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Out Of The Ashes

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anotheoldgit | 10:07 Fri 13th Feb 2015 | History
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I find these "before and after" types of photo displays fascinating. The statue of Martin Luther King didn't fare as well as the previous two statues in the series, although one had lost part of its hand. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that some of the crews of Bomber Command were close to refusing to go on this mission. Is this correct?
Martin Luther King? Lol.
Amazing images,thanks AOG
Ouch...It just realized it too:)
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aog
There is a great series of books entitled "After the Battle" which contains thousands of "then and now "photographs covering many theatres of war.
Saw something similar to your post a couple of days ago with the slide effect concerning D-Day prep and the French towns/villes involved during the inland thrust.
Thanks, divebuddy.
Divebuddy
Thanks for a good link.Should dispel a few myths about that "evil butcher"
I say should but probably it won't.
I think, if anything, a very few aircrew had misgivings after the raid, when they heard of the casualties of war, but not before it.
I think their misgivings before the raid were if they would be still be alive to be able to eat their bacon and eggs on return to base.
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"Bomber" Harris was just doing his job. The problem is that this job should not really have been given to him, or at least should have been scaled back somewhat. Credit to the bravery of the Bomber crews -- one of the most hazardous jobs in the War, in terms of fatality rate, I believe -- but incidents like Dresden are, at the very least, regrettable.
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This is slightly off topic, but interesting. Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, CinC of Fighter Command, was the brother of George Mallory who many claim (excluding Hillary of course) was the first person to reach the top of Everest. Ironically, both were "killed" by a mountain: Trafford-Leigh crashed into the French Alps, and George died on Everest.
A.O.G. Please Excuse me for asking Stuey this Q, Stuey a Imitation Rolex, the value, I have been offered, Cheers.
Air Marshal Sir Arthur (Bomber) Harris said, "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
And darn-well right, too! Of course we should commemorate the magnificent work the men of Bomber Command did in World War II and let German objectors and British "Dresden whiners" alike lump it!

For Harris's backing-source, see the King James Bible, Hosea Chapter 8 Verse 7, "For they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind."
Reap it they did and with no one to blame but themselves!
That's one way of looking at it QM but I don't agree at all. "The Nazis" were, for the most part, not the victims of the bombing. Ordinary German citizens were. Including children who never had a say.

I don't think anyone should feel pleased about what comes in War. It's always sad, horrible, destructive. The victims of incidents like Dresden shouldn't be regarded as having deserved it just for being German.

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Jim 360, I was born before the war and lived with my family in a small fishing-town in north-east Scotland. It was bombed more than once - presumably as a target of opportunity - by the Germans.
I neither know nor care whether the bomber-crews were just Germans or Nazis or both; what I do know is that several people, including children like myself at the time, died about a hundred yards from our front door as a result of their activity. Don't tell me about Dresdeners who didn't deserve to die, because nor did our neighbours!
No, they did not. I'm so sorry that you have to live through that. I can't accept, however, that the one justifies the other.

We'll just have to agree to differ, then, Jim.
I am, of course, delighted that all now seems forgiven and (largely) forgotten; the cross - presented by a British sculptor - atop the main church in Dresden is a wonderful symbol of that. However, people like me, who lived through it, are still about and continue to take the view that "ye maun dree yer weird", as old Scots has it...ie endure your fate or reap what you sow.
stuey - // I vaguely remember reading somewhere that some of the crews of Bomber Command were close to refusing to go on this mission. Is this correct? // Dresden was largely unBombed a bit like Hiroshima and Nagasaki - geddit ? it was ear marked as city to be razed with an atomic bomb but the bomb wasnt ready

The crews came back and said they WOULD refuse to go on another

and and their commanders ( as the Germans said today: if you want to end a war, you flatten a city like Dresden and th war ends quicker than if you leave it ) said if you do that it will be mutiny

and it was basically hammered out that the crews wouldnt be asked to flatten another city like that -[ note there werent any left ]

Very obvious from comments today

ENglish very conscious it MAY have been a war crime
German - Germany had obviously lost the war by that time and no one had told the High Command.

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