of Scout shorts and a school prize, and these became my sole possessions. At that moment I swore to become a bomber pilot and make the buggers pay." Which he did!..

An understandable reaction, if not a humane or logical one; the kindly neighbours and elderly parents who he in turn 'plastered to the wall' or incinerated in the streets were very unlikely to have had any part in determining Luftwaffe strategy or target selection. I was only pointing out that the opposite reaction was the more common one amongst people who actually experienced that sort of bombing.

Nobody can (or should try to) downplay the bravery and patriotism of the aircrew who volunteered to carry the fight to Germany and the risks that they took to do so. However, the mere demonstration of those qualities says nothing about the morality of the act; those taking the same risks for Hitler could be described in equal terms. It has accurately been said that the most immoral thing that the allies could have done was to have lost the war. There are no easy answers (which is why I don't offer any), but it is legitimate, even in hindsight, to ask whether there should be any moral constraints on how you fight a war in such circumstances and even to ask what personal responsibility was borne by the leaders.

[Tigger_Too]

Bomber Harris a 'colonial warmonger'
Well he was certainly a warmonger. That was, after all, his job!

[Herod]

beamer; have another +1. We owe them a lot. Per Ardua

[xrayalpha]

Family member was an air gunner in Bomber Command.

Operational life expectancy at one stage was measured in days, perhaps weeks - but not even months!

Fatalities: almost as many as American losses in Vietnam (which we still hear about ad infinitum)

Morale: sky high, if not higher. Otherwise how would ordinary people who had all volunteered for flying duties put up with the life expectancy figures etc?

What shines out - and confirmed by so many many of the survivors, my family included - was their respect for their commander-in-chief.

Personally, their views - the views of those whose lives were on the line, and who lost so many of their colleagues - are what count.

[A737flyer]

I have the utmost respect and admiration for those at the sharp end of Bomber Command but, honestly, I'm never been at all sure about their commander-in-chief. Too me he was from the same mould as many of those Great War generals who could not see the wood for the trees and were of the 'one last push' mentality and to hell with the casualties.

The bombing campaign may have held a lot of German artillery and manpower back from being deployed to the Eastern Front, but in my opinion Harris was far too blinkered to see that if the Blitz had not broken civilian morale in London it was unlikely to happen in reverse. Too many times he promised area bombing would solely bring about German surrender when it failed to do so, even when it was clear invasion would be the only means to end the war. He resisted when his bombers were needed in the lead up to the Allied invasion to hit logistics and communications targets in France, and I believe he arefused to allow any four-engined bombers to be diverted to support Coastal Command in the Battle of the Atlantic when the U-boats were wreaking havoc on merchant shipping.

There was disquiet about area bombing at the time, and ever since, and even I remain unconvinced that, in the end, the results were worth the sacrifice of so many young men.

I apologise if my thoughts offend, but that's how I feel.
There was a considerable difference between the Aims of the german high command and the British. The Germans sought to terrorize the population while the British and American aim was the destruction of Germany's war-making capability. Stop reading revisionist history.

[tdracer]

9 August - Hiroshima
11 August - Nagasaki
9 August - Russian launch 'surprise' (and very successful) attacks with forces in excess of 1.5 million soldiers
10-14 August - 1,000 plus B-29 bombing sorties on Japan
10 August and on - numerous raids and shore bombardments by US 3rd fleet (including elements of the BPF)
15 August - Japanese surrender
Layman, while I don't disagree with anything you wrote - it does leave out one rather significant aspect (not being critical of you - it's a little known aspect of the end of the Pacific War).
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emperor reportedly said something to the effect that the Japanese people couldn't continue to suffer this way, and it was time to end the war. After the emperor recorded his surrender statement to the Japanese people on August 14, there was an attempted "Palace Coup" by some of the military leaders who wanted to keep fighting - it was a near thing that the attempted coup was unsuccessful (they wanted to destroy the recording but a quick thinking aide had hid it). So while the Russian attack certainly added urgency to the Japanese surrender, it hadn't convinced the military that the game was up.

[EESDL]

Another plus one
RAF had to ‘carpet’ bomb as their bomb aiming was lousy for best part of war ;-)

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Thread Drift:
tdracer

I've seen it claimed several times that the A-bombs were a (significant) adjunct to Japan's decision to surrender, but it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria, and threatened invasion of the Japanese islands, that were the icing on the cake of 4 years of allied (primarily US) endeavours against Japan.

For example, in Paul Ham's "Hiroshima Nagasaki" two quotes highlight this:
12 August - Kantaro Suzuki (Japanese Prime Minister) is quoted as saying "If we miss today, the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido. This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war while we can deal with the United States." (page 395)
17 August - Hirohito (in his surrender speech to the Japanese military) said "Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war to continue (fighting) would only result in further useless damage and eventually endanger the very foundation of the empire's existence." (p. 380)

9 August - Hiroshima
11 August - Nagasaki
9 August - Russian launch 'surprise' (and very successful) attacks with forces in excess of 1.5 million soldiers
10-14 August - 1,000 plus B-29 bombing sorties on Japan
10 August and on - numerous raids and shore bombardments by US 3rd fleet (including elements of the BPF)
15 August - Japanese surrender

Surprised no-one has has picked up on this, but for the sake of accuracy:

9 6 August - Hiroshima
11 9 August - Nagasaki
9 August - co-incidentally Russian launch 'surprise' (and very successful) attacks with forces in excess of 1.5 million soldiers

Probably the only time Stalin kept his word to the other Allies, after he promised to attack Japan 30 90 days after the cessation of hostilities in Europe. But it was only to gain territory in the Far East for the 'advancement' of communism.
Good 'read' on the subject is "The Last Mission" by Jim Smith and Malcolm McConnell.

(edited for brevity and correctness)

[Finningley Boy]

Shouldn't be, Butch may have been into Bombing, but Slavery wasn't his thing.
Oh indeed, but the net is being cast far and wide. Apparently Viscount Monty, who is very much in the same Barge, has attracted some unwelcome mejah attention because, like a lot of folks of that and earlier, indeed later, generations, is accused of holding opinions and using language which today would give your average snowflake an apoplectic fit!

FB

[ihg]

There was a considerable difference between the Aims of the german high command and the British. The Germans sought to terrorize the population while the British and American aim was the destruction of Germany's war-making capability. Stop reading revisionist history.

HarrisIn October 1943 Air Chief Marshal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Chief_Marshal) Arthur Harris (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet), C-in-C of RAF Bomber Command (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command) writing to his superior urged the British government to be honest to the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign and openly announce that:
"The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."

re. area bombing directive, 42: the Chief of the Air Staff (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_the_Air_Staff_(United_Kingdom)) Charles Portal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Portal,_1st_Viscount_Portal_of_Hungerford) sought clarification from the Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Vice Marshal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Vice_Marshal) Norman Bottomley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bottomley) who had drafted it: "ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned in Appendix A. This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood."[ (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive#cite_note-Johnston-5)

[layman]

Downwind.Maddl-Land

thanks. Bleeding obvious errors on my part.

I think the agreement was for Russia to enter the war against Japan after "2 to 3 months" (90 days?) from end of war against Germany (agreed at the Tehran conference in 1943 & confirmed at the Yalta conference in Feb 1945). Between us, we might get there …..

tdracer
thanks - had read about the '11th hour' attempted coup, wasn't aware of the hidden recording. The Japanese military (army?) thinking at the time (largely ignoring the threats from both the A-bomb and Russia) was even more disconnected from reality than usual.


Now back to the main show, Arthur Harris.

[MAINJAFAD]

Layman, while I don't disagree with anything you wrote - it does leave out one rather significant aspect (not being critical of you - it's a little known aspect of the end of the Pacific War).
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emperor reportedly said something to the effect that the Japanese people couldn't continue to suffer this way, and it was time to end the war. After the emperor recorded his surrender statement to the Japanese people on August 14, there was an attempted "Palace Coup" by some of the military leaders who wanted to keep fighting - it was a near thing that the attempted coup was unsuccessful (they wanted to destroy the recording but a quick thinking aide had hid it). So while the Russian attack certainly added urgency to the Japanese surrender, it hadn't convinced the military that the game was up.

A B-29 bomber stream flying up the coastline past Tokyo to bomb the Japanese's last functioning oil refinery and causing the power to be switched off in the palace as part of an air raid warning didn't help the plotters cause in anyway either. The Last Mission is a very good read.

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Downwind.Maddl-Land

thanks. Bleeding obvious errors on my part.

I think the agreement was for Russia to enter the war against Japan after "2 to 3 months" (90 days?) from end of war against Germany (agreed at the Tehran conference in 1943 & confirmed at the Yalta conference in Feb 1945). Between us, we might get there …..

tdracer
thanks - had read about the '11th hour' attempted coup, wasn't aware of the hidden recording. The Japanese military (army?) thinking at the time (largely ignoring the threats from both the A-bomb and Russia) was even more disconnected from reality than usual.


Now back to the main show, Arthur Harris.

See? I'm no better! When tapping away on my 'phone I remember thinking 'what to put: 90 days - or 3 months?' and made a bo££ocks of it anyway! I hate this ageing process! :*

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Another plus one
RAF had to ‘carpet’ bomb as their bomb aiming was lousy for best part of war ;-)

Probably best summed-up by someone who coined the phrase:

"The RAF precision-bombed area targets by night, the USAAF area-bombed precision targets by day..."

[parabellum]

I get very irritated when partially educated students and their hangers-on try to cancel out British history. History is neither there to be liked or disliked, it is a record and a reminder. To compare and apply present day values to the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries is quite ridiculous bordering on stupid. One may as well ask what might have happened had we had two Vickers machine guns at Agincourt or a Type 45 Destroyer at Trafalgar and just for good measure how about a battery of 105mm at Waterloo and laser guided bombs and B2 bombers during WW2, all completely incomparable, irrelevant and pointless comparisons.

Regarding Dresden it was an important railway junction and the remains of three German armies were retreating Westwards and would have come through that junction moving forward to confront the allied advance, thus prolonging the war. Dresden was also known for the manufacture and supply of hi tech equipment used in the ammunition and weapons industries. Dresden was a legitimate strategic target.

[jmmoric]

Regarding Dresden it was an important railway junction and the remains of three German armies were retreating Westwards and would have come through that junction moving forward to confront the allied advance, thus prolonging the war. Dresden was also known for the manufacture and supply of hi tech equipment used in the ammunition and weapons industries. Dresden was a legitimate strategic target.

I know about Dresden, and a lot of other targets during WW2....

But I'll never admit that bombing civilians will be legitimate.... no matter how you turn and twist it. I don't condone the Warsawa and Brussels bombings either, or any other of the sorts.... civiliens are civilians, and we should do our outmost to NOT kill them.... most of the time all you get is a lot of angry civilians.

Just see how people take it every time states are killing "priority targets" and a handfull of civilians as well... they usually get more enemies than friends.

But nuff said about that.... pretty sure Harris did a good job though.

[DODGYOLDFART]

I wrote earlier about my experience in 1944 as a young lad and applauding our bombers as they past over my school in Surrey on their way to targets on the Continent.

On a slightly lighter note, around the same time the Baby Blitz was in progress and we were spending many a night in our smelly black beetle and spider infested shelters. My elder brother was in the Home Guard and after one rather heavy raid returned home just as it was getting light with two German aircrew who he had captured in the field behind our house. They had parachuted from a Junkers 88 which had had its tail blown off by AA fire. One of them turned out to be the pilot who had a nasty gash across his forehead which my sister who was in the ARP quickly patched up. In the mean time my Mother set about preparing our breakfast and promptly put a further couple of our precious eggs, fried bread etc. in the frying pan for the prisoners. The two other members of the crew of the JU 88 were un-be-known to us not so lucky as they were dead inside the wreck of the aircraft in a wood not very far away.

The pilot spoke some English and I believe expressed a view that for Germany the war was lost and he for one was glad to be out of it. My brother said that when he found them they offered no resistance and immediately gave him their pistols. My brother kept one of the pistols which he hid and which did not come to light until after he died which was only about ten years ago.

As a small lad I was rather mystified by these rather strange goings on. Particularly as I was more used to hearing about the "wicked, evil Germans" and here was my family treating them like human beings and even feeding them our precious rations. Given that two members of our family were regularly flying in the other direction to drop bombs on the enemy, I am not so surprised.

[Jenns]

I understand from some of the posts here that regarding the mass slaughtering of civilians Harris was just carrying out orders. So was Eichmann, I am glad we do not have a statue of him.

[Asturias56]

Jenns - there is a difference - and if you can't see it I suggest you find an optician......................

[megan]

civiliens are civilians, and we should do our outmost to NOT kill themThe only trouble being those civilians are responsible for manufacturing the weapons to kill YOU. You may say s/he's only the baker of bread, but s/he is still enabling the production of those weapons with the aim of killing YOU.

[Marcantilan]

megan, I think a civilian factory producing tanks is fair game, even if some civilian workers die in the bombing. Killing the same worker bombing his house and in the process killing his wife and children...is out of limits.

[Juan Tugoh]

This is all typical revisionist history. If you want to judge Butch Harris then you must do it through the lens of his time, else it is meaningless and just an exercise in virtue signalling. Harris was a man of his time not of the early 21st century.

[George Glass]

Both my parents were children during the War and were evacuated during the Blitz.
My mother returned to London just in time to be bombed out by one of the first V2 rockets.
She was dug out from under the rubble of a three story tenement.
Between Dunkirk and D-Day Bomber Command was the only way of taking the fight to the German people. Nobody and any qualms about it at the time. On the contrary , listening to the bomber streams passing overhead each night , as my mother did , was a moral boosting godsend.
There was no such thing as precision night bombing. It was either area bombing or nothing at all. The government quite realistically chose area bombing. To Churchills undying discredit he tried after the War to walk away from what was a perfectly rational strategic decision, and sold Harris down the river at the same.
Germany had twice within a generation led the world into disastrous conflicts that resulted in the death and suffering of countless millions.
Hitler had not only to be beaten but smashed. After WW1 the Allies had made the mistake of not making the German people truely feel their defeat.
I doubt that there are too many people in Germany now who believe they could have afforded to have won WW2.
The bomber campaign not only should have happened , it had to happen.
Remember the brave Pilots of Bomber Command.
Lest we forget.

[Momoe]

Another plus 1 for Beamer and one for Juan Tugoh, beautifully concise.

[OJ 72]

Having not been on-line for a few days I've just had a quick read through this thread, and when I got to Jenns' crass and offensive comment at Post 55 comparing Harris with Eichmann I couldn't really believe what I was seeing. I've been trying to think of some form argument to counter this repugnant comment, but then I realised that if Jenns genuinely holds this opinion then he's patently a lost cause, and no form of reasoning or cogent discussion could persuade him otherwise.

[Brewster Buffalo]

I ....... two German aircrew ......the pilot who had a nasty gash across his forehead which my sister who was in the ARP quickly patched up. In the mean time my Mother set about preparing our breakfast and promptly put a further couple of our precious eggs, fried bread etc. in the frying pan for the prisoners..
I read of a case where the RAF gave full military funerals to some Luftwaffe aircrew much to the disgust of the locals who also objected to them being buried in their local churchyard. I don't whether it was RAF policy to do this in every case. Even RAF aircrew bailing out over England were sometimes shot at by the Home Guard. I think that one chap was killed.

[Video Mixdown]

The Bomber Command attacks on German cities, coupled with precision attacks on V-weapon sites and other infrastructure were undoubtedly viewed by allied leaders as an important contribution to ending the war in Europe - the only real aim. Why else would they begin assembling Tiger Force consisting of 22 squadrons of Lancaster/Lincoln/Liberator bombers with the clear intention of doing exactly the same thing to Japan?

The only people responsible for the millions of deaths during WWII were Hitler and his acolytes, along with their counterparts in Japan.

[Archimedes]

I read of a case where the RAF gave full military funerals to some Luftwaffe aircrew much to the disgust of the locals who also objected to them being buried in their local churchyard. I don't whether it was RAF policy to do this in every case. Even RAF aircrew bailing out over England were sometimes shot at by the Home Guard. I think that one chap was killed.

James Nicolson was wounded after a member of the Home Guard fired at him as he descended after baling out of his Hurricane at the end of the action which led to the award of his VC.

[dastocks]

There is a very good account of the Dresden bombing, with a lot of historical context, in this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dresden-Tuesday-13-February-1945/dp/0747570841
Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February 1945, by Frederick Taylor
(other booksellers are available)

[Barksdale Boy]

Dastocks

I agree: Frederick Taylor's book lays it all out very clearly. I have lent it to several people (non-service), all of whom said "that's changed my opinion completely" or words to that effect.

[beardy]

The discussions range from whether 'the end justifies the means' to whether 'morally defensible acts should always apply without exception'. ie I can kill if it justifies the end result vs if killing is wrong I should never do it. Defending the end justifies the means is to defend Hitler's approach to total war, nuclear exchange, chemical and biological warfare and of course targeting civilians. Defending moral relativism (it is acceptable to kill in some circumstances) opens up an anti-religious standpoint (killing is wrong) and leaves room for interpretation by the individual (My Lai anyone?) Once you move down the relativism road then you must accept that one person's truth may be different from another's, after all it's all relative.
It's not a simple problem.

[Union Jack]

What must be remembered is, that after Dunkirk, Bomber Command was the only force that was capable of taking the fight to the enemy.


I cannot help noting that a number of posters refer to Bomber Command in terms of being, if I may use OJ 72's words, "after Dunkirk ....the only force that was capable of taking the fight to the enemy". Whilst not wishing to detract from the thread's overall thrust, with which I agree, may I gently point out that the Royal Navy Submarine Service was doing precisely that throughout World War II.

Jack

[Asturias56]

It was indeed Jack - and IIRC the casualty figures were similar - 74 - 79 submarines lost

[Harley Quinn]

Jack, maybe part of the reason is because those submariners were part of the silent service? Bomber Command even sent radio reporters (Richard Dimbleby?) on some raids. There was a greater immediacy to reporting, and some footage of the devastation caused, which was far less likely if a submarine sank a ship, likely the sub would be straight into evasive manoeuvres.

