Bomber Command Memorial
A feature in today's Express in support of the memorial was somewhat spoiled by the picture editor's choice of a USAAF B-17, Big Bitch, and its crew - used large.
Not that we should ever forget the 8th Air Force's 26,000 killed - but I despair sometimes of increasingly sloppy editing and lack of checking in national papers and on TV. Prepare for a bonanza of errors in the coming week's Battle of Britain coverage, courtesy of under-trained researchers who don't give a sh*t anyway.
Not that we should ever forget the 8th Air Force's 26,000 killed - but I despair sometimes of increasingly sloppy editing and lack of checking in national papers and on TV. Prepare for a bonanza of errors in the coming week's Battle of Britain coverage, courtesy of under-trained researchers who don't give a sh*t anyway.
I notice that the "have your say" feature is unavailable for this article, XV 490. Just as well, as there would have more than a few expletives. Wtf was the 8th Bomber Command? An insult to both the RAF and USAAF (see my post above).
TT - It seems the pictures (see example here) were obtained, presumably online, from Getty Images - no doubt using the search words 'bomber command'.
Getty, being an American library, probably threw up the B-17 shots given that the USAAF also used the term 'bomber command' - and, hey presto, the Express thought they'd struck gold.
Yes, the 8th Air Force lost 26,000 UK-based men in a thousand days. The 9th Air Force lost a further 6,000 flying from the UK. And, as has been pointed out, they're well served with appropriate memorials over here - principally at Duxford and Madingley. No Dresden protests over them, as far as I know.
In the US, there's also the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, which opened in 1992. Its memorial gardens are quite magnificent.
Getty, being an American library, probably threw up the B-17 shots given that the USAAF also used the term 'bomber command' - and, hey presto, the Express thought they'd struck gold.
Yes, the 8th Air Force lost 26,000 UK-based men in a thousand days. The 9th Air Force lost a further 6,000 flying from the UK. And, as has been pointed out, they're well served with appropriate memorials over here - principally at Duxford and Madingley. No Dresden protests over them, as far as I know.
In the US, there's also the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, which opened in 1992. Its memorial gardens are quite magnificent.
It didn't work? I have to disagree
he was the AOC-in-C, diligently carrying out the orders of the Air Board and the War Cabinet
crude as it was the Bombing Campaign was a war winning one in my view. Of course we would have had to not conduct it and still win for your view to be anything more than the prevailing "wisdom".
No Dresden protests over them, as far as I know.
True - but this may be because the USAAF tried their best to hit military targets.
But I cannot imagine that "modern-day Germans" make a moral distinction between the differing methods and intent behind British and American bombing of their country between 1942 and 1945. The fate of Munster, Hamburg and many other cities would obviate that.
In any case, while the USAAF pursued precision daylight bombing of strategic targets in Germany, it didn't follow the same policy in Japan where, in the spring of 1945, cities such as Tokyo were devastated by B-29s - flying by night, and deliberately dropping incendiaries to burn thousands of wooden dwellings. One raid, in March, killed 100,000 people, four times the Dresden figure.
If it's true that the Americans have escaped censure for their bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan, perhaps their role in rebuilding both countries into powerful economies has some bearing.
Torque of the Devil
Dont worry, most Russians are blissfully unaware of the fact that anyone took part in the war apart from the Red Army. Certainly on land they were a powerful force (although they would have been a lot more powerful if Stalin had not had thousands of their officers shot in the late 1930's), but the USSR's contribution to the air war was almost exclusively as a battlefield tactical air force in support of ground troops and she took practically no part in the strategic air offensive.
Do you honestly maintain that the Red Army could have successfully invaded from the East had Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force not laid waste to the German industrial war machine, and equally importantly neutralised the Luftwaffe by early 1945? All this was done with no assistance from the Soviets, who completely ignore the fact in their own version of The Great Patriotic War.
think that the Red Army might have something to say about your view!
Do you honestly believe that Germany would have won had Bomber Command not laid waste to German cities?
