Why we must fight for history.

This is how I prefer to fight back….education, knowledge is power.

Sorry the text is biased for a picture from our collection of a Hurricane going gear up.

Battle of Britain 2007

Press release 1

The 700 Wing Air Force Association of
Canada, Alberta Aviation Museum and
Edmonton Aviation Heritage Society are
pleased to invite Edmontonians to join us
for the Annual “Battle of Britain” Parade
September 16th starting at 10:30am at the
Alberta Aviation Museum.

Coming on the heels of the recent
controversy of the Canadian War
Museum’s plaque on the allied bombing
campaign the “Battle of Britain” parade
celebrates and honours the bravery,
dedication and selflessness of the fighter
pilots of the RAF, Canada and other allied nations defending England against the “Strategic Bombing” by the Nazi Luftwaffe in 1940.

This small group of 700 allied fighter pilots known as “The Few” stood against and overwhelming force of 3000 Nazi Luftwaffe aircraft and stopped Hitler’s advance across Europe.

Edmontonians such as Peter “Cowboy” Blatchford, son of Edmonton Mayor Ken Blatchford, as well as others that were among “The Few”, so we take pride in celebrating their stand and sacrifice for freedom each September on the first Sunday after the 15th. The “Battle of Britain” began July, 1940 and ran through October, 1940. The 15th of September is considered by many to be the turning point were the Luftwaffe determined that they could not win.

This year we will also be running the movie “Battle of Britain” the night of September 14th at 7:00pm as part of our winter Museum and a Movie program. Regular Museum admission applies.

Thomas Hinderks
Executive Director
Alberta Aviation Museum
Edmonton Aviation Heritage Society

im by no means having a pop at german renactors, i very good friend of mine in T.A. med sqn dresess up in full german uniform for charity, and his knowledge of that period is very good and by no means do i consider him to be a boot boy.

tootoosch the thunderer

Good point well said !

and then you see muppets like these clowns…talk about revisionism and/or ignoring the real lessons of history;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2327844.ece

So they werent really that bad? so they didnt round up POWS/innocent civilians/ men,women & kids and shoot/gas/burn them ? who would want to hide or ignore what they did? ignore their sins and live their life???

Why oh why would anyone want to glorify this bunch of murdering scum???

What is soo glorious about the Third Reich that 80% of re-enactors want to be German and a lot of them want to be SS ???? Why ?????

This is one kind of revisionism they can stick where the sun dont shine!

Isn’t the whole point of the freedom that WW2 in particular taught us the ability to go and do these things without being harrassed by reporters? The fact that the group run around fields in Kent pretending to be Nazi’s in no way means that they sit at home in the evening awaiting the call to eliminate all the jews or invade Poland. In their re-enactments do they fight against G.I’s or British Tommies or ‘Juden’ who are mown down to cheering crowds? There is also no evidence to suggest that this LSAH preport to be a tool for teaching people about the war. They are simply passionate about grey uniforms and German rank titles, clicking their heels and shouting Jawol at intermittent intervals. There is also nothing against the law in possessing such replica items.

If we start following that logic didn’t most medieval battles end with the mass slaughter of the opposition team who were injured- and if so, isn’t it disturbing to see knights of Arthur clattering around castles- I mean they even have days designed for schools, so kids can teach them about the battles through re-enactment.

Similarly, what about the Roman re-enactors? Surely the Centurions condoned crucifiction and if the Bible is to be believed, killed God’s only Son. How are they a model force to be allowed to march in similar fields in oh-so-similar kent.

I personally think that the LSAH are an important part of the UK re-enactment community. They show that there were bad guys who fought their fathers and uncles, or grand-dads. Evil men certainly, but still men- flesh and bone who were brought up to believe that what they were doing was right. The learning of the history surrounding them is for the spectators to look up and decide for themselves. Or are people simply trying to excuse themselves from the responsibility of teaching that Nazism was foul and putrid ideology borne from the fascist doctrine of Palingenetic Ultranationalism.

Surely simply outlawing them or villifying them as automatically being the monsters that they replicate by replicating them is infantile as an argument.

Finally, if you start outlawing selected parts of history because their depiction could be offensive, you start going down the same slippery slope as holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathiers- as in, where do you stop? If anything, History should be immune from this rubbish, it happened and there is nothing that can change it, so why try and sanitize the brutal facts or sweep them under the carpet when if anything they should be on the mantlepiece in all their putrid detail so no-one can ever forget that they happened.

