No but, yes but…..

I don’t actually think this is a serious proposal. Given the recession, the museums that we have are going to struggle as it is.

Two things mentioned that I think are good ideas;- :diablo:

1. Civil Museum. We don’t really have a museum dedicated to light Civil Types.
2. Period Airfield. This may yet come to pass for a Great War a/d, but it’d be great to see a complete RAF aerodrome. We have some that come close, but it doesn’t take much to break the spell. If it had hangars and could support flying as well as static – why not…. Of course, the grasping local councils are a huge impediment. I’ve seen so many possible candidates destroyed. At the current rate of attrition, there will be nothing rescuable left soon.

Not many people are going to make risky investments at the moment however….! 🙂

Ah…

I don’t know, – but just don’t get your UID’s and your IUD’s confused….:diablo:

Bang On Target.

I was looking forward to seeing this program, with, as usual, a certain amount of trepidation. Most of these documentaries end-up disappointing. Often, they are shallow, dumbed-down and ill-informed. In this case, I was much pleased. It also managed to avoid the use of a bunch of fat middle-aged men prancing around in RAF kit, which seems to bedevil many documentaries. In truth, they were all so very, very young. Most had hardly been kissed. Boys of perhaps eighteen or nineteen, flying into the very jaws of oblivion, who probably didn’t have a licence to drive a car.
The unveiling of the excellent new Memorial to Bomber Command was vastly overdue. Sadly, it comes too late for the many who passed-away, still bitter at their treatment. In my experience, it wasn’t what the old lags said, it was what they did not say that was significant. They held their peace, and carried-on, just as they did on those dark nights over Europe….
As something of a cynic in most matters, especially anything that politicians have had their grubby hands in, yesterday was like a breath of fresh air. Even the weather-gods smiled, and the Lanc’, arriving exactly on time with her bomb-doors open just creased me. Was it me, or was there a gasp from the gathered congregation..?
Having read through the comments here, there are some excellent points made. I would, as briefly as possible (:p), like to comment on two of them.

Labour;-
The voting-in of the Labour government after the war always used to baffle me. I’ve known many who voted at that time, most of whom, if not baffled, were greatly offended by ‘the way Churchill was treated’. As the years have passed, I’ve come to realise that, just as the Great War led to a huge leap forward in the emancipation of women, the Second World War led to a similar leap in the emancipation of the working-classes. A HUGE factor in this, often ignored, was the USA. There were a lot of Americans here, and they made a big impression. British folks had been watching American films for years. Viewed from the grey, cold rationed dystopian environment of the UK, America seemed almost utopian. Many who had fought in the Second World War had also grown-up in the Great Recession, and had known hardships far beyond that which we are currently experiencing with the failure and inevitable demise of the Euro. I do not see children barefoot in rags, nor old servicemen begging on street corners today.
Everyone wanted a new world. Of course, they didn’t get it, and turned back to their hero, Winston Churchill once again. By this time he was old, ill and tired. A great wartime leader he certainly was. His grasp of the dynamics of conflict was terrific. As a peacetime leader, well, perhaps he wasn’t so well-suited. It’s my opinion that the voters jumped-ship too soon. Given the problems with Russia, Churchill was still the right man, at least for a term.
What is quite touching, is that despite Churchill’s unarguable betrayal of Bomber Command, most Old Lags remained indignant about his ejection from power until the day they died. Loyalty was second nature to them.

Dresden;-
The way the program last night dealt with Dresden has to stand-out as by far the most accurate and logical treatment I have seen on the TV in recent times. So much utter and complete rubbish has been uttered on this subject, that it’s sometimes hard to crawl-over the myths and lies to see the truth, -and the true context. Clearly, many others on here feel similarly.
No, it wasn’t Harris’s idea.
Yes, it was mainly as a direct request, and general pressure from our allies, the Soviets.
Yes, it was no different to many other raids preceding it.
Yes, the USAAF bombed it too, just as they used area-bombing with incendiaries to great effect in Japan.
Was the result horrific? Of course, but then again, the enemy had the opportunity to surrender.
Yes, every day that passed, thousands more were murdered or killed on the battlefield. (Remember, over 20,000,000 Soviets died alone…….)
So, was it justified..? Yes, without any doubt. It’s sad, but it’s a fact.
Harris, who was so often vilified by the ignorant after the war and since, summed it up, and I’m paraphrasing here;- ‘…the enemy bombed us, in the somewhat naive belief that no one would do the same to them. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.’
Bomber Command was not only our only practical way of taking the fight to the enemy for most of the war, but those who have criticised it, in their ignorance, completely fail to understand and take into account it’s effects. Bomber Commands campaign was directly linked to EVERYTHING. It was a HUGE factor in blunting Hitler’s power on the Eastern Front. It hampered his building of equipment for his navy, army and airforce. It disrupted supplies of men and materials, and yes, it helped to destroy moral. It shortened the war by years.
The program more or less ended on the point that I have always found the most telling, and that it Albert Speers opinion on the effects of Bomber Command. He had NO doubts whatsoever. Bomber Command didn’t just win the war, they prevented the potential horror of it being dragged-on for years. Think of the deaths. Imagine all those extermination camps churning-out death for several more years. It was to everyones advantage that the war was ended ASAP. Not least for the German people themselves.
Finally, if the war had dragged-on, the Germans would have perfected the atomic bomb. They also happened to have, thanks to Herr Von Braun, the worlds first and only operational Ballistic Missile.
Dresden then, was something of a full-stop. It happened to be that last big raid. The last act for Bomber Command after years of toil and horrific losses. It was no more, – and no less.

