i raise you iBot.
Damduster bickering thread
- Thread starter Sankari
- Start date
i raise you iBot.
Yes, I rather think it did...
For any given 100 aircrew in Bomber Command, 1939-1945,
the statistical breakdown was:
Killed on operations 51
Killed in crashes in England 9
Seriously injured 3
Prisoner of War 12
Evaded capture 1
Survived unharmed 24
Why is this thread even in GD? Surely it should be moved to the speakers corner? The OP obviously has a massive chip on his shoulder for some reason and despite not having lived through WW2 (hence has no right to judge anyone) decided to go on a rampage!
Leave GD free for useless threads and youtube videos. Take your views to speakers corner or go and live in a war zone for a year and come back and post again so you at least have a slight feeling how anyone felt 60 years or so ago.
Leave GD free for useless threads and youtube videos. Take your views to speakers corner or go and live in a war zone for a year and come back and post again so you at least have a slight feeling how anyone felt 60 years or so ago.
Given the accuracy of normal bombing the 66% success rate of the Dambusters was light years in front of the rest of the RAF/USAAF. Even in 1943 the strategic bombing campaign was barely effective (amount of damage vs resources expended).
Given a normal 300 bomber raid would have lost about 9 planes (3% losses) and given the relative effect on productivity 617 squadron was at least as effective as a other squadrons in the lead up to the operation.
The problem, even in 1943, was the spin. The post operational photo rec material was great copy which was used to the full by the RAF. At the time (May 1943) the Germans had been kicked out of North Africa (with 250k surrendered). The RN was in the process of finally breaking the strangle hold the submarine held in the North Atlantic (40 subs sunk in one month) after nearly losing the battle in April. The RAF wanted something to use to keep their share of the resources, particularly with something WSC would absolutely love.
Boom your dead, sorry Skyfall nothing personal and all but you were stood too close to that important piece of infrastructure.
Now to all those who think I lost the plot that is really the way it happens, not by design but Skyfall could have been in the way of a legitimate target, he was never meant to be killed but as luck would have it he posted right before me so got in the way. Same for workers and civilians in war time its nothing personal it happens high explosive dose not just break machines and factories or bridges and roads it kills. If the workers or civilians are in the way because they work or are close by its not their fault or the fault of the aggressor its just war and unfortunate.
Now Skyfall sorry mate I just needed to illustrate my statement, dust yourself off and walk away from the premature death I just dealt you.
Now there's a question, in total war if either side had a weapon that only destroyed the infrastructure and didn't harm the workers (eg something like an EM pulse) would they use it? Would a country still use weapons to kill civilians then and now?
IMO yes, as some of you have been arguing people are part of the war effort, that's part of the reason indiscriminate bombing on both sides (Coventry and Dresden) occured and I think will occur again if we have another 'total' war.
It is very hard to have morals in war, generally that's something that will make you lose. Nuremburg, yes german officers were sentenced for war crimes, that doesn't mean there were no war crimes on both sides. History is written by the victors, be that missions that were actually failures or war crimes that were brushed under the carpet. This happed hundreds of years ago and will happen in hundreds of years time. That's the thing about war, even though we fight with different weapons and for 'different' reasons war is essentially the same and will be the same for ever more.
Give some examples of what the Axis did that we (the allies) didn't do..
The immediate example (which I assume you allude to by using genocide) is the internment and murder of Jews/Gypsies/disabled/... If so that doesn't count, as that wasn't a result of the war as such but a 'pet' project of Hitlers. In fact it actually helped the allies in the long run by tying up soldiers who could have been fighting the allies and by reducing the fighting population, almost all of the (german and some others) people in concentration camp would probably have fought for Germany if there wasn't such a hatred of Jews in Germany brought about partly by Hitler.
In fact it could possibly be argued that the ones with the worst morals militarily were the Allies. There is no comparison with the Axis for the test which killed hundreds of thousands of people.. The Atomic bombs dropped on Japan, which it is widely argued were a test to see which design was better... There was almost no real military reason for the dropping them, as Evangelion showed the Japanese almost certainly would have surrendered very soon after, and maybe even before the bombs were dropped, without dropping them.
Add to that the firebombing of Dresden and other German cities in the closing days of the war, again which Germany had no real answer for morally. They are widely regarded as possible war crimes and as a blight on 'Bomber' Harris's distinguished career. If a completely neutral party had come in and handled the Nuremburg trials it wouldn't just have been Germans that were hung and imprisoned, a similar number of people from our side (taking out the ones done for the holocaust) would have been dealt with to. One could argue fairly strongly that the only reason we think we did morally more right in WW2 is because we won, and thus were able to write the history...
