First wave on Tirpitz 617 Sqn, second wave IX Sqn. Bomb camera film from 9 Sqn clearly show the Tirpitz still firing. Evidence, evidence!

PN no they wouldn't. It is written in Squadron Operations. As for 9 Squadron I haven't got a clue. I will try to find something. Can't take the glory, well a small amount of it, if they did can we.

Not really much more can be said than that IMHO.

Finally managed to get the gadget to work & watched the program this evening. Really enjoyed it - listening to those lovely engines start up, listening to the gentlemen who flew in the plane, and the one who shot at them. Very moving.

Barnes Wallis sank the Tirpitz. The Lancasters were his delivery system. ;)

What was left on the cutting room floor would have filled another 20 hours I suspect, and would have been riveting to hear.

I enjoyed it very much.
here's why:
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...ml#post3498855

Incidentally, the chap who's name I couldn't remember was Jack Hawkins.

I sank the Tirpitz....and so did my wife! :rolleyes:

:}

Hope Im not stepping on toes here but from a total outsiders point of view regards to the Tripitz. Shouldn't it be the outcome that's celebrated rather than who pushed the bomb release that's argued?

BW

My own thoughts are that I usually enjoy watching documentaries but I am wise enough, old enough and ugly enough to accept that they will usually frustrate those that have a detailed knowledge of that specific topic

Is it fair to suggest that:

a) This program MUST be entertaining

b) It will be shown in a way that will reflect the opinion of those making the program

c) Experts or anaroks that watch this item will tear it to pieces

d) Licence is usually used in descriptions, images or names... I watch documentaries depicting Naval events and we regularly see footage of ships that were the wrong class, the wrong country or even the wrong time era. I know that but Mr Joe Public would not and they still enjoy watching the program.

d) Bottom line is that I usually find them entertaining and it provokes me into researching the topic to get a better in sight

ENJOY the program for what it was and forgive those that may have got certain parts of it incorrect. At least they called the aircraft by its right name and always showed the correct type

As an outsider looking in, I enjoyed the program, I certainly did NOT get the impression it was critical of anyone.

Rather than post a link I have copied this message as it deserves a second hearing.

Well said and quoted glojo

:ok: Ay to that Glojo.

Whilst IX and 617 will never agree on who sank the Tirpitz, IX Sqn do have the honour of being the only Tornado Sqn to have lost the "Bulkhead".

:E

Saudih - but only because the staish at the time was ex-OC 6 foot seven and allowed an "inside job".

Allowed an Inside Job?

It took the RAFP 2 days to discover the window that was missing in the crewroom.

By which time the Bulkhead was in the UK, the tools used were back in the Dutch hire shop, and OC 617's NO 1 was pressed and ready for his pending interview....

Having just read this thread from start to finish in one go, I have to say that I am impressed at the small degree of thread creep. Even the Tirpitz issue can be excused as it was featured in the programme.

I think one of the more telling comments is that it is pointless to compare contemporary opinion with current PC thoughts. I, too, grew up during the war, and in Croydon too. I can still vividly remember cowering in the Anderson shelter during a raid with my father pacing up and down outside muttering "bastards - bastards ------" whilst my mother and I were beseeching him to get inside. I, too was shot at on the way to school by a marauding aircraft. Lousy aiming - it killed a horse in a nearby field! And I can remember being paniced by a salvo of V1s on the way home one day. No-one in my family had the slightest doubt that our bombing offensive was the way to go and that the more Germans that perished the better. Later when I was training in Canada and came in contact with some or the new Luftwaffer pilots doing jet conversions (all ex wartime pilots), I found that they were good guys and just like us. When I told my father he came close to disowning me.

I have had the priveledge to have flown both currently flying Lancasters and to have spent a great deal of time with ex wartime bomber aircrew at their sqn reunions. I have found them all to be wonderful men and I cannot say too strongly how glad I am that they are finally getting some belated recognition for the sacrifices they and their colleagues made. Not once did I detect a hint of PTSD; I guess they were made of sterner stuff in those days. It is a sober reflection that (this was in the 80s) old sqn associations were still strong (some of those units may only have been in existence for 6 months or so as their losses were so huge that they were subsumed into another) whereas others still current have difficulty in keeping an association going.

Yes, there were issues that we in the business could carp about in the programme, but it was on prime time TV. A purely historical piece would have been on BBC4 at some unpopular hour. It achieved its aim to inform the Great British Public about the enormous losses incurred on their behalf; and if it helps fund raising for the Bomber Command memorial I will have no complaints.

