Bomber Command Documentary – 3 July

Re 37

Snoopy 7422

Blimey! And here’s me thinking that E=mc2 really meant “energy equals more cash two”

John Green

Bomber Command

Is there a web site, utube etc. where an overseas viewer can see the documentary on “Bomber Command”?:
Berkyboy

Einstein – 1905.

Re 34
Snoopy 7422
With the splitting of the atom at, if I remember rightly, the Cavendish Laboratory in or around 1922, by Messrs. Cockcroft, Rutherford and Walton it was Britain rather than Germany that initiated research into the development of the atom bomb.

John Green

‘E=Mc2’ – Albert Einstein proposed mass–energy equivalence in 1905 in one of his Annus Mirabilis papers entitled “Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?” The equivalence is described by the famous equation: E=MC2. Einstein was the first scientist to propose the E = mc2 formula and the first to interpret mass–energy equivalence as a fundamental principle that follows from the relativistic symmetries of space and time.

ooops. 🙂

Re 32

Creaking Door

Good piece – and accurate.

Re 34

Snoopy 7422

With the splitting of the atom at, if I remember rightly, the Cavendish Laboratory in or around 1922, by Messrs. Cockcroft, Rutherford and Walton it was Britain rather than Germany that initiated research into the development of the atom bomb.

John Green

Hope it mkaes it over the big pond here in the states !

Sure hope in some way down the road it makes it way over here across the big pond. Got my BBC DVD ” Bomber Boys” and enjoyed it …. sounds like a very good progam . At least your networks and production companies are still doing WW II theme programs …sure can’t say this for our production companies and networks here . I was over in Normandy this past June working on two documentaries about the 101st in Normandy.. so I love seeing that others have undertaken programs like this . I was informed yesterday there is a project in the works for a program on Maj George E Preddy Jr.the top scoring Mustang ace with the 352nd Fighter Group ..that flew out of Bodney with Eighth Army Air Forces during WW II. So that was good to hear !

Hope we catch this documentary on RAF Bomber Command in the future ! Youtube maybe !

BlueNoser352 !

No Apologies Needed.

I agree with CD’s post (Except the ‘unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor’, but he knows I like to tease him on that one…!). Where CD’s post stopped short was that not only would the continuation of the war have resulted in further horrific casualties on all sides, but it would have allowed continued technological research. As they proved, the Germans were streets ahead in terms of advanced weaponary. Wire-guided and TV-guided missiles – I ask you…! As it was, there is no way that the invasion would have been a sucess without BC’s campaign.
Lets say that, conservatively, the war had raged-on for another two years, as is entirely feasable. There wouldn’t have been a Jew left alive in Europe or any of the Axis occupied territories. That’s just for starters. More importantly, the Germans research on the Atom Bomb would have moved forwards. Of course, they were behind the Manhattan Project, but lets remember where the research originated. In Germany of course. Churchill and Rooseveldt were well aware of the fact that the Germans were trying to develop the A-Bomb too. Furthermore, the Germans had the only practical Balistic Rocket to efficiently deliver it……..!!! There were even plans for longer-range versions to go all the way to the USA….. A serious delay in cessasion of hostilities would have opened a real Pandoras Box.
There is little or no doubt that if the war had dragged-on in Europe, then the Allies would have used nuclear weapons against Germany too. Not a nice prospect. It’s a remorseless logic. One only has to watch the prescient ‘Things To Come’ to see that even in the 1930’s, people sensed these dark clouds on the horizon. Remember what WSC said about ‘..perverted science..’.
I’ve long held contempt for the quivering-lips that agonise over Dresden. Yes, God alone knows, it must have been truly horrific. However, so would the consequenses of the war being allowed to continue, perhaps not just by days, or weeks, or months, but by years. Could the Axis forces have won..? No, certainly not by the late stage of the war, but, this is 100% down to the Allied bombing campaign.
Think, for a moment, of the carnage wrought by German Night-Fighters. Imagine, if Hitler had have recognised the real potential of the Me262 on daylight operations. Indeed, the potential for this delay was very real indeed.
Harris’s ‘Old Lags’ did good, bless’em all.