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... Further to our 'Friendly WW2 Russian 'Allies' - It is often overlooked that
shortly after Poland was invaded by Germany - Stalin surprised the West by
signing a Non Aggression Pact with Germany - Also stabbing Poland in the back by invading - In effect aiding and abetting our enemy. It wasnt until Germany then invaded Russia in 1941 that Stalin wished to be friends with the West. However most if not all requests to Stalin to offer landing and refueling facilities at Russian airfields for UK and US airforce deep penetration raids over hostile territory were usually met with cold decline - With similar coldness often awarded to our forgotten merchant seamen who had braved harsh freezing ocean waters, many suffering torpedoe attacks
and drowning in the icy artic waters to Murmansk - Bringing much needed war munitions to what was often a cold sullen reception - with our seaman usually confined to their ships and not allowed ashore - Such was the Russian gratitude and hospitality - apart from the isolated exception.
...
shortly after Poland was invaded by Germany - Stalin surprised the West by
signing a Non Aggression Pact with Germany - Also stabbing Poland in the back by invading - In effect aiding and abetting our enemy. It wasnt until Germany then invaded Russia in 1941 that Stalin wished to be friends with the West. However most if not all requests to Stalin to offer landing and refueling facilities at Russian airfields for UK and US airforce deep penetration raids over hostile territory were usually met with cold decline - With similar coldness often awarded to our forgotten merchant seamen who had braved harsh freezing ocean waters, many suffering torpedoe attacks
and drowning in the icy artic waters to Murmansk - Bringing much needed war munitions to what was often a cold sullen reception - with our seaman usually confined to their ships and not allowed ashore - Such was the Russian gratitude and hospitality - apart from the isolated exception.
...
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As I've posted in the sister thread in Jet Blast, Dresden was bombed because General Antonov asked for it to be bombed during the Chiefs of staff meeting at the Yalta conference. German documents captured in 1945 showed that their High Command ordered that Dresden be heavily fortified and defended to the last in the face of the Red Army advance. That this was known to our own Chiefs of Staff has recently been revealed from the opening of the "Ultra" files from Bletchley Park, where German orders to the local defence commanders were deciphered. These deciphered German orders automatically made its marshalling yards a priority target.
The reportedly peaceful Arts & Crafts city of Dresden wasn't bumbling along in the background knocking out china dolls, it was a hive of industry with 127 factories churning out torpedoes, u-boat periscopes, V1 rocket and aircraft parts. If you take a look at satellite photos of Dresden you will see that the vitally important and massive rail junction and marshalling yards were, as they still are, located slap bang in the middle of the city - and there were no Smart" bombs at the time. A concentrated bombing attack on the marshalling yards - vital interdiction at the time - was bound to cause massive collateral damage. I'm sure the citizens of Stalingrad would understand.
The reportedly peaceful Arts & Crafts city of Dresden wasn't bumbling along in the background knocking out china dolls, it was a hive of industry with 127 factories churning out torpedoes, u-boat periscopes, V1 rocket and aircraft parts. If you take a look at satellite photos of Dresden you will see that the vitally important and massive rail junction and marshalling yards were, as they still are, located slap bang in the middle of the city - and there were no Smart" bombs at the time. A concentrated bombing attack on the marshalling yards - vital interdiction at the time - was bound to cause massive collateral damage. I'm sure the citizens of Stalingrad would understand.
I imagine that all those AA guns (especially the dual role 88); aircraft; pilots; etc. kept in Germany to fight the bombers would have made quite a difference on other fronts if there had been no bombing.
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Dresden's AA 88s had actually been relocated to face the front in anti-tank emplacements. A front which wasn't all that far away - the High Command was fortifying Dresden for a Stalingrad style "last stand" remember. Not that the reduction in Ack-Ack made Dresden a particularly soft target. Its a long flight over Germany with night fighters all the way.
TOTD, although much of your last post was addressed to me others have answered you far more ably than I could so I won't go into all the nitty gritty of "Why Dresden?" other than to merely ask "Why not?".
Your repeated use of the phrase "Carpet Bombing" with its implied wish to slay as many "innocent women and children" as possible rather than trying to win a war says everything about where you are coming from and the little chance there is to sway you from it. As has been pointed out already many of the "Innocent Women" were working in the High Tech War Industry now dispersed to such quiet centres like Dresden. Also doing much the same were armies of pressed "Guest Workers" from the occupied countries and Slave Labourers from the SS Concentration Camps. One of the latter, who against all the odds survived, has told how he cheered the bombers on even as they threatened his own life, which all goes to show that this is all a matter of one's point of view, yours, mine, and his.
