Jul
20
Bomber Boys
Filed Under Airline | 3 Comments
I guess any kid fascinated by aviation who grew up around the time I did would be drawn to the exploits of the RAF during the ‘last war’. The veterans were plentiful in our community, we had one lovely, calm man that worked in our local hardware store who had suffered terrible burns across his face and hands. I never heard him mention the war or his injuries, he seemed to focus on making the youngsters around him laugh at his silly stories. Berlin and months in German hospitals fighting for life were to him just something that happened long ago. Keep calm, carry on seems to have been the quiet mantra of his generation.
We have seen many books about the Bomber offensive against Germany written by those who took part, occasional one stands out as exceptional like Australian Don Charlwood’s – No Moon Tonight. A superb personal history that moved me to visit the the village that bears his name on the outskirts of Gatwick airport. The church is beautiful, his ancestors sleep there still.
Bomber Boys is a very different being a documentary history rather than a personal story, but there is a connection with the characters in the conflict which for me applies colour (often missing) from books of this sort. Despite it being a sobering read I really enjoyed it and would recommend it. Patrick Bishop is a superb writer with a real grasp of his history. He perfectly captures the essence of the conflict and the post war fallout.
Bomber Command – the assault on the German Cities.
It was a titanic struggle over four years, building progressively over the span of the conflict the scale of the destruction was appalling. Massive air raids killed hundreds on the ground but this built to tens of thousands as until the strategic bombing machine under the directorship of ‘Bomber Harris’ refined its techniques to a macabre efficiency. The assaults became battles as the defensive systems both on the ground and in the air took their toll – and what a toll.
Dresden was the most infamous with Hamburg being the first of the systematic destructions of ancient, in some cases medieval, timber structured cities. Contemplating the ruin of priceless cultural centres now sends a shiver down the spine, but it is the scale of the slaughter that is truly numbing. Contemporary estimates of civilian casualties on the ground at Dresden were put at between 25-40,000. Later research conducted by the city itself produced a figure nearer 25,000. Identifying and disposing of such numbers under the stressed conditions of war and aerial assault was difficult, most were burnt and buried in mass graves afterwards. Were does our humanity go in wartime?
The art of precision target marking with spectacular colored illuminations by the Pathfinder force followed by pounding night after night with mixed loads of high explosive and incendiary canisters during the summer created a vision straight from Hades below as the firestorm swept temperatures up into the thousands of degrees. There was precious little mercy available on those dark nights made bright. It is clear that individuals both in the aircraft and Parliament had their misgivings but in the end everyone did their duty in the name of a shortened war with victory at the end of it.
Looking back, the political fallout and the sheer scale of destruction that became apparent after the invasion caught everyone short. Bomber Command and its aircrew were quietly (some would say diplomatically) forgotten in the name of repairing relationships and reconstruction. To this day those involved in the conflict feel dispossessed and unrewarded for some of the most arduous service performed by fighting men during war.
More than 55,000 aircrew lost their lives during the bombing campaigns, a chilling figure. It represents a life expectancy below that of an infantry officer on the Western Front during the first World War and expressed as a percentage of those involved, represents a loss of between 50% and 65% of those who took part (depending on which stats you count in).
I look back at my old geography teacher in a different way these days, Mr Guthrie was another gentle, quiet soul with great presence. He spent his war sitting in a freezing draft looking out into the black night. He was a rear gunner in a Lancaster.
The defense of those cities during day and night over two years is a truly amazing story and one that has still to be explored and acknowledged. The raw courage and tenacity produced by the remnants of the Luftwaffe fighter arm is one of the largely unrealized stories of the air war in Europe.
Thanks for the book suggestions! I first learned about what happened in Dresden when reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, which is fiction but incorporates many elements that Vonnegut himself experienced while held prisoner in Dresden at the time of the bombings.
Thanks Julien,
Slaughterhouse 5 is on my list to read. The view from below from one so eloquent must be extremely valuable, maybe even devastating.
Read and enjoyed it.