Creaking Door.
That’s the best and most effective single post I’ve ever seen on this forum.
It should be part of the national curriculum.

The only possible thing I could add to that are a list of place names.

Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, Dachau.
Sadly this list isn’t exhaustive.

What ex RAF Bomber Command bomb aimer Andy Wiseman said on the matter also fitted my view very completely.

I enjoyed the programme very much incidentally and it prompted me to look up Mr Wiseman on Google.
Quite a guy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8475000/8475370.stm

Andy

Overall I thought the programme was rather good; especially for prime-time ITV. The makers let the veterans tell their own stories and I was particularly moved at the end when they each stated their former rank, aircrew trade and the number of operations that they had flown.

The only criticism I have, and it isn’t particularly about this documentary (although its prime-time slot didn’t help), is the way that ‘Dresden’ has become an absolute byword for the ‘wrong’ committed by Bomber Command.

Yes, there was a firestorm. Yes, mostly civilians died. Yes, it was late in the war. Yes, Dresden had nice architecture and was primarily known for its peaceful pre-war china manufacture but Dresden was one city of the hundreds that Bomber Command attacked and the 25,000 people (or 50,000 people, or 150,000 people, or 250,000 people depending who you want to believe) represent only a proportion of those killed by Bomber Command. Taking it out of context as an avoidable ‘wrong’ (to me anyway) just plays into the hands of the Nazi apologists; ‘Dresden’ (out of context) is shorthand for saying we, or those that directed and carried out the raid, are as bad as the Nazis!

It seems (to me) that this treatment of Dresden and Bomber Command is unique. Every time the Red Army is mentioned are we reminded of the thousands of civilians that died when they took Berlin and other German towns (or the thousands that were raped and murdered afterwards)? Every time the defeat of Japan is mentioned are we reminded of the fire-bombing of Tokyo (when conservative estimate put the civilian death-toll at over 100,000 killed)? Is it felt that these civilian casualties were ‘deserved’ because of German atrocities in Russia or the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor?

Finally, let us not forget the sort of war that Nazi Germany waged; a war that was waged against civilians by design from its very outset. When Germany invaded Russia in June 1941 it was perhaps the greatest invasion ever undertaken in warfare but the German forces were unable to provide logistical support for the number of men that they put into the field; the fundamental plan relied heavily on living off the land. And by ‘living-off-the-land’ we, of course, mean take all the food from the civilian population who will starve; this wasn’t the Gestapo or the SS but the rank and file of the German Army and the Luftwaffe. Millions of ordinary Russian people starved to death as a direct consequence of this. Worse than this Nazi Germany had something called the ‘Hunger Plan’ as a cornerstone of its economic strategy in the Soviet Union; the plan called for over twenty-five million Russian civilians to be starved to death as an integral part of the German conquest.

And what of Nazi German plans for Britain? Germany conducted unrestricted U-boat warfare against Britain from the earliest hours of the war and commerce-raiding warships were sent far afield on the high-seas long before war was even declared; the stated intention of these vessels was to starve Britain into surrender. Nazi Germany tried to starve Leningrad into submission from 1941 to 1944 and at least a million people died out of a population of three-and-a-half million; what would the death-toll have been in Britain if the U-boats had succeeded in cutting-off food supplies? Extrapolating the Leningrad figure suggests a figure of at least ten million before Britain would have been forced to capitulate; and what then? Nazi Germany would have had neither the capability (nor the inclination) to supply sufficient food to feed surrendered Britain; millions more would have starved.

This is the war that Nazi Germany started, and had planned to wage, from the very beginning; a war against civilians.

If you’re in the UK fear not it’s here.

Repeated on Thursday night (5th July) I believe if you missed it.

Thanks for the advice, both of you; I finally got to see it (half on TV and half on ITV-Player). 🙂

That wasn’t the only error.

