Canadians question morality of Bomber Command
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Canadians question morality of Bomber Command
This story appeared in Canada just before Remembrance Day. Apparently the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa has a depiction of Canada's role in Bomber Commands' attacks on Germany during WWII, in which a descriptive plaque questions "The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany..."
Fits right in with Tony having the sheer arrogance to attempt to apologise for things over which he had no bearing or influence, here we have history revisionists demonizing the very people who allowed Canada to be the Liberal nirvana it is today. Disgraceful, watch for this happening back in Blighty.
http://www.surreyleader.com/portals-...d=768728&more=
Fits right in with Tony having the sheer arrogance to attempt to apologise for things over which he had no bearing or influence, here we have history revisionists demonizing the very people who allowed Canada to be the Liberal nirvana it is today. Disgraceful, watch for this happening back in Blighty.
http://www.surreyleader.com/portals-...d=768728&more=
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The Smithsonian Air & Space tried something very similiar with the B-29 Enola Gay exhibit several years ago.
A very large, very public campaign finally got them to delete their editorializing and just present the bomber and its place in history.
The same should go for Bomber Command.
A very large, very public campaign finally got them to delete their editorializing and just present the bomber and its place in history.
The same should go for Bomber Command.
Hooray For Bomber Command!
As a former member of the RAF may I say ...............
I, FOR ONE, VALUE MY FREEDOM!
HOORAY FOR BOMBER COMMAND!
HOORAY FOR KICKING SEVEN SHADES OF S41T OUT OF THE ENEMY!
SINCE WHEN WAS A WAR JUST A SOLDIERS PROBLEM?
RESOURCES THAT SUCCOUR THE ENEMY NEED TO BE BOMBED TO SMITHEREENS!
BAD LUCK IF YOU'RE ON THE LOSING SIDE!
I, FOR ONE, VALUE MY FREEDOM!
HOORAY FOR BOMBER COMMAND!
HOORAY FOR KICKING SEVEN SHADES OF S41T OUT OF THE ENEMY!
SINCE WHEN WAS A WAR JUST A SOLDIERS PROBLEM?
RESOURCES THAT SUCCOUR THE ENEMY NEED TO BE BOMBED TO SMITHEREENS!
BAD LUCK IF YOU'RE ON THE LOSING SIDE!
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Sorry chaps, but everyone of us should question the morality of it all - carpet bombing civilian areas? Yes we won the war, and yes its why we have our freedom. Bomber Command, and indeed the allied forces, did a cracking job, and I am for one thankful. But bombing civilians can never be moral, even if it proves a necessity.
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vs,
Whilst I have a very tiny little bit of sympathy for your concerns, the fact is 'the need' far outweighs any morale argument that may arise at all.
I hope you are not suggesting that it would be better if we were all wearing jack boots, marching funny and now speaking German, but were able to hold our heads up high and say 'Ah yes, but we fought the war with good morales' the fact we lost, well 'bad luck' or what?
Sorry, I'm with MrBernoulli on this, and thank God we were on the winnig side!
The Winco
Whilst I have a very tiny little bit of sympathy for your concerns, the fact is 'the need' far outweighs any morale argument that may arise at all.
I hope you are not suggesting that it would be better if we were all wearing jack boots, marching funny and now speaking German, but were able to hold our heads up high and say 'Ah yes, but we fought the war with good morales' the fact we lost, well 'bad luck' or what?
Sorry, I'm with MrBernoulli on this, and thank God we were on the winnig side!
The Winco
never hurts to get the actual information
The words on the plaque are quoted to be
“The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command’s aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 60,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.”
Seems like a pretty accurate statement though there is a typo on the German dead, more like 600,000. The bombing campaign was contested at the time by many, both inside and out of the military and at very high levels, for both military and moral reasons. Why pretend otherwise?
If someone goes to the musem, reads the plaque and bothers to find out a little more it has served a purpose.
Sometimes it seems it only takes a the whiff of pc to cause severe knee jerk.
20driver
20driver
“The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command’s aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 60,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.”
Seems like a pretty accurate statement though there is a typo on the German dead, more like 600,000. The bombing campaign was contested at the time by many, both inside and out of the military and at very high levels, for both military and moral reasons. Why pretend otherwise?
If someone goes to the musem, reads the plaque and bothers to find out a little more it has served a purpose.
Sometimes it seems it only takes a the whiff of pc to cause severe knee jerk.
20driver
20driver
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Well......the Germans started it.