Pontifex.

Spot on. :D

I thought the bulkhead had moved between the two squadrons on more than one occasion. When IX came back from Cyprus to Waddington in the mid 70s, OC IX and a party of his men put it into the small arms bay in the station armoury. I remember being amused by their being so paranoid that they padlocked it to the radiator. It stayed there until it was built into their new crewroom. If I recall, it had a painting of the ship in stormy seas, and the legend "Gegen Engeland" which seemed like a mix of Dutch and German.

Same sort of skulduggery and deception went on when it arrived at Lossie - happy days. Thought the programme was excellent, every now and again the BBC pull of a little gem and remind us what we pay the licence fee for. The two McGregors were good choice, worked really well.

For what it's worth, I thought that the programme was very dis-jointed.

First, what on earth did the inclusion of Cliff Spink bring to it – nothing. What did the ‘training’ of the two brothers bring to it, nothing – especially the DC3 bits, other than to pan the time out; and the navigation piece, I thought was, and almost certainly to the viewer, pointless, The appearance of one of the brothers (shirt out/jeans/ unkempt hair/unshaven, giggly) was, in comparison, to others in the programme, rude. Their dwelling upon cruelty to the German populace was in my view misplaced: they rightly referred to Dresden as a scene of terrible destruction in the latter part of the war (overly concentrating on its moral awfulness, with which I only partly agree), but strangely choosing to visit Hamburg (instead of Dresden) and stressing that city’s plight, although it was an earlier war target, and probably more justifiably so in its time and place (and certainly so in comparison to the programme’s description of Coventry). By so doing, the producers, to me, purposely hyped up their popular moralistic message.

That said, the historical video clips were, again, unique, and the veterans were truly amazing.

A production for those of today, some reality, some modern morality, and some lack of understanding of what it meant to be bombed the f8ck out of in London and many other cities.

Overall, a very weak and shallow production, in my opinion of course!

Continuity, he taught Colin to fly tail draggers for the Spitfire bit in the brothers Battle of Britain program and as an avid aviation historian, ex BBMF pilot and current warbird flier I expect he also bought a lot of knowledge to bear.:ok:

Skittles

Churchill questioned the nature of the attack, and advised about concerning attacks to military only targets as a means of distancing himself from the raid. Churchill may have been a wartime leader, but he was also first and foremost a politician.

Politicians, as we know are masters at ordering people to do all sorts of things -- some of them morally bankrupt; then distancing themselves from the orders they give. The blame was placed squarely on Harris (who deserved part of the blame, but certainly not all of it)


Chugalug2

The problem with the way Bomber Command was used was that civilian deaths weren't an unfortunate result of the bombing; they were largely the primary goal. Sure by burning down a whole city you'd wipe out some industry, but as Winston Churchill said, they were bombing cities largely for the sake of increasing terror under a pretext.

Most of this was inspired by General Giulio Douhet who felt that to win a war, one should bomb cities and population centers, destroy industrial targets and kill lots of civilians and terrorize them so they'd rise up, overthrow their leaders; then surrender.

It's kind of ironic that the international laws such as the Hague Conventions were created to reduce civilian casualties in war and people like Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, Arthur Harris among others sought to maximize them.


seafuryfan

How many people died at Coventry?

Coventry 1250

Belfast April 41,where the Luftwaffe attempted a firestorm, the first target being the waterworks on the Antrim Rd cutting off water supplies to the city ,900 killed, 1250 injured with half the houses in the city damaged.

London blitz 20,000 with around another 18,000 killed elsewhere.

V1 ,V2 attacks from June 44 ,9000 in London.

" The problem with the way Bomber Command was used was that civilian deaths weren't an unfortunate result of the bombing; they were largely the primary goal."

Interesting, I wonder what the the primary goal of the bombing of London (and some other cities) was aimed at ?

Certainly from my families perspective it was civilians who were targeted.

pontifex

Very interesting indeed, but I was just wondering if your quoted age of 74 is correct because it would make you 2 or 3 at the time of the Battle of Britain.

Possibly by the spring of '44 Harris could have been replaced with a commander who could use the bomber force....more efficiently. Less targeting of whole cities - more of specific militarily important targets, for example.

However it was 'of its time' where not just equipment or tactics or personalities but public opinion, convenience, mind-set, feedback from the raids in terms of losses, analysis...trying to give a black & white answer now is pointless; it was total war - learn from it.