Now having said all that I am not trying to besmurch the reputations of lots of Allied men and women, but I am trying to point out that morals are to an extent a luxury in total war, especially for the loosing side. They did what they did because they had to, and should be judged on the effect and morals of the time (In the same way most germans during WW2 should be).
Associate
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Agreed. This happened over 60 years ago and regardless of what your family did during the war if you werent there at that time who the hell do you think you are to judge. Put simply we can look at facts all day and google all day long but the point being we were'nt there. I'm sad for any lost of life but its war and on top of that it happened before you were a thought in your grandads eye. So keep googling away and become a pointless arm chair war hero for no reason. I think simply I wasnt there and how the hell should I judge not knowing what happened at the time. War world 2 was horrible for everyone one; right or wrong to a degree. Look at Stalin, Hitler,Mussolini, Churchill. Trueman.Hirohito none of them did the right thing everytime. So really whats the point of this op to point out the failings of a mission over 60 years ago...... welll done...... please start a whats wrong for ww2 thread with everything that went right or wrong and we're see a 1000000 page thread with views from everyone. This could lead on to every war as well. GOOD LUCK AND GOOD NIGHT
Yea genocide is great!
genocide. what genocide. It was a war.What a load of rubbish. This thread shows many people to day simply can't comprehend and couldn't fight in a world war. It shows nothing more. Calling us scoundrels is also calling the people who fought scoundrels and imo is very disrespectful.
You obviously don't have the mental capacity to comprehended what has and needed to be done so why get your knickers in a twist.
Man of Honour
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You have to throw out patriotism and give a ballanced view, that ballanced view is,
In WW2 both sides practiced area bombing to take out essential industry and infrastructure. Both sides did take into account that civilians maybe involved and did take measures to try and avoid civilian deaths. Both sides also ran missons that were indescriminate in order to cause maximum death and destruction. The later were thankfully less often and numerous than the first but both happened. No pilots/crew or planners took pleasure in the planning of missons that imposed certain death upon populations of civilians. The weighted measure of gain versus collateral damage/loss of aircraft and crew was always implemented and then the decision taken for whastever operation to go ahead. In short the people that you seem to be putting down are not the mass killers you portray. They were doing the hardest of jobs in the most difficult of circumstances and do for the most part deserve all our respects regardless of which side they fought on.
Exactly what I was thinking. We should have just rolled over, invited them and put out the red carpet when they landed on the shores. That way we wouldn't have done anything that could be considered "wrong". I say "we", I don't mean we at all as I don't have a right to say that considering I wasn't around, I have nothing but respect for our servicemen and women, of any era.
To be fair the OP posted a contentious statement in a thread named specificaly because he expected to start an arguement.
That said, whilst we're coming up with random quotes let's go with "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". A luxury we have today due to the actions of the british people and her allies during the second world war. It's nice to be able sit back now and second guess hard decisions made under the most desperate of circumstances.
Personaly nothing i've read in this thread changes my opinions on the topic, and I'd urge anyone interested to read Enemy coast ahead, written by Guy Gibson, in 1944 before being killed in action. It's an interesting and sometimes emotional first hand account of the life of Gibson and his crews during the war, and the language gives a real insight into the attitudes and feelings of the time.
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I would recommend that you all read a book called Bomber Boys, I forget the name or the author. I am reading it currently. Basically tells of the RAF's role in the Second World War. Its dedicated to all those that never came back (Roughly 47% of ALL the bomber crews). I am currently reading it, and its fascinating. Its all well and good looking from our eyes, but as rightly said, it was a war. The crews who did the bombing did it because the alternative sometimes was to be shot for treason.
Man of Honour
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I largely agree with you, there are plenty people here who are too busy being patriotic to apply some logic.
Good on you for starting the thread, it's a valid viewpoint and I partly agree.
That we feel the need to specifically remember a small, (at best) moderately successful attack which killed not only civilians but allied personel while achieving very little in the long term is strange. Particularly given that it could be called a war crime today (though I'd note, Britain signed that bit of the Geneva convention with various caveats - bascially we'll do our best to avoid it). We don't have a day we remember how we bombed dresden, the German don't have a day when they remember bombing coventry, so why exactly??
I don't think the OP was actually an OP as such.
I think it was split from the main thread about the Dambuster anniversary by a mod.