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Almost every country/nation/state, in whatever form, has started something resembling agression against another, in some cases winning, at other times being the loser and facing the winner's justice.
It's a question of time: how far back do you want to go? The British, Americans, French, Italians, Russians to name but a few have all had their asses kicked after starting wars. Nobody likes losing so it's great to tell other people how bad and inhuman they are when they lose. It's natural that no-one wants to remember their own faults and move the focus swiftly to something else. It makes people feel better about themselves even if there really is nothing to feel better about because we are all human and have the same weaknesses.
It's a question of time: how far back do you want to go? The British, Americans, French, Italians, Russians to name but a few have all had their asses kicked after starting wars. Nobody likes losing so it's great to tell other people how bad and inhuman they are when they lose. It's natural that no-one wants to remember their own faults and move the focus swiftly to something else. It makes people feel better about themselves even if there really is nothing to feel better about because we are all human and have the same weaknesses.
Lets see. WWII, total war across the globe. Millions are dead and dying - the better informed at the time would know that in reality the First world war had never ended it had simply moved across central Asia from eastern Europe.
As the war in the west again broke out - following the Spanish Civil War the pogroms...the Nazis storming across Europe, the war in Asia...
I guess that not having the benefit of cushy hindsight the view was that the war had to be brought to a successful conclusion as fast as possible by any means possible because the alternative was worse.
As I understand it - the Allies were having to kill in an attempt to stop the killing - the Axis powers - if they had won would have continued the killing and the persecution and the extermination.
So we are sorry innocent civilians were killed. But it was war.
As the war in the west again broke out - following the Spanish Civil War the pogroms...the Nazis storming across Europe, the war in Asia...
I guess that not having the benefit of cushy hindsight the view was that the war had to be brought to a successful conclusion as fast as possible by any means possible because the alternative was worse.
As I understand it - the Allies were having to kill in an attempt to stop the killing - the Axis powers - if they had won would have continued the killing and the persecution and the extermination.
So we are sorry innocent civilians were killed. But it was war.
Were all civilians innocent?
How many of those civilians were directly involved in making weapons to be used against the allied forces?
Just because they weren't pulling the trigger doesn't mean they were innocent. Besides, aren't soldiers former civilians?
How many of those civilians were directly involved in making weapons to be used against the allied forces?
Just because they weren't pulling the trigger doesn't mean they were innocent. Besides, aren't soldiers former civilians?
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Oh crikey mate, I thought we invented self-loathing here in the UK. It started out as, 'learning lessons from the past' now we have the liberal intelligentsia telling us we should apologise for deeds and events that belonged to a different era when values were utterly different to todays; the slave trade, execution of deserters during WW1, the bombing of civilians in WW2.
On another forum I had a 'conversation' with someone who thinks that the remembrance process glorifies war and that by holding this 'anachronism' every year we simply make future wars inevitable.
On another forum I had a 'conversation' with someone who thinks that the remembrance process glorifies war and that by holding this 'anachronism' every year we simply make future wars inevitable.
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What an ungrateful p***k
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Bloody amazes me that even 60 years after the war we have yet to honour some of the bravest men to fight in it. Who climbed into their Lancs/Halifax's/Wellingtons/Stirlings etc throughout the war most nights and held a rigid course all the way into the heartland of the enemy and back. Suffering the worse losses of any force. And we have yet to give a specific medal for it.
But what does the spineless left and liberal mass of this country do? They hold them with contempt, they try to ignore the huge sacrifice and the effort these people gave.
A war in which only combatants get killed is very rare and nigh on impossible. Bomber command was a means to an end, it was a huge propoganda tool and it even started to turn the tide of the war in the later stages. As soon as the first bombs fell on German soil it signalled to the Nazi's that Britain meant business. How long would the war have lasted without the efforts of Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force? Long enough for the V2 force to have a far bigger effect on the UK? Long enough for the heavy water technology to be perfected? Long enough for Jets to be made reliable?
Liberals? I sh1t em.
But what does the spineless left and liberal mass of this country do? They hold them with contempt, they try to ignore the huge sacrifice and the effort these people gave.
A war in which only combatants get killed is very rare and nigh on impossible. Bomber command was a means to an end, it was a huge propoganda tool and it even started to turn the tide of the war in the later stages. As soon as the first bombs fell on German soil it signalled to the Nazi's that Britain meant business. How long would the war have lasted without the efforts of Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force? Long enough for the V2 force to have a far bigger effect on the UK? Long enough for the heavy water technology to be perfected? Long enough for Jets to be made reliable?