Good thread, guys and not a single insult or teddy thrown out of the cot!
This is what makes this forum so good – keep it up!

I think we have all had a belly full of the p.c.brigade:mad: 😡 😡

However don’t get too emotional on a thread like I did:o 😮 I hate listening to these people who abuse their “right” to change history for their means,so while we still have the aircraft,veterans, airshows,preservationist & museums let us keep exercising our “RIGHTS” TO KEEP HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE.:)

N.B. If it was not for guys like your Great Uncle where would we be?? As you know its guys like him we owe the thanks to:) 🙂

iv had enough of this p.c garbage, trying to pervert the course of human history, my great uncle served as a halifax rear gunner (426 sqn RCAF) my parents went over to see him and his family, and as a project i put togther as much bumph as i could as a present for him. (artwork books prints elvington photos ect) and when they gave it to him he was overwhelmed with joy and was very pleased with what i had done for him, it my way of saying thanks to a veteran who fought on our side against a most evil enemy, and it makes my blood boil when i hear this tripe about rubbing bomber command from history you cant delete this kind of sacrifice, what did the grand parentsof the p.c. brigade do? what if one of their relatives won the V.C? i dont understand why people think its a good idea to enforce the erasure from history of some of this countries finest people its bad enough as it is with simon cowel

tootoosch the thunderer

Without aiming to sound political, it seems to me that the P.C. Brigade are deliberately avoiding lessons of the past by attempting to distort/forget historic fact.

By tying to make us all take our “eye of the ball” of what we should be learning from past historical mistakes, they would rather us all forget the lot-period!!

Anyway back off my soapbox,:eek: let all of us who want to remember historical aviation & talk shop get on with it & :p :confused: 😡 the P.C.Brigade:rolleyes:

I know a place they can stay..

Maybe we can get them in a bus and take them to Warsaw and then ask around about the decision to bomb German cities.A whole country can,t be wrong can it?:rolleyes:

Presentations of history do need to be corrected from time to time as new information or discoveries come availabile…any Museum trying to be good will do their best to stay aware of new information and do their best to include it.

What I hate are those that try to alter history in spite of the facts.

Tom H

Good point well said !

and then you see muppets like these clowns…talk about revisionism and/or ignoring the real lessons of history;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2327844.ece

So they werent really that bad? so they didnt round up POWS/innocent civilians/ men,women & kids and shoot/gas/burn them ? who would want to hide or ignore what they did? ignore their sins and live their life???

Why oh why would anyone want to glorify this bunch of murdering scum???

What is soo glorious about the Third Reich that 80% of re-enactors want to be German and a lot of them want to be SS ???? Why ?????

This is one kind of revisionism they can stick where the sun dont shine!

This is the letter sent by our Museum President to the Editor of the newspaper involved. It was published in the newspaper today Sept/4/2007

As someone who has spent his entire adult life writing and teaching history, including courses on Canadian Military History, Twentieth Century Warfare and the History of the Second World War, I consider myself a fully paid up member of the professional historians’ union. I have also been for some years President of the Alberta Aviation Museum and I understand and sympathize with the problems museums have in attempting to present an accurate idea of the past in the face of all kinds of competing pressures. Why is it then that I find myself more in sympathy with those who pushed for changes to the War Museum’s strategic bombing exhibit than with the professional historians who wrote and are now defending every word of the display?

One of the things that bothers me is that the media has almost unanimously portrayed this episode as one in which a beleaguered band of dispassionate scholars tries to uphold the truth against a powerful veterans’ lobby. The controversy, in fact, originated at the end of the Second World War with a project called the United States Strategic Bombing Survey which was more about American inter-service rivalries in the post-war era than about the war itself. Since then it has been mostly between different groups of historians who disagree about the morality and effectiveness of the bombing; two things that are inextricably linked. The veterans, who understandably prefer the version of the history of strategic bombing that sees it as an essential contribution to the winning of the war have some political clout but they are also are very much the underdogs in the war of words because they lack the analytical training and rhetorical skills of the historians.