And of course, those RAF chaps were far more handsome and much less smelly than the guys in the boats :E

[SLXOwft]

In fairness Jack, I think one can say that Bomber Command were the only substantial means of hitting at the machinery of the Nazi war effort. Others were fighting after Dunkirk, e.g. in North Africa or commando raids on the European mainland (Operation Collar was in June '40). The role of the Merchant Navy and the RN surface fleet in sustaining the UK war effort and fighting the U-Boats shouldn't be forgotten either. (Personal interest to declare: my late father served under "Johnnie" Walker's command.)

What "Butch" Harris and his aircrews did was perfectly legal. It is, yet again, a case of applying laws and standards that did not apply at the time. Like any good service(wo)man he was following the legal orders of his superiors and government. I am personally very thankful he did. (I will avoid any discussion on slavery as I would go on for pages.)

The law of war covering aerial bombardment in WW2 was the XIVth Declaration of the 1907 Hague Convention which was in force by default (and still is) as the Third Peace Conference never took place. It in effect only covered war between the British Empire and the USA as France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia, did not sign or ratify it. Austria-Hungary signed but did not ratify it. It has been said that perceived advantages from developments in the means of "aerial navigation" had put governments off restricting their use. I am pretty certain tHere were no laws of war covering civilians in unoccupied territory.

The Contracting Powers agree to prohibit, for a period extending to the close of the Third Peace Conference, the discharge of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of a similar nature. The present Declaration is only binding on the Contracting Powers in case of war between two or more of them. It shall cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Powers, one of the belligerents is joined by a non-Contracting Power. (my emphasis)

Declaration (XIV) Prohibiting the Discharge of Projectiles and Explosives from Balloons. The Hague, 18 October 1907

[Caramba]

Having not been on-line for a few days I've just had a quick read through this thread, and when I got to Jenns' crass and offensive comment at Post 55 comparing Harris with Eichmann I couldn't really believe what I was seeing. I've been trying to think of some form argument to counter this repugnant comment, but then I realised that if Jenns genuinely holds this opinion then he's patently a lost cause, and no form of reasoning or cogent discussion could persuade him otherwise.

It’s a false equivalence. Eichmann was enacting genocide (a term not coined until 1947 I think). Harris - Britain - was waging war as best it could with the available tools, against a foe that was waging an aggressive war, perpetrating all sorts of ghastliness in the process.

Incidentally, the USAAC/F might claim some sort of moral superiority because it used precision bombing - but it was hardly precision when the entire formation bombed at the same time as the leader, or used radar, or dropped incendiaries over Japanese cities.

Caramba

[Jenns]

I am not "comparing" anything here, I am just saying that "I followed orders" is not a valid excuse for war crimes. In the decades after 1945 Europe evolved into something really great but there is a prevailing mentality in the UK that is completely stuck in the 1930s. What else (besides an infinite amount of poor taste) could have led to the erection of the statue in question in the first place?

In 1992 the rest of Europe was looking forward to travelling and trading without border controls and to the Euro. In a process that has no equivalent in human history we had successfully put the animosities of the past centuries behind us. Yet some idiots needed to erect a statue that symbolizes them more than hardly anything else? Weren't you ashamed?

[Union Jack]

I readily accept the input from of the preceding three posters and, without wishing to deviate too far from the thread's specific subject, simply felt as an underwater warrior that the significance of the Silent Service's continuous war patrols was worth a mention, *specifically* but not exclusively, in relation to the posts I indexed. "Other fighting forces are available" - and their supporters are of course just as welcome to mention them on the same principle, should they so wish.

SLXOwft - For your interest, I had the pleasure of knowing both Mrs Johnny Walker and her aviator son.

Jack

[Harley Quinn]

In 1992 the rest of Europe was looking forward to travelling and trading without border controls and to the Euro. In a process that has no equivalent in human history we had successfully put the animosities of the past centuries behind us. Yet some idiots needed to erect a statue that symbolizes them more than hardly anything else? Weren't you ashamed?

Because the subject of that statue was a key enabler of the conditions that allowed freedom of movement without having to show your papers to any gauleiter who took an interest in your genetic, racial, sexual or political predilictions. There is no need to feel ashamed over what he and his peers achieved.

[OJ 72]

Regarding Jenns' comment in Post #73 about being 'ashamed' of Sir Arthur Harris' statue being unveiled in 1992...I am in no way ashamed about its unveiling. My only regret was that I was on holiday with my wife in France at the time and we were unable to accept an invitation to attend the unveiling with the surviving 'Old Lags' from my Squadron Association. And Jenns, before you ask, I felt nothing but pride watching the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park in 2012. The only 'shame' was that the 55 573 dead and the dwindling band of survivors had to wait so long to be recognised by the Nation.

It may be simplistic, but if it wasn't for their sacrifice, (and that of the other services, and the civilians of the UK and the Commonwealth) then the borderless Europe that you alluded to in your post may have been a reality. However, I doubt if there would have been much peace, prosperity or indeed freedom of movement for those people who didn't constitute 'Grosser Deutschland'.

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Regarding Jenns' comment in Post #73 about being 'ashamed' of Sir Arthur Harris' statue being unveiled in 1992...I am in no way ashamed about its unveiling. My only regret was that I was on holiday with my wife in France at the time and we were unable to accept an invitation to attend the unveiling with the surviving 'Old Lags' from my Squadron Association. And Jenns, before you ask, I felt nothing but pride watching the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park in 2012. The only 'shame' was that the 55 573 dead and the dwindling band of survivors had to wait so long to be recognised by the Nation.

It may be simplistic, but if it wasn't for their sacrifice, (and that of the other services, and the civilians of the UK and the Commonwealth) then the borderless Europe that you alluded to in your post may have been a reality. However, I doubt if there would have been much peace, prosperity or indeed freedom of movement for those people who didn't constitute 'Grosser Deutschland'.

At the risk of repeating myself: +1 :ok:
On the other hand: Jenns :rolleyes:

[Asturias56]

The problem with Jens argument is that it doesn't address the issues at the time. Assuming he/she agrees that ending the hold of the NAZI party on Germany and Europe was a desirable and necessary thing how was it to be achieved?

The answer was an alliance of many nations, none of whom could be described as without some serious faults themselves but nothing like as mad, bad and dangerous as Hitlerian Germany. Once you start a war you unleash death and destruction - this is why it should be avoided if at all possible - but by 1939 there really was no choice - it was literally fight or be subjugated. You fight to win, and to win as fast as possible - no one seriously holds the view that Hitler winning would be a good thing for anyone, especially Germany. For many years the Allies in the West had a very limited options on how to fight - the bombing campaign was the main answer. We should also remember that it wasn't started by the Allies - Germany was quite happy to bomb anyone.

We can say it was awful, we can say it would have been better if we could have won the war without doing it - but we can't say it was wrong at the time or that the people who carried it out weren't very brave. It's like any other battle - thousands killed and wounded and awful destruction but there really is no choice - sometimes it's necessary.

[Chugalug2]

I am not "comparing" anything here, I am just saying that "I followed orders" is not a valid excuse for war crimes. In the decades after 1945 Europe evolved into something really great but there is a prevailing mentality in the UK that is completely stuck in the 1930s. What else (besides an infinite amount of poor taste) could have led to the erection of the statue in question in the first place?

In 1992 the rest of Europe was looking forward to travelling and trading without border controls and to the Euro. In a process that has no equivalent in human history we had successfully put the animosities of the past centuries behind us. Yet some idiots needed to erect a statue that symbolizes them more than hardly anything else? Weren't you ashamed?
That is the most sanctimonious twaddle imaginable. Not only that, it is very dangerous sanctimonious twaddle. You remind me of those who surrounded Greenham Common to 'stop war'. All they did was offer comfort to those who would start wars. As to your enthusiasm for a borderless Europe, as already stated, you are late to the party. A little stout French Emperor and an Austrian Corporal had already tried it and failed. Third time lucky? I wouldn't put any money on it. Save your anti Brit attitudes for elsewhere. We were offered a deal by the Fuhrer, turned him down, and with the help of Bomber Command defeated his tidy minded ideas of Germania. When you start planning the lives of other peoples you tend to get push back, so don't!

[Blackfriar]

Eventually that tactic won that war though.
Don't think so. The blockade of German materials and food exhausted them and the arrival of US troops helped. Throwing men at barbed wire and machine guns never became a success story.

[brakedwell]

Well said Chugalug2!

[FantomZorbin]

Thank you Chugalug2 … excellent!

[Jenns]

I did not really expect overwhelming approval in a British dominated military forum. Outside this filter bubble things would look different. There is a lot of speculation and interpreting going on here which is totally irrelevant to my argument. We are talking about a statue of a man who in the whole world is seen as a symbol for the systematic slaughtering of civilians. And him being seen as this symbol is actually more important than what happened in detail and what might have happened otherwise. Bombing civilians by the thousands with no other military justification than "breaking morale" is absolutely nothing to be proud of. Who has not understood this in 2020 is - to pick up that expression - a "lost cause" for sure.

The comparison of today's united Europe with a Europe being united by conquering clearly shows a mindset that is completely one of the past. It is sad to hear something like this but I have heard it many times before. Yet I have never met a person who was in favour of that statue. That's the reason I am posting in this thread, I want to hear what your arguments are. So far I am not impressed, I only see stubborn nationalism and militarism. To leave these behind was the real foundation of present day Europe. I guess we can at least all agree that Brexit was a good idea? :)

[rolling20]

As I say to all revisionists and those that seek to pour scorn on Harris and the BC aircrew who lie in cemeteries in NW Europe, those men ,aside of Harris did not get the opportunity to join the debate that you enjoy and you are damm lucky the debate isn't in German. In which case most probably the debate would not be allowed at all!

[SLXOwft]

I readily accept the input from of the preceding three posters and, without wishing to deviate too far from the thread's specific subject, simply felt as an underwater warrior that the significance of the Silent Service's continuous war patrols was worth a mention, *specifically* but not exclusively, in relation to the posts I indexed. "Other fighting forces are available" - and their supporters are of course just as welcome to mention them on the same principle, should they so wish.

SLXOwft - For your interest, I had the pleasure of knowing both Mrs Johnny Walker and her aviator son.

JackJack, thanks.

I am sure you understand I was trying to forestall any unjustified inter service sniping.

As we both know the Walker’s son Timothy was lost with HM Submarine Parthian. I have nothing but admiration for commanders like ‘Shrimp’ Simpson, Wanklyn, and Tomkinson and the men who served under them. I equally admire the Bomber Command crews. I was lucky enough to know someone who indirectly worked for Harris. Of whom, he said, had some failings as a man but he had no doubts about the job Harris asked him to do as a pilot and later as a squadron CO.

In 1992 the rest of Europe was looking forward to travelling and trading without border controls and to the Euro. In a process that has no equivalent in human history we had successfully put the animosities of the past centuries behind us. Yet some idiots needed to erect a statue that symbolizes them more than hardly anything else? Weren't you ashamed?


Jenns,
No, I was proud. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As the philosopher George Santayana actually said.

I voted remain in the Brexit Referendum and would vote to re-join the EU. However, I consider the ECSC, EEC, EC and EU to have been consecutive beneficiaries of the peace, created by, what for Britain, was a pyrrhic victory, the Marshall Plan, and maintained by NATO, (initially) the occupation and denazification of Germany, and Nuclear Deterrence. This enabled the creation of widespread wealth which in turn supressed international rivalries. The erection of the Bomber Command memorial and a statue of MRAF Sir Arthur Harris Bt., GCB, OBE AFC were the righting of an historical wrong – their sacrifice and contribution to the defeat of tyranny had been ignored on the grounds of political expediency.

Historical events are often a matter of perspective, in a conversation with a Jens (funnily enough), who I worked with briefly, he stated he felt life was better under the DDR, in which he grew up. To paraphrase if you weren’t a political agitator the state looked after all your needs.

Political actions are often driven by expediency. “…If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that... ." Abraham Lincoln – the ‘heroic’ emancipator of US slaves in a letter to the New York Tribune, 22 August 1862. George Washington wished to free his slaves but didn’t in his lifetime partly because he was economically dependent on their labour. As an historian, to me the abolition of chattel slavery is a welcome fruit of the industrial revolution which had made it increasingly irrelevant to those who had political power. As with most historic changes the conditions have to be right and those in the right place get the credit.

Finally, a word on Field Marshal Haig. He was, for example, forced to launch the Somme offensive before he was ready in terms of training and quantity of artillery. This was due to a combination of political direction and to relieve the French whose position at Verdun was, in the declared opinion of Petain, about to collapse. Haig was always looking for new tactics and technology to improve the chances of a decisive victory and lessen casualties.

Apologies to all for the massive thread drift.

[Chugalug2]

Jenns, your weary game of moral equivalence is better suited to being played out on Social Media. This is a Military Aviation Forum, albeit a "British dominated" one (a damning verdict in your book no doubt). Most here have served or indeed are serving. They know full well the awfulness of war and how important it is to avoid it at all costs, including meeting the costs of carrying a big stick and speaking softly. When it cannot be avoided then it must be conducted such as to end it ASAP in victory lest delay means it ends in defeat. As has been already pointed out, the only way of taking the war directly to Germany (with whom we were at war, not just with the NAZI Party, the SS, the Gestapo, or even the Wehrmacht, but with Germany) was by bombing, and the only practical way of bombing was by bombing at night. The technology of the time meant that the only practical targets on the whole were cities. For the most part we could at least find them and create the disruption of the German War Economy that would otherwise have flourished unhindered. Techniques and technology allowed for some improved accuracy and hence aiming for particular areas within cities, but to all intents and purposes Area Bombing (ie of cities) was the national policy (not just of Arthur Harris) throughout the war. If it hadn't been then it is my opinion that the Allies would have lost the war. By pinning down enormous German resources (particularly those of ground and air elements of the Luftwaffe) to defend against what was essentially a second front (as confirmed by that suave survivalist, Speer), it allowed for the advance of land armies from the East, South, and West that led to Germany's defeat. You may see all that as British self justification but I see it as the price of freedom. You pays your money and you takes your choice (to pick up yet another expression).

As to:-
We are talking about a statue of a man who in the whole world is seen as a symbol for the systematic slaughtering of civilians.
You really need to get out more!

[Archimedes]

I did not really expect overwhelming approval in a British dominated military forum. Outside this filter bubble things would look different. There is a lot of speculation and interpreting going on here which is totally irrelevant to my argument. We are talking about a statue of a man who in the whole world is seen as a symbol for the systematic slaughtering of civilians. And him being seen as this symbol is actually more important than what happened in detail and what might have happened otherwise. Bombing civilians by the thousands with no other military justification than "breaking morale" is absolutely nothing to be proud of. Who has not understood this in 2020 is - to pick up that expression - a "lost cause" for sure.

The comparison of today's united Europe with a Europe being united by conquering clearly shows a mindset that is completely one of the past. It is sad to hear something like this but I have heard it many times before. Yet I have never met a person who was in favour of that statue. That's the reason I am posting in this thread, I want to hear what your arguments are. So far I am not impressed, I only see stubborn nationalism and militarism. To leave these behind was the real foundation of present day Europe. I guess we can at least all agree that Brexit was a good idea? :)

Ignoring some of the spurious hyperbole and false comparisons in there for a moment...

You're dangerously close to the 'Harris was just as bad as Hitler' moral equivalence nonsense that sees certain historians, many of them genuinely extreme right wingers (as opposed to how the British media defines XRW). There was military justification for bombing whether you like it or not. The evidence is there, in countless files, that Germany's ability to wage war was the target. Morale was but one component of that effort. Although this draws in the counter-factual to an extent because of the technology and likely outcomes of its employment, had the US and UK possessed precision weaponry of the sort available 20-25 years after the war (not now), morale would never have come into the equation. Nowhere, in Bomber Command's pre-war planning, was hitting civilians part of the equation. When the area campaign began just before Harris took over, it was still not part of the plan. Morale and 'dehousing the German worker' only came into play as a brutal perceived necessity once the campaign was underway.

Senior Air officers were concerned - not about 'image' but because they were instinctively uncomfortable with the thought that women and children were being killed and wounded. They weren't a bunch of callous senior officers, but were able to put those concerns aside, or to rationalise them, or to suppress them by seeing the target for tonight as being some sort of inanimate object (buildings) and pretending to themselves that these objects weren't surrounded by people. They adopted other 'coping' mechanisms. Harris's approach was to accept the fact that bombing would lead to deaths of civilians because this was the only way of winning the war. It wasn't about terror bombing, but about destroying (or attempting to destroy) Germany's ability to wage war.

You try to compare 'today's united Europe' with a 'Europe being united by conquering' as though there's a complete separation. Today's united Europe arose because the Allies conquered Germany. The western allies then set about attempting to ensure that the continent was not riven by further major wars through the establishment of the ECSC, EEC, EC and EU. But this stemmed from conquest.

Bombing was a 'necessary evil' to try to bring about the destruction of Germany's ability to fight, to liberate nations conquered by Germany and try to ensure that the war ended as swiftly and with as few casualties as possible on the other side.

To apply the standards of today to those trying to defeat one of the two most vile, inhumane regimes in modern history is fallacious. Harris' statute stands as a tribute to the men he led (remember, there was no Bomber Command memorial at the time Harris' statue was erected). Those protesting against the statue fail to realise that without the likes of Harris and the men he led (and literally millions of others at sea, on land and in the air), Hitler would've triumphed.

It's not about being British, or imperialist, or xenophobic, or right wing, or nationalistic or racist, or anti-European- it's about seeing history properly rather than attempting to shape it retrospectively to fit modern agendas which try to make crass moral equivalences between 1945 and 2020 and if that means twisting the context or the reality to fit the 'truth' desired, then those busily propagandising the history for their own ends couldn't care less. Bombing was not a 'nice' thing, it was an awful, terrifying, horrific thing. But it made a significant contribution to the defeat of an awful, terrifying, horrific thing, far greater in the scope of its evil and immorality - Nazi Germany. Implicitly comparing Harris to (say) Heydrich or Dietrich is nothing more than fake moral equivalence and dangerously close to an apologia for the Nazis.

