USSR Hurricane dig,(Graphic image content)

Hi Guys
First post so bear with me.
Difficult one this isn’t it.
I can see why people are concerned about the images but at the same time from being on for a couple of weeks I would like to think that the vast majority of people on here are intelligent, not naive and in the majority not macabre.
Nobody wants to see this sort of thing but it does remind us what really was happening out there (I don’t think most of us need reminding)
On a tangent I felt uncomfortable watching RR299 on youtube but reading comments and links to AAIB at least I could understand

Respect All

Jon

Welcome to the forum Jon – take a bit of guts to start in a thread like this 😀

Jon Wright

Hi Guys
First post so bear with me.
Difficult one this isn’t it.
I can see why people are concerned about the images but at the same time from being on for a couple of weeks I would like to think that the vast majority of people on here are intelligent, not naive and in the majority not macabre.
Nobody wants to see this sort of thing but it does remind us what really was happening out there (I don’t think most of us need reminding)
On a tangent I felt uncomfortable watching RR299 on youtube but reading comments and links to AAIB at least I could understand

Respect All

Jon

If you hang around aircraft long enough, someone you know, often personally, will die.

In wartime, maybe not that long.

I did not know this pilot. He died doing the job he was trained for.

Whilst the loss of life is always tragic, I personally have no problem with the images portrayed. It was my choice to view as said previously, and in fact I looked at them and mentally compared them with the Irish bog man or the better known Ice man.

The question as to how the man’s body was treated remains that – a question.

If he has living relatives, at least they have been able to bury him now and put a line under the event.

If you don’t want to see such images why have you went that far?

Me personnally?? I don’t give toss. You clearly haven’t read my previous posts.

Peter

Exactly..

What………???:rolleyes:

These are still images and very shocking and underline the horror of warfare.I am reminded of the equally horrific sequence in Dark Blue World where a pilot struggles to escape from his burning fighter. Both underline the bravery of those who continued to fly despite being confronted with the reality .

If you don’t want to see such images why have you went that far?

Exactly..

This is a family forum where fathers sit with son’s and pass down their aviation enthusiasm and knowledge, not trying to explain ‘Graphic image content’

It’s easy to find stuff like this elsewhere on the web, I just don’t think there is a need to put it on this forum, however hard you try to justify it.

On the first line, these aircraft didn’t fly by themselves, surely passing down aviation enthusiam and knowledge must include what happened to the pilots…including those who sadly didn’t return.
Is describing a pilot as being “shot to death at the controls, slumping forward puting the aircraft into an dive, which then exploded on impact” not as graphic ?

As for it being on this site .. it’s not.
The link to this thread now has an advisory, even though there are no images on this thread at all.
The post which actually has the link to another site does contain an advisory.
If you then open that link the first thing you see is yet another advisory, and you have to then scroll down some way and (presumably) read through the first post before the images themselves then come into view.

If you don’t want to see such images why have you went that far?

If Key Publishing would put that photograph on the front cover of Flypast, that would be OK then?

If by simply putting as a header of the thread
Gordon Ramsey flies a Spitfire, (Graphic language content) that would be OK for four letter swearwords? What next?

This is a family forum where fathers sit with son’s and pass down their aviation enthusiasm and knowledge, not trying to explain ‘Graphic image content’

It’s easy to find stuff like this elsewhere on the web, I just don’t think there is a need to put it on this forum, however hard you try to justify it.

I think really this is the reality of war and its a difficult subject, My main fear is that you only need a UK jobs worth to see this and then the powers that be will stop the aviation archeology boys.
We must remember this happened in Russia and unlike the UK they can step off the tarmac unnoticed.

Graham

If Key Publishing would put that photograph on the front cover of Flypast, that would be OK then?

If by simply putting as a header of the thread
Gordon Ramsey flies a Spitfire, (Graphic language content) that would be OK for four letter swearwords? What next?

This is a family forum where fathers sit with son’s and pass down their aviation enthusiasm and knowledge, not trying to explain ‘Graphic image content’

It’s easy to find stuff like this elsewhere on the web, I just don’t think there is a need to put it on this forum, however hard you try to justify it.

For me there is a difficult thing with this, Photos such as this leave me feeling rather empty as they show in the most graphic way the futility of war but I feel so many people will view them for the wrong reasons.

The danger with these photos is instead of them being seen as why we should not be fighting each other people will view them as a form of voyeurism and they will totally attract the wrong form of attention.
This does not show any respects to the gentleman who lost his life or any of his family and that troubles me badly.

I also think there is a tendency these days to want to show such photos to shock people, there was a photo in many newspapers around a week ago showing some gangland murder victim in a shopping trolley in Brazil, I could not help but think if that had been a UK murder victim that would not be allowed.

I just think we should show equal respect to all souls that have lost their lives and photos like this risk taking any respect away from them.

🙂 In fairness i wasn’t home in time to see the news before 22-00 so i don’t know if it was shown before the watershed or not.

Notice you say 10 o’clock news, ie the images are on after the watershed time so that kids shouldn’t see it, also a major news story so does need reporting with the facts, a bit different to this case.

While I agree that most of us here are grown up enough to decide what we want to look at or not, the fact remains that a quick Google search of anything aviation related brings this forum up first. Basically anyone can view contents and pictures posted here, without any restrictions.
I don’t know where Peter gets this strange notion (especially as a moderator!) that people have to sign in to see contents of these posts.

