Max Hastings: Says political correctness has denied wartime bomber crews the honour they deserve
... For decades, they have been seeking recognition of the special and terrible nature of their war.
In 1945, along with everybody else who flew, they were awarded the Aircrew Europe campaign medal.
Yet transport crews and even fighter pilots suffered only a fraction of their casualties.
"Harris's old lags" — as they called themselves with defiant pride after their leader Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris — want a Bomber Command campaign medal, to commemorate those who took the war to Hitler's Germany when no soldiers could.
A 1940 Battle of Britain medal was struck for "the Few".
Why was nothing similar done for the men of Bomber Command, whose own contribution to victory was purchased at the cost of vastly higher losses?
The answer, of course, is that even in 1945 when officialdom issued campaign "gongs", bombing had become a sensitive issue.
Winston Churchill sought to distance himself from the destruction of Dresden.
Once victory was achieved, the allied occupiers of Germany, gazing upon its shattered cities, were seized by misgivings about whether such carnage had been necessary.
"Bomber" Harris, Commander-in- Chief of Bomber Command, was an obsessively single-minded officer, who — unlike the politicians — never sought to disguise what his aircraft were doing.
"I would not regard the remaining cities of Germany," he wrote contemptuously in March 1945, "as worth the bones of one British grenadier."
During a war of national survival, Harris's qualities proved invaluable.
But once peace came, once the world enjoyed the luxury of allowing softer and more civilised values to reassert themselves, Harris's elemental commitment to destruction became an embarrassment.
"A considerable commander," Churchill in old age said of his bomber supremo, "but there was a certain coarseness about him."
Harris was offered no peerage by the 1945 Labour Government, though almost all the nation's other commanders received titles.
The survivors of his squadrons — "the few" indeed, compared with those who had perished, took home the same "gong" as aircrew who had flown "milk runs".
This seemed unjust in 1945, and even more so now....
Read entire article at Daily Mail
In 1945, along with everybody else who flew, they were awarded the Aircrew Europe campaign medal.
Yet transport crews and even fighter pilots suffered only a fraction of their casualties.
"Harris's old lags" — as they called themselves with defiant pride after their leader Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris — want a Bomber Command campaign medal, to commemorate those who took the war to Hitler's Germany when no soldiers could.
A 1940 Battle of Britain medal was struck for "the Few".
Why was nothing similar done for the men of Bomber Command, whose own contribution to victory was purchased at the cost of vastly higher losses?
The answer, of course, is that even in 1945 when officialdom issued campaign "gongs", bombing had become a sensitive issue.
Winston Churchill sought to distance himself from the destruction of Dresden.
Once victory was achieved, the allied occupiers of Germany, gazing upon its shattered cities, were seized by misgivings about whether such carnage had been necessary.
"Bomber" Harris, Commander-in- Chief of Bomber Command, was an obsessively single-minded officer, who — unlike the politicians — never sought to disguise what his aircraft were doing.
"I would not regard the remaining cities of Germany," he wrote contemptuously in March 1945, "as worth the bones of one British grenadier."
During a war of national survival, Harris's qualities proved invaluable.
But once peace came, once the world enjoyed the luxury of allowing softer and more civilised values to reassert themselves, Harris's elemental commitment to destruction became an embarrassment.
"A considerable commander," Churchill in old age said of his bomber supremo, "but there was a certain coarseness about him."
Harris was offered no peerage by the 1945 Labour Government, though almost all the nation's other commanders received titles.
The survivors of his squadrons — "the few" indeed, compared with those who had perished, took home the same "gong" as aircrew who had flown "milk runs".
This seemed unjust in 1945, and even more so now....