So, no, it isn't much of a surprise that people are objecting to the line you're trying to spin. Just as it's no surprise to see you adopting an attitude of contemptuous moral superiority to those who dare to disagree with your world view.

[Jenns]

I think I have already made my point about the perceived symbolic significance of the statue in as few words as possible. I do not agree with most of your efforts for justification but that discussion would be endless and unproductive. As I mentioned before it is also irrelevant to my argument. The only thing I want to add is that I am in absolutely no way looking for "moral equivalence" or comparisons so please do not imply that. My initial provocation was just based on the observation that "following orders" is not an excuse. At least it brought up some decent arguments. Whether I agree with them or not is also not relevant.

[Barksdale Boy]

Jenns

Perception seldom equates to reality.

[Chugalug2]

So it's all about you and your perceptions, in which case whether you agree with others' 'decent arguments' or not is indeed irrelevant. Take your provocations elsewhere Jenns. "Following orders" to justify a war crime is indeed indictable. Harris carried out legal orders, and to portray him as a war criminal is unjustifiable and, as already pointed out, an insult to the 55,573 brave men who died carrying them out. Go away!

[Bergerie1]

Thank you SLXOwft and Archimedes for saying so eloquently all that I would have liked to say too. I support your views 100%. My career was as a civil pilot, but most of the captains I first flew with in BOAC were ex-Bomber Command. As you would expect, some had very mixed views as to the morality but knew it was the only way that Britain could take the war to Hitler at that time. They were all very brave men who fought for the liberty and peace we now enjoy. They knew their ultimate goal was right even though the method used was a very blunt instrument. As others have said here, all war is horrible, my family suffered too. But once you go to war, you have to fight it with all your might.

Churchill did, Harris did, and the men under him did. You have to judge people and their actions in the light of the knowledge and values of the time, not those which are held now.

[Jenns]

I was not talking about my perceptions, I was talking about the perceptions outside this filter bubble. And these perceptions lead to protests from day one. It required to guard the statue 24h a day. And perception is often more important than reality. Many wars have been started over perceived threats.

[brakedwell]

I was a small lad living in the southern outskirts of London for most of WWII. I still have strong memories of the Blitz, the Bedecker raids and then the doodlebugs and V2 rockets. I also remember standing in the playground of my school and cheering as our bombers and the USAF streamed overhead on their way to targets on the continent. This was vengeance personified for the damage Hitler did to our country. So I for one am happy to applaud Bomber Harris for what he did, including the morale boost he gave to my family and school friends.

Perhaps I should also mention that I had members of my family flying in those bombers and thank God they were among the lucky ones who served with pride and without regret. So stuff the Hampstead Thinkers and their cohorts.


DOF, i remember being woken up by Lufrwaffe raids on Liverpool in the early nineteen forties. We moved in with my grandfather, who lived in the very east of Rhyl, when my father, who was in the regular army, went to France. He came back from Dunkirk and was posted to North Africa after a very short stay in UK, then was killed there in 1943. I joined the RAF as a UT pilot at the age of 17+ in 1955 and left in 1972 to join the airlines. Since then my eldest son has lived and worked in Southern Germany for 26 years, is married to a German girl and has a daughter at Munich University. My son has dual British/German nationality, mainly because of Brexit. I love Germany and like the German people very much, but I still think Harris was the right man for the job at that time.

[OJ 72]

Jenns, your argument is specious at best, but generally it is a load of old tosh. You are talking about the perceptions of a minority of UK citizens within yet another ‘filter bubble’. Whilst some of those protesting have genuine grievances, quite a few are there because they feel that they have the right to protest...just as long as it’s ‘anti-UK’, ‘anti-military’ and ‘anti-anything that doesn’t fit my world view so it must be wrong’.

I generalise, but some of the nice ‘woke’, middle-class youngsters who are there are the self-same posse who turned up at ‘wee Greta’s’ Save the Planet demonstrations, and disrupted our cities during the ‘Extinction Rebellion’ protests, having been dropped off in Mummy’s ‘Chelsea tractor’ then picked up by Daddy in his Rover, before flying to Antibes on their third holiday of the year. If you asked them to pick out Dresden on a map of Germany then they’d probably look at you blankly. And God forfend if you would ask them when D-Day was or who Churchill replaced as PM in May 40!!

It’s so simplistic to look upon percieved rights and wrongs through the prism of time. Nowadays potential collateral damage and civilian casualties are considered in fine detail by planners and ‘targeteers’! But as Hartley (‘LP’ not ‘JR’ of blessed Yellow Pages memory) stated in ‘The Go Between’…’The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’.

Bomber Command took and sustained the fight to the enemy from the very first day of the war to the last. As has been previously stated the offensive not only caused damage to the German war industry and economy, and the morale of the German people, it also tied up millions of able-bodied men and thousands of 88mm flak guns in anti-aircraft defence; the ''Acht Acht, which, used in their other role was perhaps the predominate anti-tank weapon of WWII! But it also ensured the mobilisation of tens of thousands of men who as part of the Technische Nothilfe (TeNo) organisation, were responsible for air raid rescue and response, and relief work. Men for whom the Wehrmacht would have given their eye teeth from mid-1943 onwards.

It is easy evincing moralistic arguments in these strange times that we find ourselves; where the iconoclasts I described earlier seem to have free reign to destroy anything that doesn’t fit their particular world view…and damn those who don’t agree with them.

However, what we should not lose sight of are the men who went out night after night, in some cases literally throwing up or soiling themselves with fear before climbing into their ac, to do the job for which they volunteered.

I remember meeting an Australian Bomb Aimer at a former Bomber Command squadron reunion in about 1990. For an Aussie he was quietly spoken and self-effacing, but, as the weekend wore on he became more outgoing and we had some good conversations. After the Champagne Lunch on the Sunday (well more Champagne than lunch, shall we say!!) he took me to one side, produced a battered old box, handed it to me and told me to have a look inside. Only a bloody DFC and Bar!!! I asked him what he had done to be awarded those. His reply ‘Only my job, mate’!

He was of the late ‘44/early ’45 generation highlighted in John Nichols’ ‘Tail End Charlies’ and he had operated over Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden during THUNDERCLAP. I asked him, straight out, if he ever felt any guilt. His reply…‘Guilt, no – but, yes, compassion for those innocent Germans under the bombs’. When I asked about he conduct of the war I’ve always remembered his words…’Those b*s*a*ds started it, we had to finish it’. This was also the view of those BC veterans that I spoke with in my own Squadron Association. No hatred or animosity against the German civilians…but as ‘Joey the Cripp’, as the ordinary German called Goebbels (behind his back, obviously) put it himself ‘Total War – Shortest War’. They had lost too many family and friends to worry about what cosseted ‘woke’ teenagers would think of them in 75 years’ time.

Lastly, being a young, well young-ish, arrogant FJ Nav, I asked the Aussie Bomb Aimer why didn’t he become a navigator, the brains of the outfit, like me?! His answer was refreshingly honest! As an 18-year old in 1943 the RAAF brought a Lancaster to Sydney on a fundraising tour. For a small fee you could see inside the ac. When he realised that the Bomb Aimer lay on top of the forward escape hatch, he realised that he’d found the best position in the ac!!

[DODGYOLDFART]

Just to add a slightly lighter touch to this thread, including our friends from the DDR I would like to jump forward to 1958 and a bit beyond. I believe in the middle of the cold war quite a lot of blokes who are still on here served in RAFG on one of the two Canberra B(I)8 Squadrons. Then the bombing technique was LABS with a bucket of sunshine of about 20k tons of TNT equivalent. I am also fairly certain that one of the targets allocated by NATO HQ was again Dresden. The reason was quite simple Dresden was was/is a potential pinch point for the troops and weapons of the USSR and designed to stop reinforcement from the East. It was Harris that was largely blamed for the 1945 raid after the war, when it was clearly a joint decision. Incidentally I hope we are safe now from the ramifications of the OSA.

Funny how history has a nasty habit of repeating itself but in this instance thank God, a repetition was not needed.

[Archimedes]

I think I have already made my point about the perceived symbolic significance of the statue in as few words as possible. I do not agree with most of your efforts for justification but that discussion would be endless and unproductive. As I mentioned before it is also irrelevant to my argument. The only thing I want to add is that I am in absolutely no way looking for "moral equivalence" or comparisons so please do not imply that. My initial provocation was just based on the observation that "following orders" is not an excuse. At least it brought up some decent arguments. Whether I agree with them or not is also not relevant.

You might consider using more words, since your points as they stand seem to suggest that you aren't aware of the whole moral equivalence debate, particularly that prompted by Jörg Frederich.

You also seem not to understand that the 'following orders' debate for Harris is much more complicated than you presuppose (see Grayling, Cox, Gray, Garrett and Burleigh to name but five, and probably lob in Richard Overy as well). This gives the impression that you'd quite happily have seen Churchill, Truman, Portal, Spaatz, LeMay, Sinclair, Cherwell and others treated no differently to those who set out to exterminate an entire religious faith, and who regarded millions of Europeans as racial inferiors.

It also means that you are, even if not intending to do so, eventually going to get to the point where we're suggesting that all the members of Bomber Command were war criminals too, because they were 'following orders'. It's far more complex and contested than your posts present.

[Brewster Buffalo]

"Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier. ... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." Curtis LeMay

[cavuman1]

Any human being who fought and triumphed over the Nazi regime deserves respect and a chestful of war medals as far as I am concerned.

- Ed

[brakedwell]

I have two points to make Brewster Buffalo. You haven’t a clue about the military and you are on the wrong forum to add your insulting insults.

[Harley Quinn]

I have two points to make Brewster Buffalo. You haven’t a clue about the military and you are on the wrong forum to add your insulting insults.


Those words BB quotes are widely attributed to le May. I think there is some truth to them. Luckily he was on the winning side.

[tdracer]

Jenns, you've made the decision to not share your age, but based on your writing I'm pretty sure you're much younger than I am (as well as most of the people who have posted on this thread).
You are making a classic mistake - you are applying 21st century morals and standards to what happened during WW II, without taking into account the actual circumstances of the time. Although born ten years after the war ended, I grew up surrounded by people who had lived through it and many that fought in it - not just my father. Many of my teachers and the parents of my neighborhood friends were WW II veterans - and I often heard their stories (and consider that most vets would not repeat the stories of their most traumatic experiences). It was quite simply a different time, and the war was fought by different rules (with the Axis often ignoring even the rules of the time).
One of my favorite books regarding the US submarine war in the Pacific is an autobiography by George Grider - "WAR FISH". In the introduction he talks about the morality of "unrestricted submarine warfare". Basically sinking - without warning - any ship flying the enemy's flag (aside from hospital and related ships - something that the Japanese knew and reportedly took advantage of). A generation earlier, "unrestricted submarine warfare" was considered by the Allies to be a war crime (the Germans actually abandoned the practice for a while due to the worldwide uproar - only reinstating when their plight became sufficiently dire). Yet during WW II all parties practiced it without reservation. Grider acknowledges that the crew on those merchant ships he sank were often civilians (and that many certainly died), but that those ships carried war materials - materials that were going to used to kill Americans and other Allies. So by sinking those Japanese merchant ships, he was saving American lives, and that was not just his job, it was the reason he was out there. That same philosophy was the justification for dropping the A-Bombs on Japan - getting Japan to surrender without an actual invasion undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of American casualties and millions of Japanese casualties. Prior to that, the US had tried precision bombing of Japan - and failed miserably. It was only after it became obvious that precision bombing wasn't going to work that the decision was made to resort to fire bombing - again with the aim of destroying the Japanese ability to fight and to bring the war to an end.
Equating the inevitable civilian casualties resulting from "unlimited warfare" to the systematic and intentional genocide of an entire race of people (not to mention millions of other so called 'undesirables') simply demonstrates how badly the modern education system has failed.

[langleybaston]

Hosea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Hosea) 8:7 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Hosea#Chapter_8): and Harris, and my RAFVR father "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind".

The war was very simple: Germany started it, Japan pitched in, there was a struggle for survival, or slavery, and the Allies won it. The defeated Germany was virtually pardoned, and prospered, and is a beacon of civilisation today.

Anyone born after 1945 should join us crumblies in rejoicing that Bomber Command, to a man, were heroes in an old-fashioned sense: death in dreadful forms risked 30 times in a tour.

[spitfirek5054]

I was born in 1954,and my parents lived in London,and my maternal grandfather was in the London Fire Brigade during the war, so I do not not know anyone that fought in WW 2. I joined the R.A.F in 1971 as an Airframe Mechanic and was discharged after 12 years in 1984 with the rank of Corporal. I am proud of my service, and I learnt a lot of R.A.F. history, and as far as I am concerned "Bomber"Harris was only doing as Churchill requested, and I think that it is wrong that Harris was snubbed after the war.
The Bomber Command Memorial and the statue of Harris were long overdue,and every time I am in London I visit the Bomber Command Memorial and say Thank You.
Do not judge the past by todays standards,as someone once said :They speak a different language in the past",and I for one am glad that they do, do not judge history by todays standards.
This is my longest post on this forum,and I apologise if I have said to much.

[SLXOwft]

In the knowledge I may be feeding a troll and at the risk of repeating much that has been said I will bite one last time.

The friend, whom I mentioned in a previous post, was unable to respond when the King asked him what he was going to do after the war. The thought he might survive had never occurred to him. Survival in a bomber was, he once told me, purely a matter of luck not skill. One continued flying until one’s number was up – he was very lucky; he completed three tours in heavy bombers.

Membership of this forum is intended to be for those of us who at some point in our lives agreed, mostly voluntarily, to risk our lives defence of our country and its allies in an aviation related capacity. We did so in the knowledge that we may called on to be part of a process that killed other human beings, for whom we had no personal animosity or of whom we had no knowledge. All others are guests of the mess and remain welcome if they follow its rules and they treat the members with respect and courtesy.

To accuse, therefore, the majority of us who support the preservation of the statue which in its essence commemorates others who lost their lives doing their lawful duty in a just cause of living in a filter bubble is nothing short of bizarre. Many of us have had long and varied careers since leaving service life. We know others are misinformed and prejudiced that is why we are prepared to argue so vehemently. There are a number of statues and memorials I personally find offensive – they should all remain standing. As we appear to be quoting scripture: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Those so confronted by Jesus reflected on this and all dropped their stones.

The economy of the Nazi state was almost entirely devoted to supporting the war effort therefore all its factories, infrastructure and civilians working in them were legitimate targets. The nature of technology at the time meant mass bombing was the only effective means of attack. The destruction of these was the objective, the collapse of civilian morale a hoped-for side effect. Unrealistic to those who had lived through the blitz.

To echo TDRacer the Nazi and Japanese War Criminals were war criminals because they 1) waged aggressive war and 2) committed acts against civilians in occupied territories and against prisoners of war that were prohibited by the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Convention (1929). In respect of the submariners of all nations, ASW technology had advanced to an extent that made complying with the letter of the law tantamount to suicide. This was tacitly acknowledged by the almost complete absence of prosecutions.

The laws of war have changed dramatically since the end of WW2. Even in these days of precision guided weapons there are civilian casualties. It should be remembered the laws of war are international agreements made by parties who do not want to limit their own ability to prosecute a successful military action. It is only the availability of precision weapons that made their use effectively compulsory.

OJ 72 on a lighter note, my late friend was a pre-war RAFC graduate. Early in the war he sometimes flew as the navigator before Navigators existed (which later they did sense having prevailed :)).

To Clarify: Risking ones life in an aviation related capacity does not just mean flying or frontline - it includes all those service or civilian who enable the flying to happen. For instance the casualties in RAF and FAA airfields in WW2 bear testament to this. What I was getting at was by becoming involved in any capacity one became a legitimate target in the event of conflict, however unlikely, even if one was making tea in a NAAFI wagon. Members to a greater or much lesser extent therefore share a common experience of being a legitimate target with the bomber crews. However, unlike most of them and conscripts like National Servicemen we became so voluntarily. By predicting the weather for an operation a met (wo)man is involved in the process that kills or injures an enemy and I would hope understands that.:O

[langleybaston]

Quote:
Membership of this forum is intended to be for those of us who at some point in our lives agreed, mostly voluntarily, to risk our lives defence of our country and its allies in an aviation related capacity. We did so in the knowledge that we may called on to be part of a process that killed other human beings, for whom we had no personal animosity or of whom we had no knowledge. All others are guests of the mess and remain welcome if they follow its rules and they treat the members with respect and courtesy.

With respect, with the greatest respect, I believe this to be wrong: there is a cohort on this forum who served the RAF devotedly for an entire career without taking the Queen's shilling, I for one believe that we are "Mess members" rather than guests. My own case is not exceptional: RAF Nicosia late in the EOKA period, ending with the first Greek/ Turk war 1964, RAF Guetersloh when Russia invaded Czecho, Rheindahlen twice, the first time in the depths of the Cold War. Plus RAF Stations Uxbridge, Leeming, Topcliffe, Acklington, Church Fenton, Finningley, Bawtry and Brize.

Beyond that, I totally agree with the contribution.

[spitfirek5054]

Does RAF Aldergrove count,spent a total of 26 weeks there,4 x 6 week,and 1 x 2 week detatchments,between 1978 and 1981,1st weekend in Aldergrove, Warrenpoint and the murder of Lord Mountbatten happened,was on 72 Sqdn at the time.

[SLXOwft]

Langleybaston, mea culpa. I consider you a most distinguished member of the "mess". I was unclear, I of course include meteorologists and many others; that is what I meant by process, I nearly listed examples of "the backroom boys and girls who support the flying and maintain the equipment". Under the laws of war, during an international conflict, anyone who works in a role supporting the sharpend is a legitimate target be they a member of the armed forces or a civilian - they have therefore agreed to put their lives risk and the job he or she does is a cog in the machinery that strikes at an enemy. As Spitfire5054 reminds us there is also the terrorist threat which in may ways is the more likely and being in a service environment the risk is higher. My most sincere apologies to you and any other members I may have offended.

[spitfirek5054]

SLXOwft (https://www.pprune.org/members/502320-slxowft), you have not offended me.