He twice referred to “Volunteers for Bomber Command” or “Bomber Command Volunteers”. Volunteers for aircrew, yes, volunteers for Bomber Command, not necessarily (or even likely?).

Still, inevitable tosh from narrator aside, it was a good programme.

I think you need to look at the bigger picture. This was on main stream ITV. One word for this documentary, Superb. John Sergeant may have got a couple of things wrong, but come on!

That wasn’t the only error.

He twice referred to “Volunteers for Bomber Command” or “Bomber Command Volunteers”. Volunteers for aircrew, yes, volunteers for Bomber Command, not necessarily (or even likely?).

Still, inevitable tosh from narrator aside, it was a good programme.

Am I the only one to notice that John Sergeant said the Nuremburg raid was on 30 May 1944 instead of 30 March ?

Check it out tonight if you don’t believe me?!

Allan

Title.

What’s the title of the doco please, chaps? Can’t access the ITV site.

Just ‘Bomber Command’ I believe.

What’s the title of the doco please, chaps? Can’t access the ITV site.

Couldnt help but be moved at the very end when they focused purely on the chaps, name , rank ,number of ops etc. and without sounding er, childish or ‘Boys Own’ I couldnt help think that if you gave those chaps a serviceable Lanc or a Halifax today what would be the chances of them getting it off the deck these days , do a circuit or two? I appreciate that after seventy odd years they might be a bit out of practice, But my money is that theyd soon have it all flooding back!. well thats my fantasy of the day satisfied. Well done on a fabulous programme!

I used to take quite a few ‘old lags’ flying years ago, but not in heavies of course. As I handed-over to one friend, I asked him what the last a/c was that he’d piloted, a Mosquito as it happened. He was pretty flaky for a few minutes. ‘This is like being back at OTU!’ he quipped, much to my embarrassment 😮 . Five minutes later however, he was completely at home and relaxed. I suppose, the basics are much like riding a bicycle…! I just left him to it…:)
He used to drag along a bunch of his pals from the golf club, – all ex-Bomber Command – and my reward was all the chatter over a meal at the pub later. Flying, crashing, bail-outs and being ‘in the bag’.(..and getting out of it too.). Great tales and fond memories. They were very funny too, and made very light of most of their travails.
Whilst night flying, my friend told me – ‘The last time I did this, – I was shot down….’ I must say, that did rather bring it home to me. They were all a lovely bunch of fellers, and mostly, of course, no longer with us. Most of the early-war guys are gone.
Despite what they went through, they were neither triumphal ,nor mawkish, which is worth noting for some ‘enthusiasts’ today who are bereft of such sensitivity.
For the most part, after the war, they went back to civilian and ground-based occupations. Flying for the King was part of their youth – and they’d all moved on, and more often than not, one wouldn’t see any aviation-related items around their houses. Scratch the surface though, and it all came flooding back.

Proud to have had a teensy-weensy behind the scenes role, not to mention being in at the very first pre-production meeting in the RAF Club on 17 June last year, when the project “took-off” and when Howard Tuck and I floated the idea to ITV. We sat looking out over Green Park and the (then) unfinished Bomber Command memorial. Very appropriate.

Sadly, I was too busy with other things in the intervening months to get involved. One cannot do everything!

Yes. a fine programme. Watching that and the recent unveiling ceremony had me wondering if I could have done any ops at all. I rather doubt it.

Incredibly fine and balanced programme.

Moggy

Yes sir…absolutely right.

Bomber command documentry

Ref Jewish aircrew not being allowed on ops over enemy territory.
My dad was part of a crew flying Lancasters with 97 Pathfinder Squadron out of Bourne, they had a Jewish navigator, they survived an extended tour of 45 ops to-gether, they all survived the war and had a reunion in the early 70’s.

It surprised me to see that one of the ex-crew members talking, was Jewish.
I didn’t think they allowed them on operations over enemy territory ?