WW2 bomber memorial unveiled amidst controversy. What do you think?

The work of the bombers after the war was a sensitive topic following the high civilian casualty rates in Berlin. "There were no campaign medals specifically for Bomber Command after the war and no mention of it in Prime Minister Winston Churchill's victory speech and was criticised by some for raids on Dresden in the closing months of the war, causing fire-storms which killed about 25,000 civilians in the destruction of the city centre".

So the question that has dogged campaigners for years has been: should there be a memorial to commemorate the 'efforts' and sacrifice these men made for their nation like there are for other branches of the military? After a long wait, the Queen today finally unveiled the answer; yes, they should.

Unsurprisingly, there has been some discourse about this. The overwhelming opinion of the British public (at least the commentators on the BBC website) was that these airmen do deserve it for their bravery and sacrifice. It's fair to say they've chosen to adopt the simple answer, but is it the right one?

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Follow up

"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."
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Reply 1

Shabalala

14

Of course they should be honoured the bombing of civillian cities was a key point to winning the war it helped starve the Germans into surrender. The german people choose their path when they elected Adolf Hitler and started slaughtering million of their own people and invading other countries. Hitler wasn't some dictator who forced himself upon the German people he was elected by them that means the majority of Germans supported him and the Nazi's and as such they had to live with the consequences who cares if they died maybe if they didn't start trying to kill everyone else in Europe then they wouldn't have died. Yes some Germans who didn't support Hitler might have died but it's war and innocent casulties come side by side with war unfortunetley.

The victors write the history books and we were the victors (along with Russia and America of course) and as such we should write History and be able to honour the people who helped win the war without giving into retard liberal handwringers who love to selth loathe.

Reply 2

TheHistoryStudent

11

This. Moral culpability, and also the question of whether the tactic was right or wrong, lies more with the people who designed and decided to carry out the strategy than those who actually went and did it - soldiers dont pick their enemy, neither do they pick how they are being told to beat them, all they have to do is follow the orders through.

Of course there may well have been an aspect of hatred/revenge amongst the pilots and bombers at the time, but I view that as a natural reaction really when fighting an enemy that had done exactly the same to Britain earlier on in the war, and was also responsible for the death of many civilians and so on also.

In the event though, the tactic of mass civilian bombing of Germany didn't work, as like in the British blitz, it didn't break the morale of the population. I can't remember where I read it also, but it didn't actually reduce industrial output either... again I can't remember where I read/heard it, but I remember seeing once that Albert Spier actually managed to increase industrial output despite the bombing - although of course I may be wrong.

Tactics and moral issues aside also, the attrition rate for the bomber pilots was also very high - to quote the BBC TV article on it the other day, less than half made it back. Such sacrifice, even if it came with questionable morals, deserves remembrance in my opinion.

Reply 3