BBOWFIGHTER

"pontifex
Very interesting indeed, but I was just wondering if your quoted age of 74 is correct because it would make you 2 or 3 at the time of the Battle of Britain."

Because of the closeness to my families experience and what I had written on here, Croydon, Anderson shelter, being shot up, V1's and V2's, I noticed that as well but decided not to say anything.

My uncle who was the youngest during the war doesn't remember that much as he was only 4 or 5.

With the V1's, they used to give false reports as to where they landed
so German spies passed the information back, the fuel was adjusted
and of course it meant the V1 more likely to miss it's target.

With all this deception and misinformation, is there a record of exactly
how many died to V1's and V2's ?

All here FlyingBombsandRockets,V1,V2,Rockets,Flying bombs,

Thanks

I didn't realize that Croydon copped more than any other borough !!!
141 V1's.

Interesting that when discussing who was to blame, (if blame is required) for the mass destruction of German cities, no mention is made of Hitler and his cronies.
Towards the end of the war many evacuated families returned to London, as mine did, believing the worst was over. We spent quite a few nights in the anderson shelter and experienced a V1 exploding a few streets away, causing several deaths. Blew all the windows out in our house and many others too.

classjazz
 

I watched the Bomber Boys programme and thought it was well balanced.
As an ex member of the BBMF it was interesting to see that it is deemed necessary nowadays to wear bone domes when flying the Lanc.....however.

I thought the most telling point about the programme was that although the fighter aircraft defended Britain, it was the bombers who attacked and turned the situation around.
The anti Harris feeling existed up to and beyond his death in the 80's. I was at his funeral and the fact that I as a member of the Air Force my presence was to be kept "under wraps" was very telling.

Jane-Doh:-
The one thing that Bomber Command could hit consistently with Main Force were cities. The reason that Harris targeted them is because he was ordered to do so by the War Cabinet (headed by Churchill), via the Air Board. All WWII adversaries who had the means to target cities did so, and for the same reasons (the USA included!). As with all weapons of war, the 1940's bomber was both terrible in its destructive power and yet very limited in practice. You can read all the books that have been published on the subject, but you would have had to be a young inexperienced crew member to know the sheer challenge it was to fight your way through the night in the company of hundreds of other bombers that you could not see (or even follow!), try to stay on track and hence find the target, let alone manage to hit it, fight your way home and safely land on your own runway (if you could find it). No modern aids, those that you had could and would be subverted by the enemy, just an air plot, a compass, and a stop watch to fall back on. Despite all that, this was indeed a terrible weapon that killed hundreds of thousands, mainly civilians.
WWII was a peoples war, for the very reason that (with the exception of the USA) it was brought to and fought by its civil populations. It doesn't matter what Douhet, Trenchard, Harris or their US counterparts (who you omit to mention) thought or said, the Strategic Bombing of cities happened because it could happen, endex. It was a weapon of war in a total war, just as Mr Maxim's was in an earlier one. The Allied Bombing Campaign had a profound effect on the outcome of WWII, to the extent that there would have been no second front without it (or rather it was indeed a second front in itself!) nor a German defeat on the Eastern Front, in my opinion. The reason that such statements became utter heresy is not for moral reasons, for war is immoral anyway, but for expediency as old enemies became allies and vice versa. The victims of that expediency are the old boys that people profess to admire so much. Just tell them that what they did, though so terrible, was so necessary. I would have thought that little enough to ask, especially of their modern counterparts!

It was a shame all the bitching over Bomber Harris during or after the war.
His sole aim was to win the war.

To carry it on until the 80's is crazy.


In view of the fact that others wanted the strategy changed from bombing cities,
what are people's views on would the alternative have been better.

Can anyone argue that Bomber Harris's strategy didn't work ?

There's been many books suggesting that ultimately it would have been better to say target 'oil' or transport & suggesting that some aspects of German industry because it was spread to smaller satellite factories etc...

And maybe that is so.

But as others have explained well on this thread and countless times before - it's pointless; at the time it was considered the best way to wage & win the war though certainly it was not without its critics then...or now.

Frankly the simple thing that amazes me is lads less than half my age had the courage to get into a bomber at all and to fly off into that hell. I have no words to express enough my admiration or thanks.

And finally - the Nazi's reaped what they sowed & they were still trying to win with terror weapons as long as the war went on.

Pontiflex's age is correct. Now I am 6 years younger and obviously was not around for the BoB but I do remember from the perspective of a babe in arms some of the fear.

I don't know how old I was, probably 18 months, but my mother missed her bus stop in the blackout. I remember the bus was brightly lit, white inside, with blacked out windows.

