They felt shame at the time, even as they were trousering the vast profits. That’s why so many churches close to the old dockside in Bristol were built or renovated by wealthy but ageing slave traders by way of “fire insurance”, if you catch my drift.

It’s odd, though, that some of the pundits complaining loudest about this apology are the very same people who insist that the Japanese should formally apologise for their atrocities in WW2.

Maybe I’ll understand humans one day…… :rolleyes:

Not wishing to get on anyone’s goat here but… the UK abolished slavery of it’s own volition at a time when it was probably the most powerful country in the world. The Japanese and Germans had to be bombed into submission for their slaves to be freed…

I’m not commenting on the Aboriginal issue as I know little of it. Nor am I saying that ‘Empire UK’ gave up its slaves for entirely selfless reasons or did so without dissent or that the UK is now some kind of multi-ethnic utopia – clearly not.

Rather that the country’s policy-makers eventually evolved a more enlightened stance on bonded labour thanks in no small part to democracy and the free speech exercised by its citizens.

Thus, I think a distinction can be drawn between the UK and the former Axis powers on this issue at least… when it came to slavery we eventually something about it. When it came to extermination camps… we did something about that too.

MM640. This was on the way back from Germany, then shot down over Norfolk.

Hi Dave

Interesting story… and a casual inquiry… do you know the circumstances of him being shot down over Norfolk? Was it an intruder, friendly fire or a crash as a result of damage on the raid?

March ’45 is very late in the war so I guess he was very unfortunate to be shot down over home turf.

A more general question to the forum… were intruders very active over the UK at this point in the war?

Thanks

Seb/lmisbtn

Two more not previously mentioned…

1. Barton Aerodrome 1984-ish P-51D Mustang 2/3 replica

2/3 replica Mustang crashed after failing to recover from a roll. IIRC the aircraft was being flown by a former Red Arrows pilot but the aircraft was not certified for aerobatic manouevres and the engine cut out at the top of a roll (fuel starvation?) – the a/c failed to recover and went vertically into a boggy field on the far side of the aerodrome. I remember the engine revving (restarting?) on the way down as the pilot tried to recover. There was no explosion just a big pile of dirt/debris thrown up. Sadly, the pilot was killed.

2. BAe Woodford – 1988-89-ish? Supermarine Spitfire

Spit hit the ground after completing a loop (I believe it was a loop but may have been a roll? – so much for eyewitness accounts). I remember just about seeing the upper wing roundels as I looked at the aircraft from about the 7 o’clock position – I was at the opposite end of the flight line). I believe the aircraft impacted tail first – slightly nose-up, a catastrophic explosion followed momentarily and the pilot was killed. Sad – he almost got away with it.

Don’t know whether the cause was pilot error or a loss of power at the vital moment… but I do remember I was sitting on the grass two minutes before the accident not even looking at the plane when the engine seemed to backfire/splutter for a moment. He was probably just throttling back or doing something else entirely routine but it caught my attention and I watched the rest of the display thus witnessing the sad conclusion – otherwise I’d still have been staring into space – weird.

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Saw the vintage pair go down at Mildenhall and it seemed to me like a bit of wind-shear caused one plane to hit the other – sheer bad luck (?) My memory of the incident is pretty dim… was anything else ever decided?