Those veterans and non-veterans who object to the War Museum exhibit are not asking for a wholesale revision. Most of the controversy centres around a single paragraph:
“The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command’s aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions of German war production until late in the war.” As the supporters of the exhibit have pointed out at length, each of the three sentences in the paragraph is, by itself, undeniably true. Together, in my estimation, they are completely one-sided. The first sentence suggests that the rest of the paragraph is going to present both sides, or perhaps some middle position in the debate. It does neither. The other two sentences, taken together, are a highly compressed summary of what the critics of the strategic bombing campaign have said over the years. It didn’t work and it killed many thousands, by implication, for no legitimate purpose. The other side of the argument gets not a word.

The statement that the bombing campaign resulted in only small reductions in German war production comes from the USSBS and has been a favorite point over the years of those who deplore the bombing campaign on moral grounds. Randall Hansen, in the article in Friday’s Journal, tries to defend against the most obvious weakness of the argument by asserting that any claims that production would have been higher without the bombing are, ‘One-sided counter-factual speculation.’ There is really no need to speculate, however, because there are facts in abundance to support the common sense idea that thousands of tons of bombs had to have a significant effect. German military production fell in spite of the fact that Hitler took over the industries and resources of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland and acquired the services of millions of slave laborers. While German production was falling, that of the Allies (not subject to bombing) was doubling or tripling annually. Historians like Richard Overy have also pointed out that the effort to defend against the bombers absorbed the efforts of about 2 million Germans and, at the time of the critical Eastern Front battles of Kursk and Stalingrad, 70% of all German fighter aircraft.
The question that the controversy raises for the War Museum and those who finance it (we Canadian taxpayers) is, Whose history is it anyway? Does it belong only to the professional historians, or do those who participated have a say? I find Randall Hansen’s assertion that the veterans are too ignorant and self-interested to be allowed a voice and should therefore just butt out, incredibly arrogant and condescending.

Rod Macleod
Professor Emeritus of History and Classics, University of Alberta
President, Alberta Aviation Museum

Posted with permisson of our President

Tom H

Reminds me of the statement made in America after Dec 7, 1941… “When we are done, the Japanese language will only be spoken in Hell!”

War de-humanizes everyone it touches… combattant and civilian alike… and that is the first thing that must never be “interpreted”.

Whether a war, or a cause, is “right” or “justified” or not, that truth remains… everyone is part animal when killing is the order of the day.

last year’s conversation on the topic of revisionism FYI

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52333

Bomb them all to hell

My issue with this revionist view is that it is placed out of context. There was a war on for heaven’s sake.

My Uncle was one of those who did his best to hit his target tonight. And not so long ago I met a woman who, as a young girl, met my Uncle in England during his training in 1942.

During our correspondence I mentioned something about how I look upon the men of Nachtjagd in more-or-less equivalent terms to those of Bomber Command. Just young men doing their duty, fighting for what they thought right. On the one side the elimination of the Nazi menace and the other fighting against those who were trying to kill their mums and sisters.

Boy was I wrong … I got hit back with something to the effect that “we just wanted to bomb them all to hell!”. It turned out that this then young girl and her family had been bombed out of Coventry and were not-at-all well disposed to Germans of any variety. Oh.

Harris of course echoes this. As did pretty well the high command of RAF Bomber Command and right up through the political leadership of the country.

So in a sense Randall Hansen has a wash of truth to his positioning re. the plaque. But he misses the key point, made immediately above by my Coventry survivor, and more generally by others that … this was total war and the Allies were not at all disposed to be kindly or gentle towards their enemies.

In this context, hitting as hard as you can makes absolute sense. Then of course there are the technical factors we know so well … the accuracy of target finding and bomb aiming, the relative safety of a Bomber at night vs day, and the prevailing thought that strategic bombing would work – particularly as a weapon against the enemy’s morale. Flattening cities is very sensible in those contexts.

And as to the failure to reduce production … someone else pointed out to me some time ago when I offered up that suggestion … that what needs to be contemplated is, if production could increase in the circumstances, just imagine how significant production would have been without the disruption to productive capacity and workers lives and circumstances!

Mind you, I agree with Resmoroh above, this too shall pass.

What I find remarkable and pleasing, is no one has on this thread screamed about not allowing Mr Hansen to be able to say his piece.

To make it clear how I feel…

I will scream and fight to protect Mr. Hansen’s right to spew this garbage just as hard as I will fight to get him to repeal it and keep the record true.

I do not believe any veteran would advocate censoring Mr. Hansen. But I get very frustrated with Mr. Hansen and the modern media’s attitude and feel we need to fight to keep history reflective of what actually happened.