Finally, – and not least;-
There have been those, such as the zealots of CND and their ilk, who have, and still, clothed in stupefying ignorance and a crown of angelic superiority, criticise Bomber Command. To them I say this; ‘You stand here, free to express your views, ONLY because the likes of Bomber Command went out, and died, night after night, after night. They did your dirty work, without which dissenters such as yourselves, would be finding their way, via the Gestapo or it’s decendant, to a ghastly and ignominious end.’
Tolerating hypocrisy has never been one of my strongest points.:rolleyes:

Strike Hard, Strike Sure.

Naaa…

I’m not sure that it’s true to say that the ‘109 was ‘derived from the ‘108 ‘. Same designer, same period, vaguely similar looks. Probably no more than that.
Methinketh idle hands need more work…! :diablo:

Bigger Targets…

A friend of mine flew Coastal Command Liberators during the war. Their prime mission was of course as an anti U-Boat force, to plug the ‘Mid-Atlantic gap’. One of the tools they used, and I believe is still current in principle, – was to drop disposable Sonarbouys. These allowed triangulation onto a submerged sonar taget, whereupon suitable depthcharges would be dropped to destroy the target.
I, of course, had to ask the inevitable question – Had they managed to sink any U-Boats….? The answer was in the negative, ‘We did however kill quite a few Whales’. Apparently, the equipment at that time was unable to descriminate between a U-Boat and a Whale.
Nasty.

Wow.

I don’t think the US entry into WW2 was ever conditional on the attack on Pearl Harbor; although they failed to do so before the attack, to maintain the element of surprise, the Japanese intended to declare war on the US anyway. The attack on Pearl Harbor was part of the Japanese strategy, it wasn’t the whole strategy, and they would have declared war with the attack’s failure (or partial failure), or with the attack’s cancellation and I do not see any circumstances that would allow the US to remain neutral once Japan had declared war on the US; and certainly not in the face of any aggression towards any US territory (which was Japan’s plan).

Also I’m not convinced that had the US known of the attack in advance that they’d have chosen to take their aircraft-carries out of the way; was the importance of aircraft-carriers appreciated by the US before Pearl Harbor? Of course, we know now how vital they were to the Pacific War but until Pearl Harbor what had aircraft-carriers actually achieved in the war (apart from at Taranto)?

That’s a remarkable statement. However it’s also illogical and not supported by the events as they are generally understood. The Japanese were not figuring failure. It was a one-shot strategy, aimed at blunting US power in the Pacific (and the British Empires too) for just long enough to allow the Japanese to get such a firm grip, that the US would decide removing them was simply too impractical – and too expensive.
America, either by design (Probably) or inepitude (Certainly) had pushed Japan into a corner where she felt she (Japan.) had been provoked. America stood in the way of their expansion and seizure of resources to continue their wars etc. Remember also, that the Japs would have been well aware that the so called ‘Volunteers’ flying for the Chinese Nationalist, were, in truth, USAAF personel. It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret.
Roosevelt had an excellent close working relationship with Churchill, after all, Churchill was half-American. Roosevelt was sending as much aid to the UK to help her fight Japans Axis allies as he could. Politically however, the power of the so-called ‘Isolationists’, such as prominent figure and Nazi-sympathiser Charles Lindberg, – hamstringing his desires. The USA had only just about decided to go into the Great War at the last minute, and even then with grave misgivings. After the attack on PH, whether the Japanese had declared war or not was irrellevant. War with America was a done-deal, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. As it happened, there was a diplomatic ****-up, and the attack had already taken place when the Japanese delivered their Declaration of War. Would they have done this if there had been no plan to deliver a ‘knock-out blow’..? No, it’s not credible.
Ultimately, the Japanese misread the Americans as badly as Hitler misread the UK and her determination to stand by (at least some) of her pre-war treaty agreements. The US military had also, it must be remembered, cracked the Japanese Naval codes. The higher levels in US Government had a pretty good idea that war was imminent, that the Japanese Fleet was at sea, and that they were a threat enough to be concerned about. Why wasn’t PH ready..?
Thirty years ago, people were less cynical. Today, whether the contents of Op JB are true or not, they do fit uncannily with the other stories that have emerged.
As for what had been learned about carriers, well, for one thing, Britain had effectively sunk the Bismark with a few outdated biplanes…even if the RN insisted on finishing her off with their nice big shiny guns. I think that the Americans realised that, in the vastness of the Pacific, the carriers offered the only hope of prosecuting their strategic aims.

…. ” ……the Galaxy sprints forward with 170,000 tons of thrust…” Cripes………….it’s been given an overdose of Dilithium Chrstals….!!! ..:)