I'm sure that there hasn't been a war, battle or military campaign in history that couldn't have been fought differently to better advantage. WW2 is no exception, the RAF Bombing Campaign is no exception, but hindsight is both a wonderful and wholly questionable activity in my view. Presumably you would say that the RAF Night Bombing Campaign was wrong from beginning to end. Your faith in precision bombing by day as then practised by the USAAF is also questionable, given that their average off target error was some 2.5 miles as compared to BC's 5 miles by night. Still a lot of Reich Cows and Civilians therein I would suggest. How exactly were the logistics of day bombing going to work anyway? Us one day and the USAAF the other? Or were we all going to go in together? You know enough to know I hope that would not have worked, and before the availability of the excellent long range Mustang escorts (first launched by the Brits), would have meant very heavy losses for the lighter armed but heavier bombed up RAF 4 engined Bombers. The USAAF had to withdraw from the fray for a period themselves due to their own vulnerability in that regard I believe.
So continue with revisionist rants if you wish. It is your right to do so. I would point out though that is because it was fought for in enemy skies on a nightly basis by RAF Bomber Command aircrew for nearly 5 long years. Luckily for you, for me, and the Jewish prisoner in Dresden, they prevailed.
Your repeated use of the phrase "Carpet Bombing" with its implied wish to slay as many "innocent women and children" as possible rather than trying to win a war says everything about where you are coming from and the little chance there is to sway you from it. As has been pointed out already many of the "Innocent Women" were working in the High Tech War Industry now dispersed to such quiet centres like Dresden. Also doing much the same were armies of pressed "Guest Workers" from the occupied countries and Slave Labourers from the SS Concentration Camps. One of the latter, who against all the odds survived, has told how he cheered the bombers on even as they threatened his own life, which all goes to show that this is all a matter of one's point of view, yours, mine, and his.
I'm sure that there hasn't been a war, battle or military campaign in history that couldn't have been fought differently to better advantage. WW2 is no exception, the RAF Bombing Campaign is no exception, but hindsight is both a wonderful and wholly questionable activity in my view. Presumably you would say that the RAF Night Bombing Campaign was wrong from beginning to end. Your faith in precision bombing by day as then practised by the USAAF is also questionable, given that their average off target error was some 2.5 miles as compared to BC's 5 miles by night. Still a lot of Reich Cows and Civilians therein I would suggest. How exactly were the logistics of day bombing going to work anyway? Us one day and the USAAF the other? Or were we all going to go in together? You know enough to know I hope that would not have worked, and before the availability of the excellent long range Mustang escorts (first launched by the Brits), would have meant very heavy losses for the lighter armed but heavier bombed up RAF 4 engined Bombers. The USAAF had to withdraw from the fray for a period themselves due to their own vulnerability in that regard I believe.
So continue with revisionist rants if you wish. It is your right to do so. I would point out though that is because it was fought for in enemy skies on a nightly basis by RAF Bomber Command aircrew for nearly 5 long years. Luckily for you, for me, and the Jewish prisoner in Dresden, they prevailed.
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For a number of reasons I do not get on-line as often as I would like. However, I am pleased to see that finally there is to be a Bomber Command Memorial.
I still do not understand the objections to it. I fully understand that Dresden was terrible, but terrible things happen in war - ask the numbers killed in Guernica.
I still do not understand the objections to it. I fully understand that Dresden was terrible, but terrible things happen in war - ask the numbers killed in Guernica.
Do you honestly maintain that the Red Army could have successfully invaded from the East had Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force not laid waste to the German industrial war machine, and equally importantly neutralised the Luftwaffe by early 1945?
Presumably you would say that the RAF Night Bombing Campaign was wrong from beginning to end
OK TOTD let's just agree to disagree as this thread is to do with the proposed Bomber Command Memorial not the WW2 RAF Bombing Campaign. You've expressed your opinion and everyone else, me included, has expressed theirs. Perhaps the clue is in your use of the word "tangible", always elusive with talk about Air Power. The Army deals in tangibles, ie ground taken, held or lost, the RN and the RAF often have less proof of success and have to talk in terms of Naval and Air Superiority. Ask a private on the Dunkirk beach about "Air Superiority" and you'd get a mouthful as the desperate air battles to gain that and keep the Stukas of his back were out of site and out of mind. Ditto the Battle of Britain which the revisionists say was a. Indecisive, b. a Draw or c. a Naval Victory! So it is with the bombing campaign. You belittle it and say that the Red Army was going to get to Berlin anyway, might just have taken a month or two longer without the round the clock bombing of the Reich. The Red Army really began that march at Kursk because they had an abundance of tanks and the Wehrmacht had too few. The abundance was because the factories in the East were beyond the range of the Luftwaffe's twin engined medium range bombers as it had almost no long range heavy bombers, the too few was because Speer couldn't turn out enough despite cranking up output to maximum, mobilising German labour and using forced and slave labour to man his blitzed factories. Now why do you think that was? Oh, I know about the German preference for Quality over Quantity, but the butcher Stalin had a reply to that and it turned out he was right!