[teeteringhead]

Membership of this forum is intended to be for those of us who at some point in our lives agreed, mostly voluntarily, to risk our lives defence of our country and its allies in an aviation related capacity. We did so in the knowledge that we may called on to be part of a process that killed other human beings, for whom we had no personal animosity or of whom we had no knowledge. All others are guests of the mess and remain welcome if they follow its rules and they treat the members with respect and courtesy.

Apparently not .........

Military Aviation A forum for the professionals who fly military hardware. Also for the backroom boys and girls who support the flying and maintain the equipment, and without whom nothing would ever leave the ground. All armies, navies and air forces of the world equally welcome here.

Which would definitely include "weather guessers", no?

[falcon900]

While I profoundly disagree with Jenns point of view, and reject it, in doing so I would acknowledge the point he makes about perception.
The worrying fact of the matter is that there is indeed a perception among many that Harris did something "immoral" / "wrong" / "bad" /etc. I am not sure that I would like to see the results of a straw poll of the great British public on the matter, for fear of the picture it would portray.
For my own part, while I would take issue with some of Harris's actions later in the war, I would not do so on moral grounds, nor would my overall view of his contributions be clouded.The current debacle highlights the fact that history is a living thing, and needs to be actively preserved and defended. Our current society seems to have a predisposition towards the negative and tearing down reputations, and this is never easier when the vast bulk of the protagonists are dead.
If any good is to come from the current situation, it can only be through a balanced evaluation of the facts in a form which is able to be digested by the general public. Learned works available on Amazon are all well and good, but what is needed is some good old fashioned propaganda.

[Herod]

I work/worked (pre-covid) in a military museum, and I'm amazed both there and in general life at the ignorance of the general public about history. if it wasn't the Romans or the Tudors, it didn't happen. Holocaust, BoB, D Day, Cuban Crisis, Berlin Wall...huh?

[langleybaston]

Langleybaston, mea culpa. I consider you a most distinguished member of the "mess". I was unclear, I of course include meteorologists and many others; that is what I meant by process, I nearly listed examples of "the backroom boys and girls who support the flying and maintain the equipment". Under the laws of war, during an international conflict, anyone who works in a role supporting the sharpend is a legitimate target be they a member of the armed forces or a civilian - they have therefore agreed to put their lives risk and the job he or she does is a cog in the machinery that strikes at an enemy. As Spitfire5054 reminds us there is also the terrorist threat which in may ways is the more likely and being in a service environment the risk is higher. My most sincere apologies to you and any other members I may have offended.

No worries, thank you. On our overseas tours we received dormant RAFVR commissions so we were definitely sharpish end. NBC training and the rest.
Gas! Gas! Gas!

[Asturias56]

I work/worked (pre-covid) in a military museum, and I'm amazed both there and in general life at the ignorance of the general public about history. if it wasn't the Romans or the Tudors, it didn't happen. Holocaust, BoB, D Day, Cuban Crisis, Berlin Wall...huh?


I doubt 1 person in 50 in the UK has heard of Harris

[DODGYOLDFART]

I doubt 1 person in 50 in the UK has heard of Harris
You'd be lucky with that ratio given how few of us now seem to have been born here!

[Paying Guest]

No worries, thank you. On our overseas tours we received dormant RAFVR commissions so we were definitely sharpish end. NBC training and the rest.
Gas! Gas! Gas!

Ahh! The taceval scenario. I'd forgotten how amusing it was watching familiar faces from the TV doing their best in NBC kit. For some reason the tannoy always seemed to burst out with "red, red, red, air raid red" right in the middle of met brief!

[Herod]

Asturias56 I doubt 1 person in 50 in the UK has heard of Harris I'd agree there, but to have never heard of the Holocaust, or the Cuban Crisis. In '62 I was a 15 year-old, living in Australia (probably one of the places that might not have been bombed) and I remember it. I would expect my contempories and older who were living in UK would remember it very well.

[brakedwell]

Ahh! The taceval scenario. I'd forgotten how amusing it was watching familiar faces from the TV doing their best in NBC kit. For some reason the tannoy always seemed to burst out with "red, red, red, air raid red" right in the middle of met brief!

I remember the German tacevals In the late 1960’s. We used to do four or five days running between Gutersloh and Belfast in a Britannia, replacing troops who were trying to keep the peace. We felt very superior, excused from the taceval and staying down town in an Hotel in Bielefeld.

[veep]

I find it somewhat odd that anyone would dispute that Arthur Harris held colonialist views. In his time we had an Empire! An Empire to which Harris gladly contributed to maintenance and expansion of. There's little question of him being an ardent supporter of the British Empire.

I am not going to go into the ethics of toppling statues, or whether any individual does or does not deserve one, it's not a debate that I'm interested in. Discussions of Harris raise some interesting points on ethics, Airpower and RAF History though.

In the 1920s Italian theorist Giulio Douhet wrote The Command of the Air, a classic text on air power that laid the foundations for strategic bombing. Overlapping with interwar ideas on "Total War" and the increasing role of civilian efforts and morale in warfare, Douhet argued that in future conflicts air power ought to be used to bomb the enemy's cities and civilian targets. Douhet openly wrote that his intention was for airpower to be used to cause such misery and suffering that the enemy population would rise up and demand that the state and the military end the war. In essence, Terror bombing.

During the interwar period Douhet's particularly brutal school of thought was influential. It's known that the Germans took an interest, as did Curtis LeMay and others in the USAAF, and more significantly Sr Hugh Trenchard, Sir John Salmond and Arthur "Bomber" Harris. These ideas were instrumental in the RAF's Air Policing of Iraq. After a round of defence cuts (an eternal problem it seems) the government of the day asked Trenchard for a cheaper option to control Britain's new imperial mandate in Mesopotamia. The solution the RAF arrived at was "Air policing", a policy which Air Commodore Lionel Charlton (who later resigned over the matter) described as using aerial bombs as a substitute for police truncheons. Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes. After an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible. This was decidedly not the RAF's finest hour.

Harris, as a squadron leader saw firsthand and participated in the Iraq air campaign. He was not it's architect, but nevertheless he was enthusiastic participant in one of the darker chapters of British Colonialism. In that sense if he were described as a "Colonail Warmonger" to me I'd find it hard to say that it was untrue. His wartime actions though are perhaps more complicated. As the commander of Bomber Command, Harris applied Douhet's ideas against Germany, effectively hoping to prove Douhet correct, that Germany's will to fight could be undermined by the destruction of cities, and that his bomber fleets could end the war on their own. To those who condemn the use of Douhet's "Total War" methods which indiscriminately target German civilian and soldier alike in Dresden (or later the use of the Bomb on Japanese cities) the reply is usually that the allies acted only to end the war, and that the ends - the liberation of Europe and the end of the war in the Far East - justified the means. Nevertheless the killing of civilians as an end in itself during the war is a crime that we more often associate with the Germans, and it is uncomfortable to think that this was essentially the RAF's strategy..

None of this diminishes in any way the heroic acts of allied airmen, or of the Bomber Command crews Harris commanded. Like any historical figure though he was complex, and as hard as it is we do have to reconcile with the fact that the Arthur Harris who was the hero of Bomber Command is the same Arthur Harris who was instrumental in the "Air Policing" in Iraq and the destruction of Dresden.

[veep]

Members to a greater or much lesser extent therefore share a common experience of being a legitimate target with the bomber crews. However, unlike most of them and conscripts like National Servicemen we became so voluntarily. By predicting the weather for an operation a met (wo)man is involved in the process that kills or injures an enemy and I would hope understands that.:O
Interesting that you make this point. According to Harris's philosophy, everyone - civilian or soldier alike - is an equal target for bomber crews.

[Haraka]

At the Towers in the late 60's our USAF course instructor introduced us to the Douhet philosophy. As one who had always presumed that it was originated by " Work Hard, Play Hard " (Trenchard the Bastard!) It was a revelation.

[kghjfg]

It’s fantastic to read well thought out and articulate explanations (for that is what they are) in response to “Jenns” deliberately provocative (by his own admission) posts.

I think they are obviously used to social media slanging matches rather than the type of discussions that are here.

It’s bizarre that considering the subject matter, the military forum always cheers me up, but it’s because of the tone of the interactions and the knowledge of the posters.

[Chugalug2]

veep :-
The solution the RAF arrived at was "Air policing", a policy which Air Commodore Lionel Charlton (who later resigned over the matter) described as using aerial bombs as a substitute for police truncheons. Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes.

Are you saying that the RAF used poison gas in "Air Policing"? If so, where and when?

[DODGYOLDFART]

I find it somewhat odd that anyone would dispute that Arthur Harris held colonialist views. In his time we had an Empire! An Empire to which Harris gladly contributed to maintenance and expansion of. There's little question of him being an ardent supporter of the British Empire.

I am not going to go into the ethics of toppling statues, or whether any individual does or does not deserve one, it's not a debate that I'm interested in. Discussions of Harris raise some interesting points on ethics, Airpower and RAF History though.

In the 1920s Italian theorist Giulio Douhet wrote The Command of the Air, a classic text on air power that laid the foundations for strategic bombing. Overlapping with interwar ideas on "Total War" and the increasing role of civilian efforts and morale in warfare, Douhet argued that in future conflicts air power ought to be used to bomb the enemy's cities and civilian targets. Douhet openly wrote that his intention was for airpower to be used to cause such misery and suffering that the enemy population would rise up and demand that the state and the military end the war. In essence, Terror bombing.

During the interwar period Douhet's particularly brutal school of thought was influential. It's known that the Germans took an interest, as did Curtis LeMay and others in the USAAF, and more significantly Sr Hugh Trenchard, Sir John Salmond and Arthur "Bomber" Harris. These ideas were instrumental in the RAF's Air Policing of Iraq. After a round of defence cuts (an eternal problem it seems) the government of the day asked Trenchard for a cheaper option to control Britain's new imperial mandate in Mesopotamia. The solution the RAF arrived at was "Air policing", a policy which Air Commodore Lionel Charlton (who later resigned over the matter) described as using aerial bombs as a substitute for police truncheons. Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes. After an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible. This was decidedly not the RAF's finest hour.

Harris, as a squadron leader saw firsthand and participated in the Iraq air campaign. He was not it's architect, but nevertheless he was enthusiastic participant in one of the darker chapters of British Colonialism. In that sense if he were described as a "Colonail Warmonger" to me I'd find it hard to say that it was untrue. His wartime actions though are perhaps more complicated. As the commander of Bomber Command, Harris applied Douhet's ideas against Germany, effectively hoping to prove Douhet correct, that Germany's will to fight could be undermined by the destruction of cities, and that his bomber fleets could end the war on their own. To those who condemn the use of Douhet's "Total War" methods which indiscriminately target German civilian and soldier alike in Dresden (or later the use of the Bomb on Japanese cities) the reply is usually that the allies acted only to end the war, and that the ends - the liberation of Europe and the end of the war in the Far East - justified the means. Nevertheless the killing of civilians as an end in itself during the war is a crime that we more often associate with the Germans, and it is uncomfortable to think that this was essentially the RAF's strategy..

None of this diminishes in any way the heroic acts of allied airmen, or of the Bomber Command crews Harris commanded. Like any historical figure though he was complex, and as hard as it is we do have to reconcile with the fact that the Arthur Harris who was the hero of Bomber Command is the same Arthur Harris who was instrumental in the "Air Policing" in Iraq and the destruction of Dresden.

Do not forget that the Germans had already tried out Douhet's theory in the Spanish Civil War with it's aerial attack on Guernica. I believe this was the first example of a deliberate airborne attack on a civilian population. I also have some recollection that the Guernica attack inspired similar attacks by the Germans on Polish towns and cities during the first days of WWII. From then on it was seen by us and the Germans that civilians were fair game. In fact such an act by us (bombing Berlin) in August 1940 did change the course of the Battle of Britain from attacking our airfields to bombing our civilian population. The consequential Blitz caused somewhere close to 50,000 British civilian casualties and inspired Churchill to proclaim that vengeance would be ours many times over. Harris obeyed his command and carried it out in tall order.

[spitfirek5054]

Am not sure I think it was in the Middle East between the wars,I may be wrong though.

[Sholayo]

Great discussion so far.
Anyone mentioned that putting today's measure to judge people from the past is idiotic ignorance?

Like that Edward Colston. Slave trade was nothing unusual at his times. The fact that he supported schools, hospitals and almshouses was. That's why he deserves to be remembered.
Same with Harris. He was actually controversial even back then. But from my Polish perspective - Germany totally deserved the treatment, including civilians. Most people in the West have little idea about how Germans behaved here in Easter Europe including Russia. It wasn't like occupation of France. And German civilians was part of this and most of them were supporting Hitler until like late 1944.

Before WWII? I cannot comment of Harris from that times since I have no idea and I leave it to Britons ;)

&

[Asturias56]

"Slave trade was nothing unusual at his times" So was hanging people for stealing a lamb - just because it was "usual" doesn't mean it was right - even at the time.

[langleybaston]

Interesting that you make this point. According to Harris's philosophy, everyone - civilian or soldier alike - is an equal target for bomber crews.

We certainly did understand that our forecasts could be used against WP targets, especially when I was a senior forecaster at JHQ.
Not only that, we produced TAFS for specific airfield targets ........
All four or five NATO Met teams at our upper echelon competed, judged against against the actuals, with the adjudication by CMetO SHAPE.
And yes, the Brits ALWAYS won, every week.

[And no women in my day, they were just coming on stream and very good they were indeed]

[Easy Street]

"Slave trade was nothing unusual at his times" So was hanging people for stealing a lamb - just because it was "usual" doesn't mean it was right - even at the time.

Fast forward 200 years to a world in which burning fossil fuels has joined capital punishment and slavery in a list of things our predecessors once considered ‘usual’ but are now considered beyond the pale. Should posterity judge you (yes, you personally - let’s assume you have made some notable contribution to society) as being irredeemably tainted by the fact that you continued to use a car and take flights despite the harm this caused? I mean, it’s hardly as if you can claim ignorance of the effect such actions have: we justify our individual ‘wrong’ through custom, convenience and the comforting thought that everyone else is doing it because the alternatives are expensive, so you’d only be punishing yourself if you stopped. Would you be so deserving of future condemnation?

Now I’m not arguing that burning fossil fuels is directly comparable in terms of human suffering to my other two examples - maybe some would though! - but I am using the example to point out the real problem of casually ascribing ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ to past actions, even when taking developing philosophies of the time into account.

[Archimedes]

I find it somewhat odd that anyone would dispute that Arthur Harris held colonialist views. In his time we had an Empire! An Empire to which Harris gladly contributed to maintenance and expansion of. There's little question of him being an ardent supporter of the British Empire.

I am not going to go into the ethics of toppling statues, or whether any individual does or does not deserve one, it's not a debate that I'm interested in. Discussions of Harris raise some interesting points on ethics, Airpower and RAF History though.

In the 1920s Italian theorist Giulio Douhet wrote The Command of the Air, a classic text on air power that laid the foundations for strategic bombing. Overlapping with interwar ideas on "Total War" and the increasing role of civilian efforts and morale in warfare, Douhet argued that in future conflicts air power ought to be used to bomb the enemy's cities and civilian targets. Douhet openly wrote that his intention was for airpower to be used to cause such misery and suffering that the enemy population would rise up and demand that the state and the military end the war. In essence, Terror bombing.

During the interwar period Douhet's particularly brutal school of thought was influential. It's known that the Germans took an interest, as did Curtis LeMay and others in the USAAF, and more significantly Sr Hugh Trenchard, Sir John Salmond and Arthur "Bomber" Harris. These ideas were instrumental in the RAF's Air Policing of Iraq. After a round of defence cuts (an eternal problem it seems) the government of the day asked Trenchard for a cheaper option to control Britain's new imperial mandate in Mesopotamia. The solution the RAF arrived at was "Air policing", a policy which Air Commodore Lionel Charlton (who later resigned over the matter) described as using aerial bombs as a substitute for police truncheons. Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes. After an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible. This was decidedly not the RAF's finest hour.

Harris, as a squadron leader saw firsthand and participated in the Iraq air campaign. He was not it's architect, but nevertheless he was enthusiastic participant in one of the darker chapters of British Colonialism. In that sense if he were described as a "Colonail Warmonger" to me I'd find it hard to say that it was untrue. His wartime actions though are perhaps more complicated. As the commander of Bomber Command, Harris applied Douhet's ideas against Germany, effectively hoping to prove Douhet correct, that Germany's will to fight could be undermined by the destruction of cities, and that his bomber fleets could end the war on their own. To those who condemn the use of Douhet's "Total War" methods which indiscriminately target German civilian and soldier alike in Dresden (or later the use of the Bomb on Japanese cities) the reply is usually that the allies acted only to end the war, and that the ends - the liberation of Europe and the end of the war in the Far East - justified the means. Nevertheless the killing of civilians as an end in itself during the war is a crime that we more often associate with the Germans, and it is uncomfortable to think that this was essentially the RAF's strategy..

None of this diminishes in any way the heroic acts of allied airmen, or of the Bomber Command crews Harris commanded. Like any historical figure though he was complex, and as hard as it is we do have to reconcile with the fact that the Arthur Harris who was the hero of Bomber Command is the same Arthur Harris who was instrumental in the "Air Policing" in Iraq and the destruction of Dresden.

Trenchard wasn't influenced by Douhet. Slessor (I think it was) recounted how a junior officer once approached 'Boom' and asked him what he thought about Douhet. Trenchard fixed the young man with a quizzical gaze and replied 'Douhet who?'

Douhet's work wasn't translated into English for some years, and although it's clear that his work was read and understood by a number of RAF officers, he wasn't the driving force behind bombing and offensive air power in RAF thinking. Trenchard was already arguing in favour of offensive air power and the value of bombing when Douhet's work came out, and when Douhet was referenced in RAF Quarterly and The Hawk (the staff college journal), it was more in support of Trenchardian thought. Tammi Biddle, in particular, demonstrates the flow of RAF thought independent of Douhetian thought.