The bus arrived at the end of its route were all pasengers were expected to get off before it returned to the depot. My mother was ordered off the bus, where she knew not, in the dark, in a strange part of Birkenhead.

The bits I remember vividly was the inside of the bus and my mother's distress and it being pitch black. I have no other recollection from that time. Later I knew it was a quarry turning area at Bidston a short distance from Claughton.

My point is that if an event has sufficient impact then it can be remembered at an early age. I also remember my father coming home when I was still less than 2. I could crawl and I knew enough to stay up. He arrived in the living room in a trench coat. I was 4 and walking when I saw him again when he returned from Japan.

On justification, he visited Nagasaki and thought the bomb had been wonderful. He marvelled at glass bottles crushed, shadows burnt in the concrete, stalks of wheat driven through tree trunks. He certainly didn't think it had been wrong.

total war, morality and praise
 

For those that think being PC is the same as morality - think again - Morality started 1000s of years before the current generations.

It was partly through moral outrage at the behaviour of Hitler in Poland that Britain entered the WW2. Perhaps with hindsight more could have been done in the inter war years. In that sense, Harris was right to state it was the Bomber Pilots forebears that were to blame for allowing a second war to begin.

That generation had seen the development of hyperinflation in Germany after WW1. They knew German reparations (mostly demanded by the French) were falling short. Reports were published about rioting in the Ruhr upon the French army invasion/occupation of 1923-25. The facts regarding the subsequent de-humanising of immigrants and german jews by the nazi party were available to the outside world.

The Bomber Boys programme was well filmed and made relevant to modern viewers. Yes it lacked many things but all films only show you what the lens/director can "see" - rather like a telescope only pics up a few galaxies or closer planets above us. If anything the suffering by both Allied aircrew and german civilians was played down.

Yes, I totally agree the allies had to stop Hitler's war machine. Yes the Allies had to hit back and Bomber command was one tool that was used.

In the 1940s, "total war" as a justification for carpet bombing residential areas or the later unthinkable nuclear option was only possible by de-humanising the enemy (talking of infrastructure, ships, railways) or at least hoping the result would bring a complete end to the madness -as in the case of Hiroshima.

Hitler's bombing of the UK (BB and later V1 and V2s) did little to change the resolve of the British people under threat. The same is also true in Germany where much production went deep under ground.

It is often forgotten that many Germans felt they were on the wrong side long before 1939 and many of those bombed in Hamburg and Dresden were foreign workers (forced labour). Indeed, a high proportion of the Jews killed in Nazi Concentration camps were Germans - many had fought for Germany in WW1. Ohrers struggled from inside Germany to bring down Hitler.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

So there are no easy answers from a moral perspective on the campaign. It is wrong to generalise and say all germans were nazi supporters or all football fans are hooligans. Generalisations and stereotypes serve to mis-inform.

My english architect grandfather built RAF Pillboxes, RN Sea defences/ AA Gun emplacements. On my in-laws side several worked with RAF BC.

My german grandfather refused to use his plastics factory near Dusseldorf for the nazi war machine (he was part of the same Lutheran Church as Bonhoeffer). Unlike Bonhoeffer he was not executed but taken away from his family and business to occupied France. He was captured by the Allies after DDay and spent years malnourished in a French POW camp till the late 1940s.

Both sets of my forebears were bombed by the air force of the other - such is war.

Expressions such as total war or to say soldiers were just carrying out orders doesn't let us off the hook. Some workers under the nazis were under pain of death doing the same.


What we can take away is at least two fold:

1.We can praise the bravery of the bomber crews of the RAF in WW2 for contributing towards freedom we now have, but also our servicemen and women who face daily troubles in Afghanistan.

2. We can learn from history that the de-humanising of of people by politicians/ the media/ even pseudo science (eugenics) is the pre-cursor to our mutual destruction. Destruction not only for those de-humanised individuals but also our own moral fibre.

