RAF Bomber Command memorial

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/3agqkbo

So German politicians have called on Britain to abandon plans to build a memorial to RAF bomber crews.

Why are the British always being asked to apologise?

We lost 55,573 RAF bomber crew personal, in WW2, so it is deserving that a memorial is created in our capital, to remember these brave airmen who set out each night to fly the skies of Europe..

Yes 45,000 innocent German civilians lost their lives in Hamburg alone, and another 25,000 - 35,000 in Dresden during WW2, but 20,083 Londoners, plus 23,602 in other parts of Britain were killed in the Blitz itself.

This was war, and after all the Germans started bombing civilians..

[anotheoldgit]

sandyRoe

You have gone too far this time, you absolutely disgust me, and I am very surprised that no one else has took you to task for such a disgusting comparison.

To compare your own brave countrymen, who each night donned their flying suits and boots, to fly over Europe, many never to return, so that such as you can enjoy the freedom you now enjoy, to those sadistic homicidal killers of the SS.is beyond comprehension.

Perhaps given the choice you would most likely put on that dreaded black uniform, instead of air force blue.

[THECORBYLOON]

Eh?

[Answerprancer]

(he does this)

[THECORBYLOON]

I can't even see that any answers have been removed...

[paddywak]

jno as to who started the "Terror Bombing" I suggest you as the people of the Spanish town of Guernica, on 26th April 1937 the Luftewaffe, masquarading as the Kondor Legion carpet bombed the town and killed a reported 1,654 people (though modern research put the true figure in the region of 3-400). Even then the German Armed Forces were practicing for a war against whoever got in their way and they weren't to bothered about the methods they used

[jno]

yes, fair point, paddywak; the Germans certainly had some practice. All the same, it seems - and I'm open to correction here - that they decided not to pursue this strategy in WW2 until prompted to by Allied action.

The point was also made in the paper yesterday that Barcelona learnt from Guernica and built deep-level bomb shelters. London authorities did not, and merely dished out Andersen shelters.

[askyourgran]

To those who had to live through the war years it was terrible, I remember the warning sirens when the planes were coming over, and the then all-clear siren to tell us we could go back to bed. Those men and women of all the forces are remembered on Armistice Day in November, that to my mind includes the Bomber Command. They were all heroes no one less than the other.

[boxtops]

My next-door neighbour only disposed of her Anderson shelter five years ago - it didn't look as if it would have held up in a bombing raid.

[jno]

I think you were supposed to cover them with earth if possible. Not a lot of protection, all the same, and most people didn't have gardens to put them in anyway.

[Coobeastie]

You'd be suprised by what the anderson could take...direct hits obviously a different matter and above the SC1000 you'd be looking at major internal injuries or fatalities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZz5bo-GeQ

[ludwig]

Hey thanks for pointing out that the British were the baddies in the war jno, I wouldn't have known that. Not only did they drop bombs in a nastier way than the other people dropped bombs, but they also forced their own people to hide in flimsy metal boxes. Those Brits eh?
Which side was your country on in the war?

[jno]

now come on, ludwig, please reread the last sentence in my 17:32 post.

As for not digging proper shelters - well, it's either true or false, and if it's true, do you have a reasonable explanation? Should they have prepared for bombing - with the experience of Guernica in the recent past - or not?

[ludwig]

I just can't remember seeing a post of yours where you haven't taken the opportunity to have a little dig at the Brits. Get over it man. I have to wonder why are you're still here, living amongst people you resent so much?

[anotheoldgit]

jno

They did not merely dish out Anderson shelters, as you so simply informed us.

They also provided indoor shelters (Morrison shelters), built Brick and concrete public shelters, Brick Reinforced the walls of peoples cellars, complete with escape hatches and steps leading out of the cellar grates, apart from providing free of charge gas masks.

None of these measures would be any protection against a direct hit, but they were protection in case the houses collapsed around the occupants, and the brick public shelters and Anderson shelters were protection against blast and flying debris.

Although at first the authorities dissuaded Londoners from using the Tube stations, due later to public pressure, they finally gave in.

[anotheoldgit]

THECORBYLOON

No answer was removed, although this one from sandyRoe should have been.

/// In my eyes a memorial to the men of Bomber Command would be similar to a memorial to the SS. ///

[Sqad]

AOG.....I don´t know how old sandy is, or indeed if she just put over her point badly, using the SS as a force to be admired and indeed immortalised,but we all say and write things that, on reflection, we wished we had never written and I think that sandy´s post reflects this.

[THECORBYLOON]

aog I must admit that I couldn't have looked very hard but to compare the men of Bomber Command to the SS is out of order.

[anotheoldgit]

Check it out, this must be a record number of answers to a question,

201,058 answers, blimey. : - )

[anotheoldgit]

If you want to know what the heck I am on about, before I posted answer no.59, no.58 answer was connected on the end of the date 2010.

Making it look like 201058 answers.