RE: Flypast get together?

As soon as Ashley has done her research we will be off! I am hoping for 4th or 5th January…..then I can make it.

>Ashley,
>
>thank you for that. It’s nice to hear the idea is still
>being looked at. My thanks to yourself and Tony for the
>efforts you are making to see if you can pull this off.
>
>Regards,
>
>kev35

RE: Just for a change

Very nice Geedee!

Nice to see some rote stuff for a change. Looks (from the angle of your shot of the Wessex at Boscombe Down) that you and I stood side by side at a Boscombe families day! Did you get a piccie of the splendid job the fireman at putting out the Dove ‘fire’?!

regards from an elated Tony who acquired a Belvedere grip today!!

RE: Bombing of Edinburgh in Scotland during WW2 (Edinburgh area)

The first Bombing raid (9 Ju88s of 1/KG30)on UK territory was on shipping Firth Of Forth, Monday Oct 16 1939, incidentally HMS Edinburgh was damaged.

The best books for this are ‘The Blitz Then & Now’ Vol 1,2 &3.
I have all three volumes and there are many Edinburgh entries

regards

Tony

RE: Radio Times ‘Dambusters’ letter…

Chaps

the war is still emotive to many people. I have a friend who will never forgive the Japanese who despatched his uncle in an unspeakably hideous way. There are also many many tales of atrocities committed by the Germans in the war. It is obvious that they do feel bad about it (like I do about some of the things the Brits did over the centuries). No way should we hold modern Germany to task all the time over the war. I am the last person to bash modern day Germany or Japan as we are friends now. Unfortunately though, we (the world) are not good at learning from our mistakes…witness recent genocide in the world and Europe. The lady did make my blood boil as the Dambuster story is part of modern British history…..if you will indulge me, the following is what I sent to RT…..

“I thought that I had to reply to Britta Sporkmann’s letter in the last/latest excellent copy of RT. She complains about the Dambusters film and it being a very effective propaganda film 60 years ago and in this 21st Century should be left on ‘dusty archive shelf’. Well, no Ms Sporkmann I could not disagree more. The brave feat by the Dambusters should never be underestimated or forgotten. Sure the film is triumphant and has stirring music but we Brits are proud of our past and our brave boys who turned the tide against nazism. The Dams raid took the war to the enemy, stirred the British people and brought a ray of light in those dark days. Yes, 1600 German people regrettably died not to mention the 617 Squadron Lancaster crews (part of 56000 Bomber Command war dead and a similar mount of US bomber crews) but imagine how many were saved by the possible shortening of the war? In this 21st century it is important that we stamp genocide, fascism, racism, intolerance and inhumanity. In Europe we are quite rightly friends now and that is great. But we must not forget that nazism accounted for over 28million deaths, that is the lesson we all must learn and pass down to our children. We must not repeat those mistakes. However, heroic feats such as the Dams raids and the Battle of Britain show that even in despair there is hope.”

regards

Tony

>Steve ,
> I did’nt mean to offend and apologise if I did , however
>I would like to point out that there is no mention of the
>Holocaust in any German secondary school History syllabus ,
>I worked with a few Germans for a period of 10 years and the
>only real knowledge they had of the Holocaust was self
>learnt from books and articles they read themselves , this
>is probably because that most Germans of the last generation
>knew of the existence of these camps and German industry
>took advantage of the cheap labour that 14 “death ” camps
>and 41 Concentration camps provided – it’s also a sad fact
>that 2 of the biggest users of forced labour -AG Bayer and
>Siemens are still major employers in Germany.It’s only in
>the past 15 years that books such as Olga Lengyels “Seven
>Chimneys” and “Hitlers Willing Executioners” were even
>printed in German .The Japanese have the same self denial
>attached to their own history too – the Second World war is
>not even mentioned in ANY Japanese schooling – although the
>Japanese/Russian War is.
> Britain too shows some signs of self denial , prominent
>Jews were interned on the Isle of Man and were not allowed
>to join British regiments they could only serve in “alien “
>units , also , Britain was the first user of “Concentration
>camps ” during the Boer War , this also is barely touched
>apon in the British history syllabus , we tend to hear of
>the siege of Mafeking and other historical highlights , very
>rarely ( if ever ) do we ever read in any British historical
>literature of the thousands of Boers and native African who
>were starved to death or died from Cholera in these camps.
>However I do appreciate that the Flypast Forum is not the
>place to bring up or debate European History so I do
>apologise , I’ll stick to aviation from now on .
>
>Alastair