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Just to drift slightly off topic...
I believe that the figure of 55,000 + is not right, I think it should be either about 47,000 or 57,000
The 55,000+ figure relates to people who died up to 8 May 1945.
The Bomber Command Losses books give a total figure of over 57,000 men and women who died serving in Bomber Command. This figure is derived from the figures of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission(CWGC)
CWGC record deaths up to the end of 1947, clearly long after the end of the war in May 1945, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the blokes who died in 46 & 47 enlisted prior to the end of the war, bearing in mind how long the training could take. If the country had not been at war, they may not have joined up at all therefore it would be proper to conclude that they died because of their war service.
It could be argued that this is incorrect, only the "war" deaths should be included. If that is the case however, then perhaps only the operational casualties should count. What is the difference between someone who dies in an aircraft training accident in early 1945 compared to early 1946.
I believe the number of men who died in training was about 8,000 so this would reduce the number to 47,000 or so
Obviously a line has to be drawn somewhere, but all deaths to 31 Dec 1947 seems better to me. As it seems that names are not being recorded, only the figure, I believe that 57,000 is the correct number to record.
I believe that the figure of 55,000 + is not right, I think it should be either about 47,000 or 57,000
The 55,000+ figure relates to people who died up to 8 May 1945.
The Bomber Command Losses books give a total figure of over 57,000 men and women who died serving in Bomber Command. This figure is derived from the figures of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission(CWGC)
CWGC record deaths up to the end of 1947, clearly long after the end of the war in May 1945, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the blokes who died in 46 & 47 enlisted prior to the end of the war, bearing in mind how long the training could take. If the country had not been at war, they may not have joined up at all therefore it would be proper to conclude that they died because of their war service.
It could be argued that this is incorrect, only the "war" deaths should be included. If that is the case however, then perhaps only the operational casualties should count. What is the difference between someone who dies in an aircraft training accident in early 1945 compared to early 1946.
I believe the number of men who died in training was about 8,000 so this would reduce the number to 47,000 or so
Obviously a line has to be drawn somewhere, but all deaths to 31 Dec 1947 seems better to me. As it seems that names are not being recorded, only the figure, I believe that 57,000 is the correct number to record.
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I sent the Express and e-mail, pointing out the error of the photo of a USAAF B-17 to illustrate their article.
I recieved the following reply:
I recieved the following reply:
Your message
To: News Desk
Subject: DAD DESERVES THIS MEMORIAL
Sent: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:06:21 +0100
was deleted without being read on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:01:52 +0100
To: News Desk
Subject: DAD DESERVES THIS MEMORIAL
Sent: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:06:21 +0100
was deleted without being read on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:01:52 +0100
Last edited by ian16th; 13th Sep 2010 at 13:23.
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A take on the Memorial:
The men of Bomber Command deserve their memorial. And it is politically correct nonsense to suggest otherwise – Telegraph Blogs
I hope that TinyURL's work here
The men of Bomber Command deserve their memorial. And it is politically correct nonsense to suggest otherwise – Telegraph Blogs
I hope that TinyURL's work here
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Bomber Command Memorial
In the latest newsletter, the turf cutting ceremony will be sometime in May. Three of the seven "larger than life" figures of an aircrew have been made so I am awaiting more updates.
Paxing All Over The World
Was good to see this on the news today but cannot immediately find a link to the ceremony.
This is from April
BBC News - Green Park Bomber Command memorial target reached
This is from April
BBC News - Green Park Bomber Command memorial target reached
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Foundation stone
Nice to see a short piece on Beeb World last night, showing the ceremony of "laying" the foundation stone of the Bomber Command Memorial, with a flypast of the BBMF's Lancaster. Nice, too to hear the sound of Merlins so shortly after the last flypast ...