My view, I’m interested in aeroplanes, not looking at sensationalist pictures of a deceased airman who probably still have family remaining. Nothing to do with being squeemish, just got some morals thats all.
Even the title of this thread is sensationalist, there are probably a few non forum people enjoying these images out there, and just because they can be viewed elsewhere that dosen’t mean they have to be perpetuated here.

I’m surprised at the moderating here lately, very scattergun approach, people being kicked off for no real good reason, and threads like this continuing.
Let’s try and maintain a standard.

Can someone give me hand down from my soapbox:rolleyes:

Anyone watch the 10 o’clock news last night.The trial of Radovan Karadzic,it showed pretty graphic images of the deceased and also the relatives who had turned up at the court to see him tried.
Do we ban everything or nothing?

People, who need pictures of mutilated bodies in order to understand the horror of war, are the same kind of people who keep starting them. No amount of gore will ever educate them.

You have clearly never bothered to either try or understand how.

I’m really struggling to understand the sentiments of those who have taken offence at these images – now that is not to say that my viewpoint is right and yours is wrong, we each have our own opinion to which we are entitled and which is formed through our own experiences and morals. But, what I find odd is that the images are being labelled sick and repulsive and have no place on a historic aviation forum, or in any other public domain. I agree that it looks as if the body could have been tended to in a more compassionate way as the images do portray it as having been extracted and put to one side for later, but as some have pointed out, we were not there, we do not know the full sequence of events, so on that I do not think we can comment without undue conjecture.

On the subject of them being made available for public viewing – we have a choice whether to look or not, just as we have a choice on whether or not to watch the documentary’s on the Holocaust which often present to us utterly shocking images of entirely innocent murdered civilians, on ancient battlefield excavations (remember, skeletons used to be people too or visit the British Museum and see the mummfied remains of Egyptian Kings. I just cannot see a big enough difference between these and the images shown of the poor young pilot we see here. To me, seeing him lying there gives me the sharp shocking reminder I need to realise that as much as am fascinated by the machinery of war, those very same machines had and still have, human hearts which, much as we try to sanitize in our modern detached way by looking at shiney Spitfires Vulcans, has and will continue to result in, horrific, dirty, undignified and often unjustified human loss of life.

As I said, I am not suggesting for a minute that anyone is right or wrong in their opinion, I just personally believe that it is valuable and maybe necessary to once in a while see the true cost of war in a way which most of us today will thankfully never see first hand. Many of our surviving relatives never had that choice – they may have had to live with these images of their friends, families and enemies their entire lives.

I for one feel rather fortunate.

That there is a difference between two things does not mean that one doesn’t matter.

People, who need pictures of mutilated bodies in order to understand the horror of war, are the same kind of people who keep starting them. No amount of gore will ever educate them.

What is “There is a big difference between publishing pictures of anonymous battle casualties and publishing pictures of a named individual” supposed to mean then.

Would you like your dead relative to appear as a curiosity in a forum about the Ypres Salient

He may very well have already done so. I would rather my relative survived. If in death his image can help educate and bring an understanding about the realities of war then its a good thing. There will be a percentage of people who look at the images who are doing do for voyeuristic reasons, they are the ones who need educating most.

As for a fitting tribute, well that happens every night of the year at 8pm at The Menin Gate in Ypres.

So it only matters when you know their names then?

Evertime I look at a picture of a dead soldier on the Ypres Salient I think of a relative who died there but whose body was never found.

It really doesnt matter, a dead person is a dead person, someones son, brother, father. If you censor this then you have to censor all of them.

How on earth could you get that from my post?

What matters is publishing pictures of identified bodies in an online forum. I’m not speaking about censoring, which I’m quite against on all accounts, but about having the decency to treat the remains of soldiers with the proper respect. In my book, making an exhibit of their bodies is not “the proper respect”.

Would you like your dead relative to appear as a curiosity in a forum about the Ypres Salient, do you think that is a fitting tribute to the men who fought there?

There is a big difference between publishing pictures of anonymous battle casualties and publishing pictures of a named individual, who might still have living relatives. I doubt anyone here would like to see their deceased relatives when visiting an online forum, or opening a book. It’s not the fact that Sgt Lazarev is dead, it’s that he is Sgt Lazarev.

So it only matters when you know their names then?

Evertime I look at a picture of a dead soldier on the Ypres Salient I think of a relative who died there but whose body was never found.

It really doesnt matter, a dead person is a dead person, someones son, brother, father. If you censor this then you have to censor all of them.

Hands up anyone who has seen pictures of the dead in World War 1, especially the images of dismembered dead soldiers printed in so many of the current history books. Both those images and the ones of the Hurricane pilot show the futility of war.

There is a big difference between publishing pictures of anonymous battle casualties and publishing pictures of a named individual, who might still have living relatives. I doubt anyone here would like to see their deceased relatives when visiting an online forum, or opening a book. It’s not the fact that Sgt Lazarev is dead, it’s that he is Sgt Lazarev.

I doubt anyone interested in historic military aviation needs any reminder about the human cost of warfare. Few groups of people pay more tribute to the fallen, than those within military history community, by visiting graves and restoring monuments. We know many people died, its part of the topic, but it’s not the primary fascination.

The “futility of war” can be seen every day in every news media. I for one do not need pictures of the remains of Sgt Lazarev to understand that.