Trenchard, like Mitchell, was not Douhetian in approach when it came to bombing civilians. Douhet was all for it, but Trenchard and Mitchell accepted them as unfortunate likely casualties of a bombing offensive; that the destruction of the factories in which they worked and the towns in which they lived was likely (it was thought) to have a deleterious effect on their morale was seen as a bonus, but unlike Douhet, it wasn't the primary target set.

[veep]

Are you saying that the RAF used poison gas in "Air Policing"? If so, where and when?
The RAF certainly advocated it's use, and I mentioned it only as theythey regarded the use of poison gas as compatible with their air policing doctrine and certainly requested that they be allowed to use it. Whether they actually were allowed to deploy poison gas is less clear, although the army used gas shells during the same time period for basically the same purpose.

Anyone mentioned that putting today's measure to judge people from the past is idiotic ignorance?
Like that Edward Colston. Slave trade was nothing unusual at his times. The fact that he supported schools, hospitals and almshouses was. That's why he deserves to be remembered.
Colston was notable for two things really, his involvement in the British African Company in which he was responsible for enslaving perhaps a hundred thousand (and the death of a fairly high percentage of them), and his philanthropy in Bristol. In terms of judging him by the standards of his time though, the statue was built over one-hundred and fifty years after his death in 1895 and is pretty unremarkable (the Victorians built A LOT of statues). It portrays him as a one dimensional great man of the city for his philanthropy while not mentioning his life's work.

If he does deserve to be remembered then his whole life and work should be remembered, including his role in the slave trade, rather than the aspects that those who built the statue in 1895 deemed relevant.

And, to be blunt, the symbolic removal of the statue and wider recognition of Bristol's role in the slave trade is likely of more historical interest than yet another Victorian statue purporting to represent a great man of the city.

[Archimedes]

Churchill (as Air Minister, and then Sec of State for the Colonies) wanted the RAF to use gas, but RAF opinion was rather less keen. The files - from memory in the AIR 9 category at Kew - suggest that there were a fair few 'wrong type of weather'/'wrong type of terrain for gas to be effective' missives sent to Churchill. There was discussion of the use of lachrymatory gases (in the same file), but the efficacy of this was called into question as well. To date, with the exception of the personal recollections of a chap who served in Iraq in the 1920s/30s claiming that it was employed, there is no hard evidence that poison gas was employed; even if the files were weeded, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that gas wasn't a weapon the RAF was particularly eager to use in 'Col Pol' scenarios.

[Momoe]

Asturias, "......just because it was "usual" doesn't mean it was right - even at the time." Almost right, except the last four words, where you are clearly alluding to latter day thinking.
We cannot rewrite history using the moral and populist values of the present, colonising (aka subjugating) was a popular sovereign nation pastime historically, English, Dutch, French, Belgium, Italy, Spanish, Portuguese, German, etc.
We used to deport people for stealing a loaf of bread, it served a purpose then and when America decided it didn't like cups of tea anymore, we then deported them twice the distance to Australia because it still served the same purpose, which was right then.

Rewriting history against a modern context appeases no-one who was wronged at the time, we can't heal the pain of all the peoples taken into slavery, we can't vacate the new world(s) and give them back to their rightful owners, as always we have to look back and realise that we can do better.

[Asturias56]

No Momoe - a lot of people were against slavery at the time - and also against the judicial code. they certainly weren't a majority (at least of voters) but there was definitely opposition.

But I'm against rewriting history and even more against removing every symbol - what is required is reasoned explanation

[veep]

Fast forward 200 years to a world in which burning fossil fuels has joined capital punishment and slavery in a list of things our predecessors once considered ‘usual’ but are now considered beyond the pale. Should posterity judge you (yes, you personally - let’s assume you have made some notable contribution to society) as being irredeemably tainted by the fact that you continued to use a car and take flights despite the harm this caused? I mean, it’s hardly as if you can claim ignorance of the effect such actions have: we justify our individual ‘wrong’ through custom, convenience and the comforting thought that everyone else is doing it because the alternatives are expensive, so you’d only be punishing yourself if you stopped. Would you be so deserving of future condemnation?

Now I’m not arguing that burning fossil fuels is directly comparable in terms of human suffering to my other two examples - maybe some would though! - but I am using the example to point out the real problem of casually ascribing ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ to past actions, even when taking developing philosophies of the time into account.
Rather than simply existing within a society in which he indirectly benefited from slavery, Colston was instrumental in pioneering Britain's role in the slave trade. In modern day terms it's perhaps less comparable to owning a car or taking flights and more comparable to spearheading the efforts of a private corporation to commit genocide.

[veep]

Churchill (as Air Minister, and then Sec of State for the Colonies) wanted the RAF to use gas, but RAF opinion was rather less keen. The files - from memory in the AIR 9 category at Kew - suggest that there were a fair few 'wrong type of weather'/'wrong type of terrain for gas to be effective' missives sent to Churchill. There was discussion of the use of lachrymatory gases (in the same file), but the efficacy of this was called into question as well. To date, with the exception of the personal recollections of a chap who served in Iraq in the 1920s/30s claiming that it was employed, there is no hard evidence that poison gas was employed; even if the files were weeded, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that gas wasn't a weapon the RAF was particularly eager to use in 'Col Pol' scenarios.
That's interesting, I had the opposite impression, that the RAF and the air ministry were very keen to use gas but were ultimately not permitted to use it. But you seem far more familiar with this subject than me so I'll defer to you on that.

[Chugalug2]

Veep:-
The solution the RAF arrived at was "Air policing", a policy which Air Commodore Lionel Charlton (who later resigned over the matter) described as using aerial bombs as a substitute for police truncheons. Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes

Me:-
Are you saying that the RAF used poison gas in "Air Policing"? If so, where and when?

veep :-
The RAF certainly advocated it's use, and I mentioned it only as theythey regarded the use of poison gas as compatible with their air policing doctrine and certainly requested that they be allowed to use it. Whether they actually were allowed to deploy poison gas is less clear, although the army used gas shells during the same time period for basically the same purpose.

So the RAF did not use poison gas in Air Policing, nor it seems even wished to. Your other insinuation is that it used indiscriminate bombing in Air Policing. Where, when? The SOP was to drop leaflets in the local language warning that a village (for example) would be bombed the following day and that the occupants should therefore vacate it beforehand. Severe 'policing' to be sure, but that was to contain armed insurrection in a League of Nations mandated territory by the armed forces of the state authorised to enforce the mandate. But you speak of indiscriminate bombing, so again; where, when?

[Easy Street]

Rather than simply existing within a society in which he indirectly benefited from slavery, Colston was instrumental in pioneering Britain's role in the slave trade. In modern day terms it's perhaps less comparable to owning a car or taking flights and more comparable to spearheading the efforts of a private corporation to commit genocide.

This thread isn’t about Colston, it’s about Bomber Harris’s alleged views on colonialism. My response was to Asturias’s general argument on judging the past by today’s standards. He may have been answering a point which cited Colston as an off-topic example but didn’t limit his argument to that. Nice try at ‘cancelling’ my post by linking it to the current figure of opprobrium though :ok:

[The better modern analogy to Colston in my example is an oil baron. They are trying directly to destroy the planet in the way you seem to be claiming Colston was trying directly to kill slaves. And sure enough, there is already angst over the legacies of men such as Rockefeller, and artists are refusing oil company patronage. Yet still Asturias drives his car. Hell, even those artists still drive their cars! Best that none of them end up on a pedestal...]

[tdracer]

I've hesitated to bring this up in this context - after all "two wrongs don't make a right". However:
I think it would have been politically close to impossible for Churchill, Harris, and the other British leaders of the time to say "we're not going to bomb German cities" to a populace that had been living through the Blitz.
It's easy in peacetime to condemn certain wartime actions - it becomes completely different when the bullets are flying. Similarly, had Truman decided against using the A-Bomb against Japan, and an invasion had been necessary resulting in hundreds of thousands of American casualties, the American public would have crucified him (perhaps literally).
Preventing civilian casualties during war is a relatively recent concept - while specifically targeting civilians was uncommon, as a rule little attention was applied to avoiding civilian casualties .
Siege warfare was common place for centuries - and it's success was based on starving the populace - including civilians - of food and water until they were forced to surrender - often accompanied by indiscriminate shelling and the inevitable civilian casualties.
As weapons of war became more deadly, casualties to both combatants and civilians have increased correspondingly. It's only the advent of so called 'smart' weapons since WW II that has allowed the precision to largely avoid harming civilians (and those are still far from perfect).

[veep]

This thread isn’t about Colston, it’s about Bomber Harris’s alleged views on colonialism. My response was to Asturias’s general argument on judging the past by today’s standards. He may have been answering a point which cited Colston as an off-topic example but didn’t limit his argument to that. Nice try at ‘cancelling’ my post by linking it to the current figure of opprobrium though :ok:

[The better modern analogy to Colston in my example is an oil baron. They are trying directly to destroy the planet in the way you seem to be claiming Colston was trying directly to kill slaves. And sure enough, there is already angst over the legacies of men such as Rockefeller, and artists are refusing oil company patronage. Yet still Asturias drives his car. Hell, even those artists still drive their cars! Best that none of them end up on a pedestal...]
I think that's quite a harsh response to what I wrote, I have no intentions of "cancelling" anyone.

The oil baron analogy is inaccurate though. The Slave trade was not essential to society the way that oil is to us today. Far from it. Further the working to death of slaves was integral to the business model of the Royal African Company.

[veep]

So the RAF did not use poison gas in Air Policing, nor it seems even wished to. Your other insinuation is that it used indiscriminate bombing in Air Policing. Where, when? The SOP was to drop leaflets in the local language warning that a village (for example) would be bombed the following day and that the occupants should therefore vacate it beforehand. Severe 'policing' to be sure, but that was to contain armed insurrection in a League of Nations mandated territory by the armed forces of the state authorised to enforce the mandate. But you speak of indiscriminate bombing, so again; where, when?
My understanding was that the RAF had used - or had intended to use - poison gas in Iraq. Archimedes seems to have done a little more research on this than me and they're of the opinion that the RAF did not use gas and likely did not intend to.

As for indiscriminate, in his memoirs Air Commodore Lionel Charlton described it as such, at one point referring to it as close to wanton slaughter. Charlton and other contemporary accounts also refer to very large numbers of civilian casualties. So if the practice was as you described, to warn the occupants before commencing bombing, then it was ineffective at protecting civilians. Even if we were to accept that every measure was taken to prevent civilian casualties, (and dismiss these contemporary accounts) there is a limit to how humane punitive bombing raids can be.

[MAINJAFAD]

veep :-


Are you saying that the RAF used poison gas in "Air Policing"? If so, where and when?

Stupid idea mentioned in a meeting by a Politician in 1919 that somebody dug up in a file at the National Archives when somebody else suggested use of tear gas in the air policing role. His first name was Winston. Because of this somebody wrote a book saying that the British actually used the stuff. In his own book, "Bomber Offensive" written in 1946-7, Harris clearly states that he was not out to kill Iraqis or Kurds if he could avoid it. He did a leaflet drops and loud speaker warnings first for the villages to get out their homes before he bombed them and used bombs dropped close to, but not on people to stop them going back. Likewise in Palestine in 1938, he used aircraft to lockdown villages with loudspeaker saying do not go outside your homes or you will be shot (with the added carrot of if you stay in your homes you will not be harmed). His views on Military armed support to the Civilian powers were quite simple. Run away if you can as it gives you no margin for error. Be too weak and you get sacked, Be too harsh and you will be castigated. He had fought in the North West Frontier, before that, but of course nobody has a easy time trying to run that neck of the wood even to this day.

[RetiredBA/BY]

I've hesitated to bring this up in this context - after all "two wrongs don't make a right". However:
I think it would have been politically close to impossible for Churchill, Harris, and the other British leaders of the time to say "we're not going to bomb German cities" to a populace that had been living through the Blitz.
It's easy in peacetime to condemn certain wartime actions - it becomes completely different when the bullets are flying. Similarly, had Truman decided against using the A-Bomb against Japan, and an invasion had been necessary resulting in hundreds of thousands of American casualties, the American public would have crucified him (perhaps literally).
Preventing civilian casualties during war is a relatively recent concept - while specifically targeting civilians was uncommon, as a rule little attention was applied to avoiding civilian casualties .
Siege warfare was common place for centuries - and it's success was based on starving the populace - including civilians - of food and water until they were forced to surrender - often accompanied by indiscriminate shelling and the inevitable civilian casualties.
As weapons of war became more deadly, casualties to both combatants and civilians have increased correspondingly. It's only the advent of so called 'smart' weapons since WW II that has allowed the precision to largely avoid harming civilians (and those are still far from perfect).

Interesting point about A weapons in Japan.

Having recently visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki museums, (and the exact spot of the detonations) it became clear that the Japanese admit, actually state in the museums, that they brought this devastation on themselves.

[Chugalug2]

veep :-

As for indiscriminate, in his memoirs Air Commodore Lionel Charlton described it as such, at one point referring to it as close to wanton slaughter. Charlton and other contemporary accounts also refer to very large numbers of civilian casualties. So if the practice was as you described, to warn the occupants before commencing bombing, then it was ineffective at protecting civilians. Even if we were to accept that every measure was taken to prevent civilian casualties, (and dismiss these contemporary accounts) there is a limit to how humane punitive bombing raids can be.


The point I have been trying to make, Veep, is that you share with jenns a tendency to make statements of fact from mere impressions, allegations, and general condemnations of historical figures. As has been pointed out before, judge not lest ye be judged! I know that history is now treated simply as a means of expressing modern prejudices by laying them on supposed injustices from the past. One day you will be the past and you and your cohorts will also be condemned, so a little more introspection and a little less condemnation might be in order. To destroy a man's reputation because all the impressions, allegations, and condemnations tick the boxes that allow you to is mere mob rule. The same applied to the breaking of a paediatrician's windows by concerned individuals bent on routing out those who molest children.

So Harris no doubt observed the way that armed insurrection in a mandated territory could be greatly (and economically) reduced by the mere threat of bombing and drew a greatly exaggerated lesson of its efficacy. So what? It simply meant that as AOC-in-C of Bomber Command in WWII he believed in what he was doing! That was just as well, given the loss rate suffered even under the protection of night time. His was the only way of bringing the war to the enemy homeland which obliged them to make appropriate dispositions accordingly. It is my belief (and only that, not facts written on tablets of stone!) that led directly to ultimate Allied victory. Just as wars are not won by withdrawals, they are not won solely by defensive measures. If all the resources thrown at Bomber Command had instead been thrown at Coastal Command say, it would no doubt have had direct effect on the Battle of the Atlantic and cut some of the appalling losses suffered in that campaign, but I cannot see how that would have led to victory. Indeed it might have meant success for Germany on the Eastern Front and in successfully repelling us on D-Day. These are all what ifs, known unknowns perhaps, but the Bombing Campaign was an essential ingredient in the defeat of the scourge of fascism in my book. If that is so then so was Harris, and he should therefore be celebrated rather than condemned. Just saying....

Oh, PS, could you please elaborate on this statement of yours also?
an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible.
again, Where and When, please?

[longer ron]

I have read a couple of autobiographies by RAF Pilots involved in the NW Frontier 'Police Actions' - the RAF went to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid unnecessary casualties amongst villagers/populace etc.

[brakedwell]

Before a Shackleton bombing attack on the Jebel Akhdar in Muscat in 1959, one of our Pembrokes was sent to warn the locals. Unfortunately it was hit by .5" machine gun fire, which smashed up the tape recorder and punctured an engine oil tank. The Pembroke, which was being flown by a Polish born Master Pilot, made a forced landing below the mountain at Firq. The Jebel Akhdar was then stormed successfully by the SAS. I heard from the local people living on the mountain in 1959 that great care had been taken to eliminate Arab casualties and nobody had died. Obviously the RAF still went to extraordinary lengths to avoid unnecessary casualties. Only death in the conflict was an 8 Sqn Venom pilot who crashed in to the mountain during an attack.

[jmmoric]

Interesting point about A weapons in Japan.

Having recently visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki museums, (and the exact spot of the detonations).........

Must be quite a view from those museums,

[Saint-Ex]

He had an almost impossible job but stood firmly against the appalling opposition to any new ideas held by those "in power". Without his support Barnes Wallis would never been able to complete the Dam Buster raid.

[SLXOwft]

The RAF operation in Mesopotamia was to use the modern term about “Shock and Awe”. By showing that nowhere was beyond reach, it was hoped the rebels would realise the futility of their struggle and stop. To a large extent it worked. Harris appears to have set about it in a thorough and, by the standards of the time, humane manner. It may have been naïve to expect the warnings to be complied with, but a land campaign would have been long and bloody on both sides with many more civilians unintentionally killed. Chalton was repelled by the consequences of an attack the victims of which he saw in a hospital. I doubt he had direct knowledge of the events that caused them. Even today the laws of war expect the defending party to take a degree of responsibility for the protection and evacuation of civilians.

Air Policing makes it sound like bullying a few dozen recalcitrant tribesmen, it wasn’t. Winston Churchill’s view was it would take over 100,000 British and Indian Army troops to defeat the rebellions by the same number of armed Kurdish and Arab tribesmen. It was achieved by 14,000 and two squadrons. About 9000 Iraqis were killed and circa 500 Imperial troops were killed and 11 aircraft “destroyed behind enemy lines”.

It has been said that one of the reasons the Roman Empire lasted so long, unlike the British, was their policy of co-opting local elites. Not only to govern and tax their homeland but also into central government. Had colonists been sitting in parliament, the American rebellion might not have happened. Having freed them from the Ottoman yoke, Britain had tried to impose its own officials and rules on the cradle of civilisation, not unsurprisingly many took against it. Britain then imposed an alien (though Arab) king, the consequences of these mistakes are to be seen in Iraq and the wider Middle East today. The reponsibility for that lay with politicians not airmen, soldiers or sailors.

Harris’s statue and others have value if they prompt us to examine and debate history. For that reason alone, they should stand.

As I said to a member of this forum “As a history student I was taught to examine the evidence and come to a dispassionate conclusion discarding the filter of current mores; I am (perhaps unfortunately) irritated when others do not.”