angle orange, a well balanced and thoughtful post. Thank you! With both English and German family you are either better or hopelessly worse placed than most to see the woods for the trees here. The former I think! You talk about dehumanising, by both the enemy (ie the Allies?) and the regime (the Nazis), but might I suggest that all you need to do that is war itself?
Once you have a tyranny in power, bad things follow. We have seen the bravery of people in East Germany, Russia, Romania, the Balkans, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria that is needed as a consequence. Many say that the first population to be occupied by the Nazis were the Germans themselves. Christabel Bielenberg, an Englishwoman married to a German diplomat, memorably described in the World at War series having to ask a Jewish couple that she illegally sheltered for two nights to leave for fear of endangering her own family. "I suddenly realised", she said, once she discovered that they had been arrested and transported "that Hitler had made me into a murderer". A harsh self verdict, but a hint of the conflicting emotions present when living under such a regime. Her obituary is here:
Christabel Bielenberg - Telegraph
If Europe, including the Germans themselves, was to be free of this tyranny then the Allies had to be victorious. The only weapon available to the UK to take the fight to the enemy was Bomber Command. The only way it could prevail was by night bombing, for daylight bombing was soon found to be suicidal. The only targets that could be consistently hit at night by main force's young and mainly inexperienced crews were German cities, and even then they were often missed or the wrong ones bombed. That was the awful reality of war, to prevail you have to do terrible things, but you must prevail or suffer the tyranny yourself. That is what I mean by total war. God forbid we ever have to fight it again!

RUCAWO

Is this where the RAF got the first idea of starting firestorms? Or was that an older idea?

And this was the justification for Dresden?


500N

It was aimed at the civilian population. In fact, Hitler specifically ordered the Luftwaffe to break the British's will to resist.

I think everybody acknowledges this was fundamentally wrong, and a war-crime (the Hague conventions specifically prohibited the targeting of civilians)


Load Toad

That would have been better, but you have to keep in mind that would require people like Winston Churchill to have been willing to replace him. He had no inclination to do this.

Churchill basically felt that their militaristic culture (which proceeded Nazism) needed to be pulled up by the roots. His attitude was that the Germans were either at his feet, or at his throat.


goudie

Isn't that self-evident?


Chugalug2

The fact is that the RAF wanted to employ these kinds of attacks before WW2. The poor success of the bombers earlier in the war, Churchill's personal desires, and the London Blitz (and the resulting desire for revenge) basically greased the skids. What was previously political impossible, now became politically acceptable.

Of course, after all they basically got their doctrine from the same exact groups of people. The Germans got the idea from Douhet; the British got it from Trenchard and Douhet; the US from Douhet, Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell.

The US counterparts would predominantly be Billy Mitchell who got his ideas from Trenchard and Douhet. During WW2, personalities included H.H. Arnold, Max Andrews, Ira Eaker, Curtis E. LeMay and so forth.

Actually that sounds suspiciously similar to my motto which is a variation of Murphy's law: If it can go bad, it will go bad; if it does go bad, it will do so in the worst possible way.

There are degrees of immorality. That argument effectively says that because war is immoral, that we can act like complete amoral psychopaths. Bomber Harris tried the same argument and asked if it was immoral to drive a bayonet into a man's belly among other things.

The fact is, if I was a soldier, I'd rather stick a bayonet into an enemy soldier any day of the week than firebomb a city loaded with civilians. The hypothetical soldier is an enemy of mine, he's attacking me. The civilians bombed in these raids were not fighting, yet they were firebombed as a primary objective in what could be described as little more than acts of terrorism.

I have questioned the Combined Bomber Offensive for some time and have tried to read as much as possible into it. A point that many miss is that Mr Churchill could point to the offensive as proof that we were pulling our weight when Russia and the USA were making incredible sacrifices.

I think the bravery displayed is staggering. I also believe that both during the war and to the present day a high proportion of people have struggled with certain fundementals of the campaign.

I am not a WW2 veteran, but I have been to war and have dished out kinetics and been on the receiving end of AAA and IDF. That doesn't mean I have an absolute right to an opinion but it does set me aside from some.

My opinion of the RAF and USAAF campaign is that it was not discretionary, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't proportional, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't humane. (Some would argue that HE is humane, none could argue that a firestorm is). It was, however, when viewed as the only offensive weapon we had at the time, arguably, necessary.

I therefore find myself in a strange position. I support the boys who did it, I hail their courage and I think that on balance the campaign was justified. But I honestly believe that out of the four principles of LOAC I took to war it fails on three.

I would rather that we were bold enough to stand up not only for the boys who did it, but to correctly identify what they did. 'It was total war' is inadequate. So, to me, is describing cities as the targets. We deliberately targeted civilians. We did so because some believed it to be the right thing to do, and in any case they were the only thing we could target with the only offensive weapon we had. In the circumstances, in a time when great evils simply had to be conquered, it was the right thing to do.

I see Le May was mentioned. His strategy of fire bombing Japanese cities was the equivalent of Dresden. From past readings, a fair amount of discussion was held on it shortening the war.

.