“Those that do not learn from History are destined to repeat it” I certainly do not want my children to have to fight for freedoms that have already been won so I try very hard to stand for the things I believe are right.

And the definition given on this thread of history is wonderful, note nowhere in that definition does it say history should be interpeted for you.

Tom H

The bully cannot be allowed to prevail. Scale this up and you can understand why I think some wars are justified. And if a war or battle has to be fought it must use the best methods available to bring about a conclusion as quickly as possible.Despite some claims ,even in the present day the safety of non combatants is not certain.

The Oxford dictionary describes history as “the methodical record of events, past events, study of these” No one is denying what happened in a lot of these subjects (not just the bomber offensive), it is whys ? that are in question. All humans are going to have a certain view or prejudice on the circumstances that caused something to happen. Even those who try and be as impartial as possible will probably lean in a certain direction.

What needs to be stood up for is the views and motives of those who took part in any debated action. Popular “TV documentary” history needs to be monitored to ensure any imbalances are addressed and inaccuracies not perpetuated. Those of us on this forum & others like it, probably have a greater understanding than of what occurred in this area of history than your average TV viewer/Sunday Magazine reader. I’m always hearing someone who saw a programme on the “last flying Spitfire, it’s rare, there is only 10 left in the world you know” “I saw it on telly, it must be true”.

Another example, I knew about the hideous losses in the WWI trenches and the “Lions lead by Donkeys” view of the allied generals who didn’t care.
A few years ago I read a book reviewing this. It agreed C*ck ups were made through lack of understanding of modern mechanised warfare, but also pointed out that the generals, Haig in particular were not as uncaring as made out. OK, that’s one authors view, however he pointed out that General Haig started the Poppy day appeal which is, I assume, the reason the old Poppies on Poppy day had the words HAIG FUND moulded into the black centre piece. A fact I did not know and one which altered my perception somewhat.

I was born 23 years after WWII ended so I am not that qualified to pass judgement on those who were there. I understand how they feared for the safety of their loved ones and all the other things they cherished. In a lot of cases they were driven by a sense duty and right against the injustice of the Nazis regime. My parents were children in Crayford, Kent, under the bombing run into London during WWII and I understand how my grandparents felt. My mums father was in the Homeguard & kept a rifle in the spare room. I get the impression if it got to a point when it couldn’t be used for defence any longer, he would have used it to ensured my Nan or Mum would not have suffered in any way.

WRT the Bomber offensive, I can see how the scorched earth policy of the German army as it advanced through Russia, the bombing of London 57 nights in a row during the blitz, etc..helped set the mould for peoples (the allies) thinking.

I spent 4 years living and working in Darmstadt, Germany which was firebombed in Sept 1944 with approx 12,000 casualties. Whilst there, I heard the opinions of the locals who were angry at the tragic loss of life and having their fine city razed to the ground. An action that they felt was not justified by the necessity of targeting military installations. Human tragedy aside, I appreciated what a loss to the world the architecture and other historic culture was, as it was/is in any city destroyed by war. What came across is that no one seemed to have explained what lead up to it ( leaving aside the then current military objectives). It was always a sensitive subject so I didn’t delve too deeply into what was taught.

I’m not passing judgement either way, just trying to present how in this case things were probably affected by the emotions of the time in addition to military necessity, which current historians may not fully pick up on & thus present a distorted view.

The whole picture did not seem to have been presented and that is what needs to be guarded against.

I’m surprised that no-one has yet managed to revise history to paint the German Nation and Hitler as the innocent victims of the Second World War.

Regards,

kev35

Give ’em time Kev …… 🙁

An interesting thread, and for the record I’m definitely not in the revisionist camp. Yes, adjust figures/information if new data comes to light that stands up to “even-handed” scrutiny, but the trend to make thinly veiled politically correct “adjustments” to bring history more in line with current “preferred thinking” has to be stopped.

Present the facts, warts ‘n all, and let the reader/viewer decide for themselves. Trouble for those in charge is that, if you do that, there is always the chance that the reader/viewer might not adopt the preferred “PC” view.

Long gone are the days of battlefields that occupy only a few acres, where only the “professional” soldiers/sailors get involved. Modern warfare is total, innocent people get caught up in it, on land, on sea, and as a result of air-warfare, people acting under the intense pressure of war will make genuine mistakes, and, some evil people will always use the excuse of war to commit attrocities against other people.