[MAINJAFAD]

Asturias56 I'd agree there, but to have never heard of the Holocaust, or the Cuban Crisis. In '62 I was a 15 year-old, living in Australia (probably one of the places that might not have been bombed) and I remember it. I would expect my contempories and older who were living in UK would remember it very well.

The population of Darwin knew what it was like to be bombed.

[Herod]

True, but I was talking about the Cuban Crisis, and nuclear weapons.

[Bergerie1]

That was I thought too

[Chugalug2]

SLXOwft :-
“As a history student I was taught to examine the evidence and come to a dispassionate conclusion discarding the filter of current mores; I am (perhaps unfortunately) irritated when others do not.”


That's not how the new order works though. The words Colonial Warmonger are enough to condemn you, guilty or not. The perception alone suffices. An entire armed service can be characterised by the words :-

Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes. After an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible. This was decidedly not the RAF's finest hour.

Never mind that they are unsubstantiated, they exist, that is enough! That is the new order now, and it reminds us that is how the old order worked too. An anonymous denunciation, a hammering on the door at 0300 and you were gone, never to be seen again. Whether their armbands bore swastikas or hammers and sickles it was all the same. As a cynical old East German general once explained, when asked how come he was now a senior member of Party Security, having had a similar post in the Gestapo, "Left Wing, Right Wing, they all need policemens!".

Irritate you? It scares the life out of me!

[Union Jack]

veep :-


Are you saying that the RAF used poison gas in "Air Policing"? If so, where and when?
Not exactly "Air Policing", but I am slightly surprised that no seems to recall that our greatly revered and much missed Danny42C no less was actively engaged in using poison gas in India, as related at https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/329990-gaining-r-f-pilots-brevet-ww-ii-155.html His Post Nos 3071 and 3078 refer and, rather intriguingly since I have started this post by quoting him, I note at Post No 3080 that Chugalug himself states "Interesting that you were called upon to actually "gas" people Danny."

Oh! I almost forgot to say that the poison gas in question, namely mustard gas, was being dropped for trial purposes only, admittedly in quite alarming circumstances.

Jack

[dr dre]

Interesting point about A weapons in Japan.

Having recently visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki museums, (and the exact spot of the detonations) it became clear that the Japanese admit, actually state in the museums, that they brought this devastation on themselves.

Here's a pic of a wall panel from the Hiroshima Museum, I wouldn't say this is an admission by the Japanese they bought the devastation upon themselves:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/598x705/image_a8c1498a2b98f138f45251cab4c92488f89b3c22.png

The Hiroshima Museum is a far lot better then the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo, the ultra nationalistic one where they claim the Chinese civilians in Nanking in 1937 basically got what they deserved.....

[Chugalug2]

UJ :-

Oh! I almost forgot to say that the poison gas in question, namely mustard gas, was being dropped for trial purposes only, admittedly in quite alarming circumstances.

Jack

If your point is that the RAF were preparing to drop poison gas operationally following trials (by Danny in India in this case), then I agree. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were yet to happen and the preoccupation was for the upcoming challenge of the invasion of Japan. All the ducks had to be in a row, including the possible use of war gasses, just as they were 5 years previously when the expected invasion was to be of our own homeland. We had the gasses and we were prepared to use them against invading German forces. It seems that the same leader who called for that also wanted its use in Iraq. In each case the RAF if so ordered would no doubt have used it. It wasn't and it didn't. That is the point, Jack. Not that it wasn't considered but that it wasn't used, contrary to the slur published by veet.

As to Japan admitting anything about its culpability in initiating aggressive war, let alone bringing about its own demise, it never has. Germany atoned for its actions and became a flourishing democracy whereas Japan didn't. Instead of being the guilty party it has successfully assumed the mantle of victim. With the rise of a militant China seeking revenge for the ravaging of its people and homeland by the IJA it may live to regret such self justification.

[Union Jack]

Chugalug - I was actually only making an observation, rather than a point, but appreciate the additional perspective that you have usefully and kindly provided.:ok:

Jack

[Whinging Tinny]

Britain and America were prepared to use chemical weapons If the D-Day invasion and after were opposed by Germany using the same method.
Gas production was ramped up in the lead up to the invasion - part of Operation Bolero and stored at 5 FFDs (Forward Filling Depots) at various points around the UK. Certain RAF Stirling and Boston squadrons were trained to deliver the stuff if the need arose.

Chugalug2:

Your comment about the Japanese playing the victim card hits the nail squarely on the head. You see it every August and it doesn't help when you have a right wing revisionist government (LDP) whose leader wishes to change Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (the Peace Clause) to allow Japan to move from a solely defensive force (SDF) to an offensive one. They have also been successful in having school text books revised to tone down the aggressive stance and atrocities committed in the name of the Emperor.

Dr Dre:

I totally agree with you having visited the Peace Museum at Hiroshima. Unless they have changed there stance there, there is no mention of the lead up to why American resorted to the atomic bomb.
It is the same on the battlefields of Okinawa, where the victim card is played out as Chugalug2 said above. You will hardly find any mention of why so many civilians died not from the American attacks but by other means there as well as on Saipan (Marpi Point suicides being the famous media one).
Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated to the Japanese who died in various wars in the service of Japan. It's problem to many is, it houses the 'souls' of over a thousand convicted war criminals including 14 Class A ones,who were secretly interned starting in the 50s. The attached museum (Yūshūkan) is as said, a nationalistic one and it is no surprise when various leaders and members of the government offer their ritual prayers there much to the ire of Japan's neighbours

There are Japanese historians who research and publish a more balanced view of what actually occurred, but they are in the minority.

[ElectroVlasic]

Things are always clearer with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. There is considerable evidence that the strategic bombing campaign was not an efficient use of resources - but few knew or even suspected that during the war.
Revisionist history is just that - applying modern standard to historical events gives a distorted view of what happened and why. Similar revisionist history has been applied to the US dropping the A-bombs on Japan ('Japan wasn't a threat, they were about to surrender anyway, etc.'). Given that my dad was training for the invasion of Japan when the dropped the bombs - he was going to be a platoon leader on the second wave of the initial landings and had been told to expect 80% casualties - I remain unconvinced that we didn't need to drop the bombs. In fact a pretty good argument can be made that dropping the bombs and preventing the need for an invasion of the mainland saved move lives - both Japanese and Americans - than any single act in history.
I don't think anyone was more well placed than RV Jones, and his book ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1127842.Most_Secret_War ) tells us that it certainly was known within government circles yet unwelcome news to the RAF in general and Harris in particular. Given HMG was expending much effort to improve the effectiveness of long range bombing via more complex and thus expensive radio navigation systems at a time of many urgent priorities, should tell you all you need to know.
In October 1943 Air Chief Marshal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Chief_Marshal) Arthur Harris (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet), C-in-C of RAF Bomber Command (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command) writing to his superior urged the British government to be honest to the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign and openly announce that:
"The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."

Correct. He knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. This seems to lost on some here.

[Chugalug2]

EV, it's not lost on me. Harris certainly believed in what he was doing, how else could he go on sending his crews out night after night not doing so? What alternative was there? The bombing accuracy was of the order of miles, though techniques and technical advances tightened it up gradually. Practically speaking though, night bombing meant area bombing which meant bombing cities. So Harris made a virtue of a necessity and made the blood curdling statements as quoted, even invoking the old testament to that effect. He was Bomber Command's Commander in Chief and had to put fire into the bellies of his old lags night after night despite their losses, because night after night they were laying waste to Germany's cities and killing the inhabitants in their tens of thousands. What was he supposed to say, "I deeply regret that so many civilians are dying as a result of our bombing but we will go on bombing anyway"?

That is the dilemma of war, the technology determines how it is fought. Invent the machine gun and accurate artillery, and you get the carnage of the Western Front. Invent the 4-engined bomber and you get cities reduced to rubble. That had to be countered by Germany, resulting in massive demands on man-power and munitions that were badly needed on the Eastern Front. Speer (if you believe that persuasive individual) thought the night bombing more damaging than the day, and that both combined to create a second front. Are you saying that all that should have been abandoned to avoid civilian deaths? To do what exactly? The idea was to win the war before Germany did. Some would say it was a close enough run thing as it was. Without Bomber Command my money would be on the latter outcome. The fact that Harris said that bombing alone could do it was sheer hyperbole. Did he really believe that? I've no idea, but anyway what difference did it make other than to ensure that you had an utterly determined man at the helm?

War is terrible and the only certain way to conduct it is with every means at hand, in order to achieve victory all the sooner. This seems to be lost on some here.

[megan]

The fact that Harris said that bombing alone could do it was sheer hyperbole. Did he really believe thatHave read it (forget book) that following a meeting with Churchill at the outbreak of war Harris was asked by someone the likely outcome of a bombing campaign and Harris replied to the effect that he had no idea as it hadn't been tried before, not withstanding the WWI Zeppelin raids on the UK. "First Blitz" by Neil Hanson is an interesting account of the WWI campaign.

[Whinging Tinny]

I believe the following statement sums it up in a nutshell whether you are speaking of the bomber offensive or the atomic bombs:
I have to say we cannot look at the so-called grimmer aspects of it because there is no morality in warfare, so I do not dwell on the moral issue.
Colonel (later General) Paul Tibbets - interview 1989

[Pickuptruck]

There was a considerable difference between the Aims of the german high command and the British. The Germans sought to terrorize the population while the British and American aim was the destruction of Germany's war-making capability. Stop reading revisionist history.
Not to mention the Germans targeted Civilians in Stalingrad for months, years if required in their bombing campaign. Hitler’s stated aim was to kill as many civilians as possible over as many months as possible. Bomber command do a single raid on Dresden and all the bleeding hearts cry over the loss of german civilians. Unbelievable.

[OJ 72]

Having just finished John Nichol's Lancaster book - incredibly very moving last few chapters I must add - I received a copy of the second volume of Volker Ullrich's recent, masterly biography of Hitler from my daughter for Fathers' Day. The second chapter of 'Hitler: Downfall 1939 - 45' is entitled 'Poland 1939 - 40: Prelude to a War of Annihilation', and in the last sentence of this chapter Ullrich neatly sums up the war aims of Hitler, his paladins and, axiomatically, those of the faithful 'ordinary' people of Germany...whom it must be remembered were not all card carrying members of the NSDAP:

'...Poland was a laboratory for experiments that were already casting a dark shadow on the future and presaged the behaviour of the Wehrmacht in the coming war of annihilation against the Soviet Union,'

This then encapsulates the difference between Nazi Germany and the UK ,of whom we have recognised Harris as one of the pre-eminent war leaders.

For Germany this was a war of annihilation, for the UK (and other European Allies) this was a war of national survival. All means necessary to defeat the scourge of Nazi domination had to be used...no matter how distasteful these means may seem, viewed through the prism of time, to a few 'enlightened' (sic) individuals in our modern era

[ElectroVlasic]

EV, it's not lost on me. Harris certainly believed in what he was doing, how else could he go on sending his crews out night after night not doing so? What alternative was there? The bombing accuracy was of the order of miles, though techniques and technical advances tightened it up gradually. Practically speaking though, night bombing meant area bombing which meant bombing cities. So Harris made a virtue of a necessity and made the blood curdling statements as quoted, even invoking the old testament to that effect. He was Bomber Command's Commander in Chief and had to put fire into the bellies of his old lags night after night despite their losses, because night after night they were laying waste to Germany's cities and killing the inhabitants in their tens of thousands. What was he supposed to say, "I deeply regret that so many civilians are dying as a result of our bombing but we will go on bombing anyway"?

That is the dilemma of war, the technology determines how it is fought. Invent the machine gun and accurate artillery, and you get the carnage of the Western Front. Invent the 4-engined bomber and you get cities reduced to rubble. That had to be countered by Germany, resulting in massive demands on man-power and munitions that were badly needed on the Eastern Front. Speer (if you believe that persuasive individual) thought the night bombing more damaging than the day, and that both combined to create a second front. Are you saying that all that should have been abandoned to avoid civilian deaths? To do what exactly? The idea was to win the war before Germany did. Some would say it was a close enough run thing as it was. Without Bomber Command my money would be on the latter outcome. The fact that Harris said that bombing alone could do it was sheer hyperbole. Did he really believe that? I've no idea, but anyway what difference did it make other than to ensure that you had an utterly determined man at the helm?

War is terrible and the only certain way to conduct it is with every means at hand, in order to achieve victory all the sooner. This seems to be lost on some here.
Thanks for your posts to this thread and to many over the years here on PPRuNe.

I think it is to Harris's credit that he asked his superiors to be crystal clear on what was being done and why it was being done. As they say the first casualty of war is the truth, and he was trying to avoid such a casualty. It seems his superiors pulled their punches to a significant degree. Consistently telling it like it was would make sure there was a social acceptance and shared responsibility of the policy, and would avoid a lot of second guessing like we now have.

I can't say I'd endorse or oppose the policy if I was there at the time. I have the benefit of lots of information stitched together after the fact. In general I try to stick to first hand references such as the RV Jones book I mentioned above. I did want to point out the ineffectiveness of strategic bombing was understood at the time yet met resistance from some in government for what seem to be political reasons.

I think the argument of keeping resources tied up in AA battalions is a strong one, yet you don't need to drop incendiaries on civilian areas to do that. What I've read of Speer he says the biggest issue for the Allies was they were not consistent. They'd knock down dams and then move on to other targets without maximizing the disruption they'd caused, the dams would be repaired in a few weeks. They'd do oil one raid, bearings the next, transportation a third, never focusing on one item enough to shut it down. Allied leaders probably didn't understand all this in real time, but probably should have understood that bombing didn't undermine morale, it strengthens resolve. 1944 was the peak of aircraft production, which says a lot.

[Chugalug2]

EV, thank you for your kind words. PPRuNe is a wonderful means for we aviators to exchange views. Those views will often be different but it is in those exchanges that we can all learn something new. I know I do.

Churchill spoke of truth of course, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies". I don't know if Harris truly wanted his superiors to state that UK policy was to kill civilians or if he was merely taunting them to come off the fence. Harris's policy was to kill civilians, destroy their homes, and flatten their cities in order to disrupt Germany's War Economy. No doubt it would have been disrupted far more if ball bearing factories, oil refineries, critical railway infrastructure, etc, had been attacked until destroyed but unless they were conveniently in the middle of a city the chances are that by night the surrounding countryside would have taken most of the pounding, as well as the bomber stream itself. These targets were heavily protected and the resulting loss rate would have become unsustainable given the need for repetitive attacks. So why did Harris go on trying to destroy Berlin instead of spreading the effort around other cities more? I don't know, but suspect he became a victim of his own rhetoric.

It wasn't just Luftwaffe artillery that was denied to the Eastern Front, but day and night fighters, and millions of men. Wiki quotes Speer of production of 35% fewer tanks, 31% fewer aircraft, and 42% fewer lorries than planned. These are massive deficiencies to the front line. Production may have risen, but clearly not by enough due to the bombing. Could it have been done better? Of course! But war is the art of the possible. In the early forties that meant finding and attacking cities by night aided more and more by improving technology, and by developing long range fighter escorts for day the bombers. The latter meant air superiority by day was lost by the Luftwaffe in 1944. The two campaigns, day and night, were complementary but different which led to the often different targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_of_the_Reich

I think that the modern revulsion of a civilian population being targeted is just that, given the accuracy and reliability of smart munitions. My mother, wary of remaining in Clacton given the enemy habit of jettisoning their bombs there before coasting out, moved herself and her extremely young son to Bournemouth instead. The enemy duly followed her for its tip and run raids along the south coast! Survival was a matter of luck rather than national policy. We were lucky, others weren't. The old certainties of deaths being restricted to the battlefield began to be tested in WWI, seen to be obsolete in WWII, and would have been entirely overturned if the Cold War had become WWIII. We should all count our blessings and work hard to avoid war by acquiring those big sticks. It is they that will protect us from war and not words, whether soft or strident.

[Pauljw]

I have read many books to do with area bombing regarding ww2 and many documentaries .
if You look at the link Chugalug put on ( defense of the reich ) just look at the map , mostly blue for the axis powers .
As awful as war is , just like a street fight , We needed to use all means possible to win the war .

The alternative would not have been good .

kind regards

Paul

[Fareastdriver]

just look at the map , mostly blue for the axis powers

Looks just like the European Union.

[idle bystander]

The fact that Harris said that bombing alone could do it was sheer hyperbole. Did he really believe that? I've no idea, but anyway what difference did it make other than to ensure that you had an utterly determined man at the helm?

If Admiral Cunningham (ABC, viewed by some as the greatest Allied commander in the 2nd World War) is to be believed, he did. ABC recorded in his diary after the final conference and presentation to the King, Churchill and all the Chiefs of Staff of the OVERLORD Plan (D-Day landings), on May 15th 1944: "Bomber Harris explained what a nuisance this Overlord operation was, and how it interfered with the right way to defeat the Germans, i.e. by bombing." [See Cunningham - the greatest admiral since Nelson, by John Winton]
"Colonial warmonger"? dunno. Pig headed and stupid? looks like it. And his persistent denial to Coastal Command of the resources it needed contributed to huge loss of life and materiel in the Battle of the Atlantic. Not a hero.

[Chugalug2]

IB, what is it about the RAF and its leaders that so enrages the RN? You don't have to talk up Admiral Cunningham. He was obviously a very great leader. One only has to look at the wiki map on the Defence of the Reich link above to see the daunting challenge he faced in the Med, and yet the tremendous victories achieved; Taranto, Matapan, and most vital of all Mers el Kebir. The latter was an example of how war requires tough mindedness. The same qualities were required at Crete where his ships were mauled but stuck to the task of withdrawing the Army. So I don't quibble for one moment of your assessment of 'ABC'. A pity then that you feel it so necessary not only to criticise Harris but to infer that he was pig headed and stupid and possibly a colonial warmonger after all. Why? Because he wouldn't divert his heavies to the Battle of the Atlantic? It wasn't his call but the Air Staff's.

