German irritation over British bomber memorial

[Oberon]

Ditto for what BossMark has said. It isn't about the leaders, or the commanders, it's about the airmen who braved flak and fighter on their mission, and indeed there should be recognition of the civilian and service personnel injured or killed in these raids, be they in London, Berlin, Tokyo or Leningrad.

Long overdue

[NeonSamurai]

See I would argue that many of these attacks were criminal as they purposely targeted non-combatants. The Blitz, Dresden, the carpet bombing of cities by the allies late in the war, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. All the powers involved in WW2 were guilty of intentional terror bombing.

I see a huge difference between that and collateral damage.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

See I would argue that many of these attacks were criminal as they purposely targeted non-combatants. The Blitz, Dresden, the carpet bombing of cities by the allies late in the war, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. All the powers involved in WW2 were guilty of intentional terror bombing.

Destroy the homes of those who work in the factories and make those on the front lines worry about those at home, destroy their morale, reduce their work-effort. I'm not saying it was right, but that was the reasoning given.

[Sammi79]

It is a good thing. I wish my Grandad were here to see it. Many of his close friends died doing their job. He never spoke about his missions, apart from once when pressed by me when I was a child to relate a story about a bird strike on take off, that meant flying the rest of the 10+ hour mission with no windscreen and the entire crew covered in blood and feathers whilst slowly succumbing to frostbite. One of my cousins who was his favourite Grandson has since his death researched everything he could find out about his tours of duty, from RAF records, other survivors etc... There is a painting hanging in RAF Hendon that captures a moment that happened to him and his crew, by a crew member of another aircraft. My Grandad was flying in close formation when a bomb from a higher formation hit the aircraft directly ahead of his, and detonated all the bombs inside. His Lancaster was tilted past the vertical by the blast and badly damaged, after somehow managing to regain control he limped back to Mildenhall where the Lanc was written off. The mission was a complete disaster, so the next morning they were ordered to repeat it. It took nerves of steel to do that job, and I am only finding out about it now, 9 years after his death.

5th November, 1944 over Solingen. My Grandads Lanc is the one directly left of the explosion.



He did his duty then lived out the rest of his life in shame and regret. In his own words 'Son, please do not ask me to tell you these stories. I have to live with the fact that I dropped hundreds of tons of high explosives on people whom I had never met and had no personal quarrel with. It is something I hope you never have to understand.'

RAF bomber crews took horrendous losses, and suffered an unimaginable level of physical and mental stress. They always deserved a memorial, some would say more so than other less affected branches of the military, and it is a testament to compassion for the victims of these raids that it has been put off til now. I am truly sorry if any Germans feel irritated by it. With the comfortable benefit of hindsight we may not think what they did was right, but it was their duty.

Regards, Sam.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

See I would argue that many of these attacks were criminal as they purposely targeted non-combatants. The Blitz, Dresden, the carpet bombing of cities by the allies late in the war, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. All the powers involved in WW2 were guilty of intentional terror bombing.

I see a huge difference between that and collateral damage.

I think the difference between criminal and non-criminal still is that in WWII it was thought that shattering the combat moral of the German population (or the Londoners) by putting their cities to ruins, was possible. That is what made it a military "tactic", although one that did not work: it did not break public moral, but brought people closer together in stubborn determination. But that we know onyl since afterwards, and today.

To imply present moral standards on situations back then and inside that war, imo does not match.

I agree though that the victims of such bombing raids againbst cities were no collateral damages, but the intended target of such attacks. But again: not a target for gaining personal satisfaction or revenge by for example committing mass rapes like the Soviets in berlin and the Japanese in Nanking, but a target due to miliutary assumnption on how that would help to break the combat will of the German and help to let the enemy collapse form within.

I am not in the historic knowledge since when, if ever, Allied commanders realised the tactic did not work. If at some point they realised that it was ineffective and id not work for the desired result, from then on continuing such attacks would have been a "crime", imo. By my thinking, it then no longer is an issue covered by the standards of war, but the moral standards of peacetime, since it would have been then a tactic that serves no military purpose anymore. (I argued in past threads that it makes no sense to imply peacetime standards onto acting in war, but that war has its own set of standards and needs, and that these are very different from those in peacetime. It already starts with that at war you do not get punished for doing what when doing it in peacetimes you would serve life in prison for: killing other humans).

BTW, the Nazis had started with targetting cities. During the conquest of Poland already, at the very beginning of WWII, Warsaw was subject to extremely intense artillery shelling and dive bombing attacks. This later repeated often during the war in Russia.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

BTW, the Nazis had started with targetting cities. During the conquest of Poland already, at the very beginning of WWII, Warsaw was subject to extremely intense artillery shelling and dive bombing attacks. This later repeated often during the war in Russia.

