OT: traitors in high places

[Bill Wright]

I see the Bomber Command memorial has been vandalised again. The memorial salutes the 58,000 people who died so that we could remain free. The memorial has been vandalised four times in six years. Why has this been allowed to happen? This is a sacred site; of enormous significance to the nation. All decent citizens feel an enormous debt to the fallen.

Why have none of these vandals been caught? This should have been a priority. There's CCTV all over London. It seems inconceivable that this shocking act could have been carried out without the perpetrators appearing on CCTV.

Could it be that the authorities just don't see this as an important crime? Do they regard it as just normal vandalism? Or worse, is there an internationalist element amongst the powers-that-be that would rather the heroes of our nation's past be quietly forgotten? Is this just more evidence that there are traitors in our midst?

Bill

[Robin]

I commned the motto "Keep Calm and Search the Web". The spokesman from the RAF Benevolent Fund said yesterday that several had previously been caught and sentenced. Eg

[Brian Gaff]

I don't think its any conspiracy, its a generational problem. As you say many people do not see property damage as serious as it can be fixed. they do not have a box on their logging software that says sight of cultural importance, I'd imagine so its just criminal damage like when some drunken mob kicks your garden lights around the street at night in the belief they are footballs. Brian

[harry]

We need to bring back whipping for such as these.

[T i m]

I thought I saw on TV the other day that some graves of gang leaders (abroad) were monitored by CCTV (kit tied to trees etc) because they were getting vandalised by victims families.

I fear there is more of a threat from upsetting yer local Mafia than the Police or ordinary citizens. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[michael adams]

Bomber Command have always been unfortunate. I doubt if any of the aircrew chose bombers when they joined the RAF. Doubtless they'd have preferred to be flying Spitfires and Hurricanes among the glamour boys and be remembered as being among the "Few to whom so much was owed.

Instead they were posted to an arm which suffered the highest attrition rate by far, an incredible 44%, of any allied service in World War 2. Only the Russians and Germans would ever exceed this

And yet they were subject to controversy and opprobrium at the time when the results of firebombing German cities became known. Simply for carrying out a strategy ordained by their political masters.

And yet - and this is from the Telegraph which one might had no particular wishing to blacken Churchill's name

" Bomber Command suffered the highest casualty rate of the British Armed Forces in the Second World War, losing 55,573 of the 125,000 who served. ... In his V-E Dayspeech, Winston Churchill, the prime minister, pointedly omitted to mention the contribution made by Bomber Command."

The role of Bomber Command in WW2 has always been controversial, like it or not.

Maybe this latest bout of vandalism is the result of ignorant louts who knew no better; who's to say ?

What isn't in any doubt is that Winston Churchill was in full possession of the facts when he chose to turn his back on Bomber Command in his VE day speech.

Thank you Bill for bringing this to my attention. I've always tried to take a balanced view on Churchill. But insofar as his dealings with the RAF were concerned his shabby treatment of Dowding was bad enough, but this really puts the icing on the cake for me.

michael adams

...

[Chris Green]

Very doubtful if the blanket bombing of Germany helped us "remain free". I'm not saying that we shouldn't remember those who died in the process though.

[TimW]

Harry you moron, the previous cases of vandalism against this memorial were done by your mates- right wing racist nutters trying to whip up hatred against Muslims. Maybe you should be birched as well? TW

[harry]

Well the Germans started it in Poland and Holland. Even in WW1 they shelled seaside resorts and bombed London with Zeppelins.

[Cursitor Doom]

We don't need any more evidence.

[Vir Campestris]

The bombing of Germany was carried out to the greatest accuracy possible at the time. Which means they usually got the right city.

I think the damage done to Nazi factories, and the manpower this diverted from the "front line", were crucial to winning the war.

They shall not grow old.

Andy

[michael adams]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a convenient smokescreen to obscure the fact that From January 1944 until August 1945, the U.S. dropped 157,000 tons of bombs on Japanese cities, according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. It estimated that 333,000 people were killed, including the 80,000 killed in the Aug. 6 Hiroshima atomic bomb attack and 40,000 in Nagasaki three days later..

So that's 210,000 killed in "conventional" firebombing raids over conducted over

18 months which completely laid waste to residential areas largely consisting of wooden buildings; and 120.000 killed by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki "outrages".

michael adams

[charles]

It is interesting to note that, when we visited Dresden a few years ago (2013), the aviation part of the transport museum had photographs of air raid damage to London, Coventry & Rotterdam as well as one of Dresden.

[harry]

Link? Or just something else you made up?

[Martin Brown]

Some of them have been in the past and were sentenced see link below.

Did he actually go to jail or was it suspended?

[harry]

Where does it mention that he was "right wing"?

[harry]

Do you really think a member of the EDL would vandalise a memorial to defenders of England?

[Halmyre]

Yes, because they're stupid. Almost as stupid as those who equate England to the UK, and who describe Bomber Command* as 'defenders'.

(from a purely technical point of view, Bomber Command was not a 'defensive' organisation)