Some Lancasters were indeed briefly switched to Coastal but they were the best bomb carriers Harris had and were soon back to bombing Berlin. The ideal maritime aircraft was the long range Liberator, but Coastal was in competition with the USAAF for them, not with Bomber Command. As to losses, Bomber Command's were eyewatering too but you win wars by aggressive action not by avoiding casualties. Harris was keenly aware that easing up on the Strategic Bombing of Germany allowed the enemy breathing space to reorganise and get more men and material to the Russian Front. It was his job to prevent them doing that, so of course he resisted switching to pre D-Day tactical interdiction. The big picture meant he was wrong and switch he did, rather showing that he wasn't quite the all powerful War Lord as so often portrayed.

Finally, hero? What's that got to do with the price of fish? Commanders at his level must be leaders, it is those they lead that are the heroes. Or perhaps you mean popular? That wasn't Harris, it wasn't really Bomber Command. They both had a gruesome task to do and were both betrayed by the politicians and rival commanders when they had completed it. A comment on them or the politicians and rival commanders?

[idle bystander]

Hi Chug

IB, what is it about the RAF and its leaders that so enrages the RN?

Moving Australia! I joined the Navy hoping to fly as my father had, in the same entry as the "bearded one", of whom the less said, probably the better, but unlike whom I fell foul of the sudden reduction in the need for aviators, thanks to the RAF cheating in their presentation to an innocent, and ill-informed, Denis Healy, which led to the cancellation of the carrier programme.

You don't have to talk up Admiral Cunningham.

I'm glad we agree on that, but ...

... and yet the tremendous victories achieved; ... and most vital of all Mers el Kebir. The latter was an example of how war requires tough mindedness

Actually Mers-el-Kebir was not Cunningham, but Somerville and a disaster. The French Navy has never forgiven us. Cunningham, at the other end of the Med, by incredible diplomacy and bluff, persuaded the French admiral to surrender - exactly the opposite of the gung-ho aggressiveness that you seem to admire in Harris.

Because he wouldn't divert his heavies to the Battle of the Atlantic? It wasn't his call but the Air Staff's.

Almost certainly true but don't tell me that his voice in Churchill's ear didn't have a strong effect on the aircraft production and deplyment priorities

Finally, hero? What's that got to do with the price of fish? Commanders at his level must be leaders, it is those they lead that are the heroes.

Both. For many years England's greatest hero was Nelson, in whose company (but not league) I'd class many RAF commanders, Dowding and Park for example (but not Tedder). But of course, and this is where the whole argument gets very tricky, amongst that list of heroes, I'd include every single one of those men who each night climbed into their bombers knowing their chances of safe return were ... what? less than 10%, anyway

[ExAscoteer2]

Ah yes the oft touted myth, so beloved of a certain generation of Fish-Heads, that the RAF moved Australia. :rolleyes:

[Chugalug2]

IB, I really shouldn't have asked, should I? Let us leave Australia in the same pending tray as Lord Louis, TSR2, and Buccaneer, and at least agree that whatever else can be levelled at Bomber Harris none of that particular unpleasantness can. Meanwhile some bedtime reading :-

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-17B-TSR2-with-Hindsight.pdf

Apologies for getting Alexandria and Mers-el-Kebir confused. So easily done. The fact remains though that both denied Hitler the French Fleet which was absolutely vital. The French may never have forgiven us, but nothing new there. Their man of course could never be described as pig headed, could he?

I'm not sure that I've ever considered Dowding or Park as heroes but simply the right men in the right place at the right time. I know the Royal Navy thinks differently about Nelson and I do acknowledge that he was our salvation.

The odds against surviving a tour in BC were bad enough, but some went on for two or more. That takes a very special kind of courage that I can only stand in awe of.

Oh, yes, Harris. So your final gripe is that he may have lobbied WC on behalf of BC? You may well say that but I couldn't possibly comment!

[MAINJAFAD]

Ah yes the oft touted myth, so beloved of a certain generation of Fish-Heads, that the RAF moved Australia. :rolleyes:

The Royal Navy had plenty of chances in crying Foul via the Chief of Staff's Committee had the RAF actually done so and that would be minuted and held in the National Archives (Files DEFE 4/195/9 or DEFE 6/95C/7 would be a good bet). Had the RAF actually done such a thing, it would most likely be in FIle AIR 19/997. Of course if you really need to extend the range of a TSR 2 or F-111K outside of the area's it can cover without AAR, deploy a Tanker!!!

[MAINJAFAD]

Moving Australia! I joined the Navy hoping to fly as my father had, in the same entry as the "bearded one", of whom the less said, probably the better, but unlike whom I fell foul of the sudden reduction in the need for aviators, thanks to the RAF cheating in their presentation to an innocent, and ill-informed, Denis Healy, which led to the cancellation of the carrier programme.


That would be the former Major Denis Healy MBE (Military Division) RE who was in Combined Operations in the Med between 1942 and 1945. He actually admits with hindsight that canning the Carriers was a bad idea, but at the time the country couldn't afford to have a viable force (more than one). This is worth a read.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-31-Lord-Healey-Recollections-of-a-Secretary-of-State-for-Defence.pdf

As a further point, the basis of the RAF moving an island on a map story is covered here. Let's just say it wasn't Australia, and it was the incompetence of an Wing Commander, more than a conspiracy within the upper reaches of the Air Staff.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-24-Sir-Michael-Quinlan-on-RAF-Policy-1962-65.pdf

[racedo]

Harris was a butcher who knew what he was doing in laying waste to German cities, broad brushing it and white washing it doesn't make it better. He was required to do this by Govt and if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. Pretending that there was a "moral" aspect to war if laughable, there wasn't, it was kill more of them than they kill of you.

In today's climate he gets judged but he didn't live in todays climate. He is dead and likely already received his judgement.

Today a person with an artistic flair who rebuilt his country, massively improved public infrastructure and made trains run on time and created thousands of jobs would be lauded by some as a hero.

Additionally an ex cleric student who turned against religion, rebuilt his country while removing the paratical capitalists such that everybody was equal would also be lauded with statues in his honour and Liberal universities would be citing how the world should follow them.

Of course when you mention character one is Adolf Hitler and two is Josef Stalin it may change some viewpoints but others would just claim they were misunderstood.

[megan]

A couple of Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal articles re Harris.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Bomber_harris.pdf

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-6-Dennis-Richards-on-the-WWII-Bomber-Offensive.pdf

[Asturias56]

"an innocent, and ill-informed, Denis Healy" - ye gods!!! Did you ever MEET the man...................... he was a real bruiser, and very well informed - even if you didn't like his conclusions..

[racedo]

That would be the former Major Denis Healy MBE (Military Division) RE who was in Combined Operations in the Med between 1942 and 1945. He actually admits with hindsight that canning the Carriers was a bad idea, but at the time the country couldn't afford to have a viable force (more than one). This is worth a read.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-31-Lord-Healey-Recollections-of-a-Secretary-of-State-for-Defence.pdf

As a further point, the basis of the RAF moving an island on a map story is covered here. Let's just say it wasn't Australia, and it was the incompetence of an Wing Commander, more than a conspiracy within the upper reaches of the Air Staff.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-24-Sir-Michael-Quinlan-on-RAF-Policy-1962-65.pdf

"I shall not attempt to draw extended lessons from this trio ofprojects; but in the round, I suggest, they brought home to us that theUK simply could no longer afford to develop and pay for the ideal.Each of the three aimed for too much. We had to settle for thepracticable and affordable good, rather than the theoretical best; and Isuppose that was a necessary lesson."

Interesting summary from Sir Michael Quinlan which highlights that while Services wanted everything there was simply nothing there to pay for it.

[Tanker]

If Admiral Cunningham (ABC, viewed by some as the greatest Allied commander in the 2nd World War) is to be believed, he did. ABC recorded in his diary after the final conference and presentation to the King, Churchill and all the Chiefs of Staff of the OVERLORD Plan (D-Day landings), on May 15th 1944: "Bomber Harris explained what a nuisance this Overlord operation was, and how it interfered with the right way to defeat the Germans, i.e. by bombing." [See [i]Cunningham - the greatest admiral since Nelson, by John Winton]
"Colonial warmonger"? dunno. Pig headed and stupid? looks like it. And his persistent denial to Coastal Command of the resources it needed contributed to huge loss of life and materiel in the Battle of the Atlantic. Not a hero.
General Spaatz, Commander US Strategic Air Forces in Europe, opposed giving control of the 8th Air Force to Gen Eisenhower for Overlord and away from the bombing of strategic targets in Germany.

[Vortex Hoop]

Harris was a butcher who knew what he was doing in laying waste to German cities, broad brushing it and white washing it doesn't make it better. He was required to do this by Govt and if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. Pretending that there was a "moral" aspect to war if laughable, there wasn't, it was kill more of them than they kill of you.

In today's climate he gets judged but he didn't live in todays climate. He is dead and likely already received his judgement.

Today a person with an artistic flair who rebuilt his country, massively improved public infrastructure and made trains run on time and created thousands of jobs would be lauded by some as a hero.

Additionally an ex cleric student who turned against religion, rebuilt his country while removing the paratical capitalists such that everybody was equal would also be lauded with statues in his honour and Liberal universities would be citing how the world should follow them.

Of course when you mention character one is Adolf Hitler and two is Josef Stalin it may change some viewpoints but others would just claim they were misunderstood.
Comparing Bomber Harris in an argument about historical revisionism to Hitler and Stalin is pretty distasteful. It still doesn’t change the fact that area bombing was the right thing to do, and it worked.
ISTR a Harris quote: “They called us criminals, but what would they have said of us had we lost?”

[42...]

Things are always clearer with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. There is considerable evidence that the strategic bombing campaign was not an efficient use of resources - but few knew or even suspected that during the war.
Revisionist history is just that - applying modern standard to historical events gives a distorted view of what happened and why. Similar revisionist history has been applied to the US dropping the A-bombs on Japan ('Japan wasn't a threat, they were about to surrender anyway, etc.'). Given that my dad was training for the invasion of Japan when the dropped the bombs - he was going to be a platoon leader on the second wave of the initial landings and had been told to expect 80% casualties - I remain unconvinced that we didn't need to drop the bombs. In fact a pretty good argument can be made that dropping the bombs and preventing the need for an invasion of the mainland saved move lives - both Japanese and Americans - than any single act in history.
Precisely, to many fall into a hindsight trap failing to understand the wing of bombers back then, is the single F-15E of today. You can't go back and do-over that war with todays tech. We have F-15Es because we learned from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm. And because of F-15Es and the like, you don't need the Nukes of today, we hope.

[racedo]

Comparing Bomber Harris in an argument about historical revisionism to Hitler and Stalin is pretty distasteful.

Nope because ALL are dead, all had a major part in WW2 and all have been subject to revisionism with some whose character has been amended because of history because today people wishes to judge people differently.

My use of Adolf and Josef was to show that picking selective areas and a bucket of whitewash can even make the vilest dictator appear "reasonable".

It still doesn’t change the fact that area bombing was the right thing to do, and it worked.
As a weapon of terrorising the population in did, as a means of destroying German war industry it is questionable.


ISTR a Harris quote: “They called us criminals, but what would they have said of us had we lost?”

He would have been classified as a War criminal and executed after a speedy trial, mind you doubt the trial bit.

I do not judge him on today, I judge him on WW2, he was appropriate for the time but soon as it is over you need military people like this removed from any type of power.
They understand war BUT do not understand peace.

Gen George Patton / Douglas McArthur are others who understood war but not peace.

[Bill Macgillivray]

It is always easier with hindsight!

Bill

[Vortex Hoop]

My use of Adolf and Josef was to show that picking selective areas and a bucket of whitewash can even make the vilest dictator appear "reasonable.

He would have been classified as a War criminal and executed after a speedy trial, mind you doubt the trial bit.
Nope. It is still distasteful, insulting to British people and morally wrong to draw false equivalence between Bomber Harris (military commander and pilot) and the 2 worst dictators in history (both up there with Chairman Mao for murdering countless millions). That is your agenda, dressed up to look like smart historical analysis.

And the Germans would have lined up MANY miltary personnel and shot them for merely defending against an invasion had they succeeded. When we call someone a 'war criminal', it means something.

[Max Angle]

Bomber Harris, like Churchill, was a warmonger. They were both EXACTLY what was required at the time, we were at war in a fight for the very survival of our country and way of life. Thank goodness we had leaders who were prepared to prosecute that war to the fullest extent possible.

[brakedwell]

Well said Max Angle, I agree with you completely!

[Herod]

Add a plus-one Max Angle. Some people don't realise you can't half-win a total war. Of course Harris had his faults, but.."let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

[langleybaston]

and another

[Finningley Boy]

It will be interesting to see who's statues will replace those removed, by due process of course?

FB

[tdracer]

It will be interesting to see who's statues will replace those removed, by due process of course?

FB
Peace lovers like Stalin, Mao, and Marx.
Consistency is not a hallmark of the woke crowd, just the narrative...

[langleybaston]

Idi Amin VC ?

[Pontius Navigator]

Harris was never a warmonger. A warmonger encourages and instigates. Harris retaliated.

[Barksdale Boy]

PN

Agree totally: Max Angle's choice of "warmonger" was utterly unwarranted.

[racedo]

Nope. It is still distasteful, insulting to British people and morally wrong to draw false equivalence between Bomber Harris (military commander and pilot) and the 2 worst dictators in history (both up there with Chairman Mao for murdering countless millions). That is your agenda, dressed up to look like smart historical analysis.


Majority of people care less and now little or nothing of WW2. Many young people today in UK struggle to tell when it happened.



And the Germans would have lined up MANY miltary personnel and shot them for merely defending against an invasion had they succeeded. When we call someone a 'war criminal', it means something.

All sides committed atrocities before in Nazi's case, during and in the allies case as victors after, in handing thousands back to Soviet side known full well gulags and execution would follow.

Allies happily gave free passage to War criminals when it suited their interests to do so................. Werner VonBraun and his cohorts is just one example. Allies also quite happy to recruit thousands of Ukainians to join US army and train them for 1946 Invasion of Japan, Hiroshima / Nagasaki put paid to that so many got a free pass to settle in Empire or US.

There is no morality in war.

[tdracer]

Majority of people care less and now little or nothing of WW2. Many young people today in UK struggle to tell when it happened.
That's simply an indictment of how crappy our schools are doing these days. I don't know about your side of the pond, but over here we've more than doubled the amount of spending/student compared with when I was in school (in constant dollars) and yet the outcome has gotten progressively worse. So of course the answer is we need to spend more money on education..

There is no morality in war.
Perhaps, but there is still a rather large difference between dropping bombs on enemy civilian targets and carefully planned, executed and ruthless genocide of millions of people.

[cynicalint]

Written inside the cover of my 'War Studies' folder at RAFC Cranwell by a previous owner:-
" The first principle of warfare: It is not the the taking part that counts, but..."
Too many detractors of Harris seem to not appreciate this subtle, but profound comment.

[Chugalug2]

" The first principle of warfare: It is not the the taking part that counts, but..."
Absolutely cl, to which I'd add not only 'winning', but 'winning as soon as possible'. The military know enough about war to know that it is brutal and often unpredictable. In contrast the Hampstead Thinkers see it as a vehicle for their own set of do's and don'ts, most of which if observed would end up in defeat.

[GlobalNav]

No morality? Is it immoral to defend one's homeland and freedom, or to do so with allies for the same purpose? It was a fight to the death; partial measures not appropriate or effective. I hate war and I hate the reasons we need to go to war, but sometimes it is necessary, perhaps for failures of previous omission. A terrible thing and we are all glad it's over. But of course, even now we live in a dangerous and violent world.

[oldpax]

Now we have Saudi Arabia with its ultra modern air force ( supplied by?) Bombing the cr...p out of the Yemen and not much being done to stop civilians being killed other than a few feeble newspaper articles.
Hands up those who remember the conflict in the late sixties when the british were putting down an uprising in the same part of the world?No bad publicity then!

[brakedwell]

Now we have Saudi Arabia with its ultra modern air force ( supplied by?) Bombing the cr...p out of the Yemen and not much being done to stop civilians being killed other than a few feeble newspaper articles.
Hands up those who remember the conflict in the late sixties when the british were putting down an uprising in the same part of the world?No bad publicity then!

I agree with you about Saudi, but I spent two years stationed in Aden in the sixties. You are talking a load of rubbish, it was a defensive withdrawal spread over quite a long time and now they wish we were back!

[Pontius Navigator]

That's simply an indictment of how crappy our schools are doing these days.

TD, the problem is not the lack of teaching but what is taught and that is to a set syllabus for national exams. As an aside my daughter was taught one history syllabus and examined on another!

There is so much history. From our side it might cover the Romans, the Vikings, kings and queens in primary. By the time we get to secondary it focusses on few aspects. I recall that we spent much time on the detail of road construction, landscape gardening and a few other topics that thrilled our history mistress and bored the rest of us. When I later did history with the university it covered the French Fronds, a complete blank until I did it, the English Civil Wars, and then women and slaves. We covered economy in 19th Century America and City development in UK with Leeds as the focus. As far as wars, WW1 topic was what historians considered was the cause of the war. By the time we reached WW2 we had 8 areas to study but actually only had to pick one of these; I chose propaganda. It was much more process learning rather than fact learning. The aim throughout was not to teach you history but perhaps encourage you to study a particular area that took your interest.

The failure therefore is failing to instil curiosity in the pupils to broaden their knowledge.

Roy

[FODPlod]

I agree with you about Saudi, but I spent two years stationed in Aden in the sixties. You are talking a load of rubbish, it was a defensive withdrawal spread over quite a long time and now they wish we were back!
When I visited Aden with the grey funnel line in 1989, ordinary people of a certain age were queuing up to renew acquaintance and wish us well.

[oldpax]

Brakedwell,
I also spent a couple of my formative years in delightful Aden helping to send various ordnances up into the hinterland.Never gave it thought people would get killed.I was lucky leaving as the first bombs started so no I was lucky.
Very little media about Aden then,in fact WW2 got more attention.Mad mitch and the jocks showed the locals a thing or too and the government were horrified !!

[keesje]

History will judge if knowingly killing so many innocent people without militairy goals will be translated into heroism or something else.