I’m not advocating glorification of war, nor presenting a “they were all evil, we were all whiter than white” interpretation, just present the facts, what triggered the war, what happened along the way, what the outcome was, how many lives were lost (on all sides)…and most importantly perhaps ask the question “What can we learn from all this….”. Surely it is only when we start to face the facts, and try to answer the latter question that there is any real chance that we may help avoid a repeat of it all.

With education standards on the slide, and the fact that students are perhaps not taught to think for themselves, but merely to “toe the politically correct line” (a deeply contentious statement I know, but as a grumpy old(ish) man I feel empowered to say such heretical things :diablo: ), fewer people will be equipped with the intellect to process such info and make a rational decision for themselves, base dont he facts before them. Lack of this ability will leave them ever more open to political manipulation of the sort we are starting to see…..

As the current Kaiser Chiefs’ song says “We are the angry mob, we like what we like, we hate what we hate, but we’re oh so easily swayed…” . Doesn’t that sum up the modern population? All too afraid of standing out from the trend, and all too happy to follow the politically correct “mob” when it changes it’s mind.

Too few people seem willing to stand up and be counted for what they believe to be the truth these days, especially if their view is contrary to the “expected” PC stance.

Paul F

The bottom line is this; as has already been pointed out as new sources become available then it is absoloutely right and proper that historians look again at recieved ‘historical’ wisdom and revise it where necessary – unfortunately this may indeed be painful for some individuals, but is essential for the sake of both justice and future generations.

If such revisions are done with proper accademic rigour than they will stand the test of time, and our understanding of events will improve. If not then other accademics will demolish the arguments and such revisions will fade and eventually be forgotten.

The key thing to always remember is that there are always multiple ways to interpret events – an excellent example would be the capital case of Derek Bently(?) and the instruction he alegedly gave his accomplice before he shoy the police office ie ‘Give it to him!’ did he mean shoot him or give him the firearm?

Untangling such ambiguities are the art of the historian.

The other thing is that our world views vary from person to person, from pacifist to Nazi. To say history happened like this and should never be revised is the approach of the totallaliatrian; the very thing many bomber crews died fighting against. You might not like what Irving says, but denying him the right to make a fool of himself in public would be to indulge in the very sort of extreme right wing politics that he so clearly aproves of. So could denying him the right to peddle his assinine and repugnant ideas be interpreted as a victory for his extreme politics he desires.

Steve

Eeehhh!!

“Ich Binn Berlinner”.:D
Great thread Tom…All countries were guilty of attrocities.War will always bring out the best and worst in humanity.It,s in our nature.The more educating the young the more chance we have of preventing it happening again,well we hope.
It,s the hard core revisionists that go waaay out there to get their name in lights are the ones to watch for.The revisionists who get the correct facts from proven sources not been seen before I feel are the ones to help.A lot of stuff has been recovered from the depths of museum archives that has thrown whats in text books down the gurgler.

A simplistic view I know, but aren’t the men of the Wermacht considered to be just soldiers fighting for their Country as opposed to the fanatical Nazi’s who were hell bent on genocide? If so, why are the men of Bomber Command now vilified for the perceived mistakes made by their leadership? They carried out their orders to the best of their ability and I, as well as many others, are extremely glad of their service and sacrifice. I once knew a Flight Engineer who had done a tour on Lancasters. He heard of my interest (I worked with his daughter) and he asked me round to look at some of his old photographs. He was a generally happy man, proud of his family and of his service. But as he showed me the photographs he came across one of their bombing photo’s. His hand clenched and dug into the photograph, creasing it. Tears were in his eyes as he asked me whether I thought he was a bad person because he had bombed German Towns and Cities. I told him that he had only to look at his Grandchildren to realise that he had fought on the side of right.

Dresden. An always emotive issue. But let’s just say that those who believe Dresden was a city with minor military and industrial presence are correct. But how is that different to the town of Willenhall whose residential areas were hit by the Luftwaffe resulting in a number of deaths? The only difference is scale. And believe me, if the Luftwaffe could have had 500 aircraft drop their bombs on Willenhall they would have. I’ve read somewhere that something in the region of 600,000 German civilians died as a result of the Allied bombing. But how many died in total as a result of the German aggression which began on 1st September 1939?

I’m surprised that no-one has yet managed to revise history to paint the German Nation and Hitler as the innocent victims of the Second World War.

Regards,

kev35