Liberals? I sh1t em.
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8 876 powerful 88m flak guns (denied to the artillery),
900 000 men to man them (500 000 available to defend Normandy in 1944),
1 000 000 men continually clearing and repairing bomb damage,
factories devoted to producing night fighters,
30% of all artillery in production by 1944... (figures from Robin Neillands' The Bomber War)
"The strategic bomber is the cause of all our setbacks" - Albert Speer.
The bombing campaign was our only means of prosecuting the war against mainland Germany for several years. Not to have done it would have been the criminal act.
Where would the liberals be now if we had lost? Sorry but having recently watched one of the History programmes about Bomber Command, the whole gist of the offensive was to stop German war production AND teach the German people that enough was enough.. (2 wars in 30 yrs!!)
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And this is the problem in a nutshell IMHO. Those of us in the military, or with recent connections to it, understand the need for certain actions, and operations, we understand the significance, and the poignance of the remembrance services. We take the time to consider the wider ramifications of not undertaking a particualr course of action even though it may well have had undesirable consequences at the time.
When these issues are examined with a black vs white, right vs wrong mindset, the point is quite often well and truly missed.
8 876 powerful 88m flak guns (denied to the artillery),
900 000 men to man them (500 000 available to defend Normandy in 1944),
1 000 000 men continually clearing and repairing bomb damage,
factories devoted to producing night fighters,
30% of all artillery in production by 1944... (figures from Robin Neillands' The Bomber War)
900 000 men to man them (500 000 available to defend Normandy in 1944),
1 000 000 men continually clearing and repairing bomb damage,
factories devoted to producing night fighters,
30% of all artillery in production by 1944... (figures from Robin Neillands' The Bomber War)
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Thank you 20driver for posting the full inscription. The fact that it "seems like a pretty accurate statement" is not the point, though. Historians and others with an understanding of strategic warfare will argue these points for years to came. New facts will come to light, similarly. It hardly seems appropriate, therefore, to present such an inscription as if the negators already have a proven point. Innocent until proved guilty is the phrase, I believe.
It still trots out the old chestnut that "the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production". While the bomber force was being constructed, crews learned their trade and techniques and tactics were being developed, we know it did. What nobody has ever been able to say is what the German output would have been without the early raids. Even the morality of the Offensive is not clear cut. As Helpful Stacker points out, in his, own words, they started it. If we ignore the bombing of civilians in Warsaw, Rotterdam etc, we could not have ignored the bombing of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry etc. The bomber force was not used offensively against German towns until after the SEP 40 raid on London. As Arthur Harris put it himself, "They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind." The point I would make is that the "morality" can be argued from now until the last Archbishop; but it should not cast a slur of doubt on the men who did their duty.
Can't we send some of our spray paint wielding "yoofs" over there on cultural visits?
It still trots out the old chestnut that "the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production". While the bomber force was being constructed, crews learned their trade and techniques and tactics were being developed, we know it did. What nobody has ever been able to say is what the German output would have been without the early raids. Even the morality of the Offensive is not clear cut. As Helpful Stacker points out, in his, own words, they started it. If we ignore the bombing of civilians in Warsaw, Rotterdam etc, we could not have ignored the bombing of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry etc. The bomber force was not used offensively against German towns until after the SEP 40 raid on London. As Arthur Harris put it himself, "They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind." The point I would make is that the "morality" can be argued from now until the last Archbishop; but it should not cast a slur of doubt on the men who did their duty.
Can't we send some of our spray paint wielding "yoofs" over there on cultural visits?
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Political correctness gone mad!
I assume I am not the only one who thinks that we have gone too lilly livered?
Blair the other day apologised for Britains part in slavery hundreds of years ago - and campaigners complained he did not go far enough!!
We have a chequered history - as most great (or once great) nations do. WE, the living, are not responsible for what happened hundreds of years ago. We may abhor it, but I, for one, certainly do not think we need to apologise for it.
This Canadian thing is just another example and to my mind belittles the heroes who risked their lives (or paid with their lives) for a just and moral cause.
Blair the other day apologised for Britains part in slavery hundreds of years ago - and campaigners complained he did not go far enough!!
We have a chequered history - as most great (or once great) nations do. WE, the living, are not responsible for what happened hundreds of years ago. We may abhor it, but I, for one, certainly do not think we need to apologise for it.
This Canadian thing is just another example and to my mind belittles the heroes who risked their lives (or paid with their lives) for a just and moral cause.