I grew up in a time where good & bad were clearly defined. Us being on the right side. Reality is usually more complicated. But don't tell our young heros at the frontline.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dresden+victims&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiltZ6A1rnqAhXHxqQKHdZzDP8Q2-cCegQIABAC&oq=dresden+victims&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIECCMQJzoGCAAQBRAeOgIIA DoHCCMQ6gIQJzoFCAAQsQM6BAgAEENQrZqLDViR0YsNYMrWiw1oAXAAeACAA eoBiAH_EZIBBjI0LjEuMpgBAKABAbABBQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=PKUDX6WnA8eNkwXW57H4Dw&bih=612&biw=360&client=ms-android-samsung&prmd=ivsn

Yes, that boy in the middle of the heap probably did scrapbooks on aircraft with his grandfather, who is in another heap. Media are not as alligned as they were anymore.

[Herod]

keesje. It seems you have an agenda there. Firstly, nobody said Harris was a hero. He was someone who had a dirty job to do, for good reason, and did it. Secondly, didn't your country need a little "assistance" during that troubled time?

[keesje]

Don't have an agenda. I didn't live during the war, don't feel guild / pride. Do you have an agenda Herod?
It is irrelevant my family was "good" during the war, as far as good/bad goes.
But they had second thoughts looking back at what really had happened around them.

If we start to justifying bad events, mass killings, because of historical backgrounds, orders, perceived national values, "defending", or "interests", things can get real ugly.
As the unprecedented Bloody and Cruel (mechanized) twentieth century showed us.

Starting to accept you may not always be completely right and opponents not completely wrong, is a start. But, we were part of "something bigger" is always in.
That justification isn't understood by the victims (family's) though, facing the executors. It can be suppressed, but doesn't go away.

It's seldom all good / bad in war, although few deny the WW2 Nazi's inconceivable crimes against humanity at a large scale (just read an article on operation Tannenberg :yuk: :( )

Looking at at the mortality WW2 numbers, they explain a lot of deep frustrations, traumas, aggression, taboos, choices and impact on societies.
E.g. why the Russian / Chinese were a kind of grumpy towards us, Europeans. They didn't start. For a few decades they weren't really listening to us..
It makes a difference if you are sending out troops, or your nice innocent neighbours getting killed by foreigners. It's the perspective I guess.

These day we have more open discussions then during the cold war, when teachers, tv & movies told us a clear story. We liked what we heard/ learned and didn't ask confusing questions.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/684x603/deaths_of_ww2_57e9c624d6801dc4670af075cca8c34cddb23cb2.gif

[Lonewolf_50]

Don't have an agenda. Right. :rolleyes:
You have a rather selective view of history, or are perhaps are simply ignorant. (I also note that you hail from one of those little protected countries who rely on big friends ... interesting at whom you throw stones. Full disclosure: I served served with some superb Dutchmen - Navy, AIr Force, and Marines - in NATO ops and assignments; good eggs and good people).

1. Stalin signed a ten year non aggression pact with Hitler, and participated in the partition of Poland. He had previously purged a good many of his military as being "politicaly unreliable" and made a variety of other cock ups. They made their own bed and you complain that they had to sleep in it. They are "grumpy," and it is someone else's fault, of course. :ugh: You seem to be an easy mark for their rhetoric. you might want to go back and read the red rhetoric of the 1920's and 1930', and the stated goal of tearing down the world order of the time to be replaced with a utopia. Same blinkered ideals as the French revolution, similar flaws in execution ...

2. The Chinese were engaged in a war with the Japanese already in 1937, though you can argue that it began in 1931 with the occupation of Manchuria. If you check a bit of history, you'll find that Chiang and Mao spent as much effort, or more, fighting each other as they did the Japanese. (Granted, their civil war had been going on for some time, and the Japanese took full advantage of that in their decision to take over substantial portions of China). The Chinese 'being grumpy' with the West is a very different matter than with the Russians, particularly in the post war years (1945-1949) when the KMT got kicked off of the mainland. You, and your postulated Chinese, seem to forget why Japan attacked the US and the other Western folks in the "Greater Asian Co Prosperity Sphere" region: the US in particular had been leaning on the Japanese politically and economically for a number of years because of Japan's war making in China. (And various atrocities, Chunking was quite celebrated as an outrage in the Western press when it was China vs Japan with none of those nosy Westerners involved yet). There is an entire class of revisionist history that blames the US for Japan attackin Pearl Harbor due to the embargo/blockade that was implemented due to Japanese aggression and militarism in China.

Maybe the US should have just stood back and let the Japanese have their way with China, and not interfered.
Then the Chinese would have no cause to be "grumpy."
Sure. :ugh:

Despite my jaundiced view of your line, thanks for that nice graphical representation of the human costs in WW II. Human beings have developed a remarkable talent for destroying each other; the industrial age simply increases the order of magnitude. Jan Bloc wrote about that in the late 19th century, and well predicted the kind of slaughter industrial age was bringing to us. He argued that this made war a non solution to political problems. He was ignored, regardless of how right he may have been. ( I'd say he called WW I pretty much on point, aviation excepted).

The slandering of Bomber Harris in this revisionist, deconstructionist clap trap of a thread premise (the article that the OP refers to) is a bucket full of swill - FFS, it's in the Daily Mail - and your position isn't much better.

[Chugalug2]

keesje are you saying that because you were born after WWII you have a more objective view of it than those who were alive then? If so, why? You also seem to apply a moral equivalence to WWII in that good and bad people were on opposite sides, which were therefore neither all good nor all bad. Mr Spock would beg to differ with you. Your country was invaded and occupied by Germany despite being a neutral country. It suffered terribly as a result, especially in the final winter of the war. The tiny block on your graph misrepresents that suffering given that the total population was only a few million. For others (I'm sure that you are more than familiar with what was entailed) here is Wiki's account :-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#:~:text=Netherlands%20in%20World %20War%20II.%20The%20city%20of,10%20May%201940%2C%20under%20 orders%20of%20Adolf%20Hitler.

You chose to post pictures of Dresden post its destruction by Bomber Command and the USAAF. Why stop there? Why not Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and half a hundred others? That is the price of war, and more to the point the price of Allied victory. If Dresden had been spared then the raid before it would simply have been featured in its place. Your seeming detachment from the rights and wrongs of this terrible conflict are hard to understand. Allied victory wasn't a given. The weapons that Germany was creating at the end were stillborn, other than the V1's and V2's (many launched against London from the Netherlands), but if the Bombing Campaign had not been conducted with the vigour that it was there were weapon systems that could have led to the irradiation of New York, and of course many other cities that were nearer. You have to fight a war with all that you have, or risk losing it. Manhattan was planned for Germany rather than Japan, but mercifully VE day intervened.

You seem to be aware of all this yet choose to summarise the Bombing Campaign, and by extension Harris, by :-

History will judge if knowingly killing so many innocent people without militairy goals will be translated into heroism or something else.

I'm afraid I find that glib and offensive, but then I was alive in WWII so am obviously incapable of being objective about it.

[Asturias56]

Keesje - was there a choice? was there any other way to stop Hitler and win the war?

God knows the British, the French and the Russians all bent over backwards NOT to fight Germany but they all were attacked - not the other way round. Once a war kicks of you can choose to win it or lose it and I think there isn't a rational single person who wouldn't want Hitler to be defeated - and the sooner the better. While the British were bombing cities he was cheerfully still shipping Jews off to their deaths and kept on doing it right up to the end.

I'm no fan of Harris as a commander but what choice did they have? Call a Peace Conference?? :ugh:

[Lonewolf_50]

I'm no fan of Harris as a commander but what choice did they have? Call a Peace Conference?? :ugh: The better idea would of course have been, by the UK, to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler, even a separate peace, in 1940 once France and the Low Countries were overrun.
That way, nobody who lived in a place that was now ruled by the Third Reich could accuse any of the Brits of being warmongers. I am sure that the Dutch would have eventually adapted to their new reality, secure in knowing that they weren't associated with any warmongers as allies and liberators. :ugh: :yuk: :rolleyes:

OK, that's enough sarcasm for one morning.

[Chugalug2]

I'd just put a word in for the Dutch people. A more troublesome population for the Nazis to lord it over would be difficult to imagine. They had 5000 German Police to try to keep them in order and the Netherlands had a greater percentage of SS than any of the other Western European countries (as we found to our cost in Market Garden). I had the privilege with my crew of dropping a token stick of paras into one of the Arnhem DZ's on the anniversary date. The enormous extent of its heathland was full of Dutch people, leaving only a postage stamp sized DZ for the stick to land in, which they managed to do. The hospitality was humbling and the anti German sentiment still palpable. BTW, did you know that Audrey Hepburn was Dutch and survived the Hunger Winter as a young girl? It is what drove her to dedicate herself to UNICEF in later life.

Lonewolf, your snipe at the Daily Mail is your prerogative of course, and will gain you much favour amongst those who castigate it even while quoting from it. It has the largest circulation of any UK newspaper and to my mind is no more a bucket full of swill than any of the others. As has been already established though, my objectivity is open to question...

[keesje]

What makes it so hard to look at this like a human among humans? Instead of top down, "us against them" "we" won, kind of flagwaving? Is it strong or weak? For what I said, why does it matter if I have a Dutch flag in my profile, or a Turkish, American or Chinese one? I served? My race? My religion? Skin? The size of my house? Shouldn't we look at the message instead of the messenger?

Maybe we and our pre ancestors were programmed that way. We, but "them" even more of course. Keeping moral distance, focussed, blind when required, trained to stand behind superiority walls we didn't erect. Rewarded for getting the job done. Like the millions of executors in the bloody twentieth century.

Hopefully the twentieth century remains the bloodiest one for ever. WW2 being the blackest pages in the book. I have a slight hope communication these days is so quick, widespread, two way, it becomes hard to steer, embed, dismiss, manipulate. Harder to hide because in your face in minutes. Also if it doesn't fit agendas / desired perceptions. However the recent fake-news / manipulation revelations and their effects are worrying..



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#:~:text=Netherlands%20in%20World %20War%20II.%20The%20city%20of,10%20May%201940%2C%20under%20 orders%20of%20Adolf%20Hitler.


Thank you for the link, never saw this page. Lot's of observation that surprise me, being raised here. Would it be valuable if all wiki pages on national topics can be written by anybody but nationals? I think probably most history books are written the brits, likely the best one too. But I would avoid reading a book on Brittish recent history, written by a British citizen. Let a skilled writer / team from elsewhere have an objective look..

[Fareastdriver]

Perhaps we should remind keesje about South Sulawesi.

https://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2013/09/96166.html#:~:text=The%20Dutch%20have%20apologised%20for,Dec ember%201946%20and%20March%201947.

[langleybaston]

I can accept that keesje's first language is not English, but am I the only one who has given up trying to follow?
James Joyce's Ulysses springs to mind., and without the naughty bits to entertain.

[tdracer]

What makes it so hard to look at this like a human among humans? Instead of top down, "us against them" "we" won, kind of nationalism? Is it strong or weak? For what I said, why does it matter if I have a Dutch flag in my profile, or a Turkish, American or Chinese one? I served? My race? My religion? Skin? The size of my house? Shouldn't we look at the message instead of the messenger?


I still don't get your basic point. Once Hitler was in power and started his overt aggression - what was the appropriate response? Appeasement was tried - and failed miserably (if anything, it made Hitler more bold). Yes, war is horrible - probably unimaginably so to those of us fortunate enough to have not experienced it first hand. However sometimes the alternative is worse - with WWII being the prime example of that. Once Hitler's motives were clear, there was really only one choice - surrender or fight. Fortunately for you (and the rest of us), the choice was made to fight - with whatever means were available. Churchill, Harris, and millions of others did whatever they could to defeat and destroy the evil of Nazism. For that they at least deserve our respect, since our lives are much better for their efforts (and millions of lives would not otherwise even exist if Nazism had been allowed to persist and flourish).
Oh, and at the risk of piling on to what Lonewolf posted, there is this little bit:
E.g. why the Russian / Chinese were a kind of grumpy towards us, Europeans. They didn't start.
Russia (or more accurately the Soviet Union) had a major hand in the start of WWII in Europe. Most historians agree that WWII in Europe started when German invaded Poland - causing France and the UK to declare war on German.
Do you remember what happened next? The Soviets invaded Poland - as had been previously arranged between Stalin and Hitler! The Soviets were on the side of Germany when Germany overran most of Europe (including your home). For the first two years of WWII in Europe, Stalin/Soviet Union were allied with Germany. It was only after Hitler turned his attention east and launched Barbarossa that the the Soviets suddenly became our allies.
Yes, the Soviets suffered horribly during WWII, but a great deal of that can be blamed directly on Stalin.

[keesje]

Few would disagree Stalin was an paranoid, evil man, killing millions of his countryman. But he was trying to avoid / push out war with the Germans.
It seems everyone was, except Hitler. The battlefields of WW1 were still fresh in everyone's minds.

Chamberlain had bought time by sacrificing Czechoslovakia; Stalin could do the same and sacrifice Poland.

https://books.google.nl/books?id=nQEIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=Chamberlain+had+bought+time+by+sacrificing+Czechoslovakia ;+Stalin+could+do+the+same+and+sacrifice+Poland.&source=bl&ots=OuAhgLtobq&sig=ACfU3U1D8CBI54dSMTHuiEBRssYk0eNSdw&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwigq9OA6rvqAhUR-6QKHfKUByMQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Chamberlain%20had%20bought%20time%20by%20sacrificing%20Cze choslovakia%3B%20Stalin%20could%20do%20the%20same%20and%20sa crifice%20Poland.&f=false

[brakedwell]

I think we are moving a long way from the subject, Bomber Harris.

[Chugalug2]

keesje :-
History will judge if knowingly killing so many innocent people without militairy goals will be translated into heroism or something else.

I'm not very interested in your twitter type posts re good and bad on all sides, we are all guilty in a way, things will be different from now on, and similar platitudes. I strongly urge you to study the history of your own country and its people. In 1940 each and every one of them was faced with a moral dilemma; do I resist or do I collaborate? Mercifully we were spared that in the UK thanks as ever to being an island.

You expressed surprise at the Wiki link I posted re the Occupation of the Netherlands. So here is the story of those who resisted :-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_resistance

and those who chose collaboration :-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Niederlande

There wasn't much time for long drawn out debate. You had to decide to go along with all of this or not. Try and put yourself into that situation and honestly ask yourself what would I have done? In the meantime I agree with brakedwell. This thread is about Bomber Harris, not about you and your world view, nor mine for that matter. If you can defend your quote above alluding to Harris then do so. Otherwise, enough already!

[beardy]

What makes it so hard to look at this like a human among humans? Instead of top down, "us against them" "we" won, kind of flagwaving? Is it strong or weak? For what I said, why does it matter if I have a Dutch flag in my profile, or a Turkish, American or Chinese one? I served? My race? My religion? Skin? The size of my house? Shouldn't we look at the message instead of the messenger?

Maybe we and our pre ancestors were programmed that way. We, but "them" even more of course. Keeping moral distance, focussed, blind when required, trained to stand behind superiority walls we didn't erect. Rewarded for getting the job done. Like the millions of executors in the bloody twentieth century.

Hopefully the twentieth century remains the bloodiest one for ever. WW2 being the blackest pages in the book. I have a slight hope communication these days is so quick, widespread, two way, it becomes hard to steer, embed, dismiss, manipulate. Harder to hide because in your face in minutes. Also if it doesn't fit agendas / desired perceptions. However the recent fake-news / manipulation revelations and their effects are worrying..




Thank you for the link, never saw this page. Lot's of observation that surprise me, being raised here. Would it be valuable if all wiki pages on national topics can be written by anybody but nationals? I think probably most history books are written the brits, likely the best one too. But I would avoid reading a book on Brittish recent history, written by a British citizen. Let a skilled writer / team from elsewhere have an objective look..
Your first and last paragraphs contradict each other.

[keesje]

Chugalug2 (https://www.pprune.org/members/149494-chugalug2), I guess, we are the older generation are children of our time and I might not be really interested in your 1985 view of the world other than historically.
I think it is refreshing to see younger generations take a critical, maybe more objective look at our history / hero's / heritage, something were allowed too.

Same here, we have an extensive colonial history like the UK, that doesn't make us proud today. It used to, only a few decades ago.
We are happily judging historic figures from today's perspective, if it suits us. And dismiss that if not.

Perspectives are changing and the new generations feels less obliged to the rock solid values & perspectives we have.
Also on necessity of carpet bombing civilians. Whether we like it or not, hiding behind collateral & flags.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/904x565/national_archives_mass_bomber_raid_on_cologne_trans_nvbqzqnj v4bqrw1mvivylv4jg0mit8wtjbrjid0pkpsoel9mg7q99na_25a9f789b07b 5ce0a9d2a0dedeb4027578b87abe.jpg
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/30/day-1942-1000-raf-bombers-obliterate-cologne-major-escalation/

[Lonewolf_50]

Also on necessity of carpet bombing civilian
Your level of both technological and historical ignorance is staggering.
When in a hole, it is often best to stop digging.

[Asturias56]

This is getting silly - I think kesje is a wind up merchant

[langleybaston]

This is getting silly - I think kesje is a wind up merchant

Troll is the word we are looking for.

[racedo]

1. Stalin signed a ten year non aggression pact with Hitler, and participated in the partition of Poland. He had previously purged a good many of his military as being "politicaly unreliable" and made a variety of other cock ups. They made their own bed and you complain that they had to sleep in it. They are "grumpy," and it is someone else's fault, of course. :ugh: You seem to be an easy mark for their rhetoric. you might want to go back and read the red rhetoric of the 1920's and 1930', and the stated goal of tearing down the world order of the time to be replaced with a utopia. Same blinkered ideals as the French revolution, similar flaws in execution ...


Stalin offered to put 1 million men with tanks, artillery and planes on Polish German border in August 1939, UK and French diplomats did not respond when in Moscow. Stalin signed the agreement with Hitler a week later knowing what was going to occur and buying time.

Would it have sacrifced Polish independence ? yes but that lasted less than 3 weeks post this. War would have happened anyway just likely have been shorter without what had occurred.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html