It goes back further than Poland, the first trials of terror-bombing was in the Spanish Civil War with the particular note of Guernica:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica

Although it goes back even further than that to World War One and the Zeppelin raids on London, and then joined by the bomber aircraft once they got into service. Mostly ineffective they still managed to kill over a thousand people. The fact that on most occasions the bomber got through lead to the myth 'The bomber will always get through' which affected the thinking of British doctrine and spurred on the development of RADAR and large bomber forces for retaliation, in a form of Mutual Assured Destruction.
Bomber Command practiced bombing in Iraq between the wars, and it became our policy in dealing with Arabic uprisings which reduced the amount of troops needed on the ground, and the Condor Legion practiced in Spain.
Then there's Japanese bombing of Chinese cities which also took place before Poland. It snowballed when the war spread out across Europe though and the raids began.

[Skybird]

Well, I was focussing on the timeframe Sept 1939-45.

That Zeppelins had bombed London in WWI, was new to me. Did they return back to safety?

[Oberon]

Well said Sam, and a salute to your grandfather, and Herr B I think the Zeppelins actually improved Great Yarmouth

Originally Posted by Skybird

Well, I was focussing on the timeframe Sept 1939-45.

That Zeppelins had bombed London in WWI, was new to me. Did they return back to safety?

Most didn't, I think over half were lost of the 125 deployed, I think they were mostly successful in night raids, but even then searchlights and that could pick them out for the fighters with incendiary ammo and flak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppeli..._bombing_raids

The last Zeppelin shot down on British soil came down not that far from here brought down by fighters from the aerodrome that used to be down the road. The dead were buried in Theberton churchyard, and this little memorial is in the church itself:

[BossMark]

Very nice post Sammi and I too salute your Granddad.

My Uncle was a navigator in bomber commend he also didn't say much to me about the war, until I asked him how ha got the burns on his arms. He then told me that his plane was hit by tracer from a ****e-Wulf 190 fighter on the return trip from a raid on Berlin in 1943 and he said he burned his hands dying the fire out which stared near the radio compartment he said that was trying to save the radio operator who was badly injured in the attack. My Dad then later told me that was awarded the DFC for his act of bravery in saving the radio operator.

He was then put on light duties right up to the Nuremberg war crime trials where he was a chauffeur for one of Generals who was in charge (I can not recall the generals name)

Sadly my Uncle died in 2001

[vienna]

Manned aerial bombing is an unusal form of warfare in that the scale of devastaion is rarely seen first hand by the persons doing the bombing. They fly high over their targets, drop their munitions and, with any luck, they fly away safely. I remember an episode of the TV series M*A*S*H involving a bomber pilot who was shot down over the area near the hospital. He managed to make his way to the 4077th and was telling the doctors about how being a bomber pilot was a rather comfortable way to spend the war. It was, to him, a matter of wake up in the morning, get your orders, fly to the target, drop your bombs, and then head back to the base for lunch or dinner. Hawkeye was quite miffed at the pilot's callousness and indifference to the lives he affected with his flights. Claiming they were short of people to help in the hospital, Hawkeye enlisted the pilot to assist in tending to injured civilians in the wards. The pilot came upon a small child who was severly injured and difigured and he was appalled by the sight. He asked how it happened and Hawkeye told him she was one of the civilians from the area where the pilot had flown his most recent mission; she was a part of the "collateral damage". The pilot's initial reaction was one of anger towards Hawkeye for "setting him up"...

War is, as often quoted, "Hell", and, as such, breeds many demons and sufferings. We have gone from large flights of bombers flying into flak, to a single plane with a single bomb flying over a city on a pleasant morning, to a pilotless craft controlled from thousands of miles away by a "pilot" with a "joystick" who probably recieved his initial training on an X-Box as a child. We are gowing inured to the physical effects of today's "video game" warfare. It only seems right to try to remember and commemorate those who fought a very human war and paid a very high human price as both soldier and civilian. The German goverment may protest; it is only the pro forma act of any government to placate those who have very loud voices (who, in many cases, also have never fought in a war) and make bothersome gnats of themselves; that is for the politicians and diplomats to deal with; for the survivors, descendants and others touched by such acts of war, the memorials are a way of humanizing the grossly inhuman...

...

[Bilge_Rat]

My Great-Uncle flew as a navigator for the RAF during the war. He was Canadian, but many served in the British forces. His bomber was shot down over Burma and the crew spent weeks walking back to allied lines. Of course, I only found out all this after he died from his daughter. He never talked about the war.

Its about time they have a memorial.

[Herr-Berbunch]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...or-attack.html

To be fair, the first couple bombed Great Yarmouth. Nobody noticed.