Bomber Harris - John Thaw Full Movie (BBC 1989)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2023
- Bomber Harris is a 1989 BBC television drama biography based on the life of Arthur Harris, who was Commander-in-chief of RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War.
Starring: John Thaw, Robert Hardy, Frederick Treves, Bernard Kay
A Bomber Command clasp was finally struck in 2013. I received this on behalf of my father, who had completed a full tour. As a bomb aimer he flew missions to the Ruhr, Hamburg and Berlin - not Dresden, though he would have done so if ordered. He died in 1991, still hurt by the cowardice of those who had sent them out to do the job then backed off, denying responsibility. It takes little courage to ask young men to die an early death, even less to deny you did so.
No longer Great British it’s now an invaded country full of foreign scroungers arriving on mass who are bleeding the country dry and no one is doing anything about it..
So true. Unfortunately Churchill was a consummate politician, a lying caniving bastard at times, and got his just deserts in the General Election of 1945 but what he did to Bomber Harris was in my mind unforgivable, he ordered the RAF to burn Dresden and they did, then comes out and follows Eisenhower and Spaatz calling the raid "Terror bombing". Just a two faced arsehole. And Attlee was of the same ilk. It was on his watch that Harris didn't get the knighthood he so deserved not just for himself but those boys who flew the raids from May 1942 until the end of the war, those boys who came back, and the 55,573 boys who perished either on operations or training RIP to all of them. And it was Attlee's government who didn't strike a Bomber Command campaign medal. That ignominy wasn't rectified until 2013. It very ironic that I'm writing this two and a half hours after the latest General Election polling stations closed on 4 the July 2024. Another lot of useless politicians to be chucked out of office, unfortunately the ones who will gain office will be even worse for this country than the last lot. I grieve for the country I was born in70 years ago, just 9 years after the last world war, because it's disappearing down the toilet as we speak.
@@davidmaule3266 I don't think anyone who "sent young men to an early death" ever denied they'd done so - who, for example?
@@John-G The disgusting thing is everybody got religion AFTER they burned Dresden. Perhaps you should read what Harris actually said and gauge the weight of these words: "I ... assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier."
My mother was awarded mention in dispatches for her work in Bomber command. My father, who met my mum after the war was with the Dambuster squadron, 617, as bomb engineer. Worked with Barnes Wallis.
Superb film, John Thaw was a great actor.
Nice to know x
Can you prove it
@@cbrown9555 no need to prove anything
Whatever work she did, hopefully she got a '39-'45 star to go with the MiD as she was fully entitled to it.
Edit: FWIW, Harris tried to get the Dambusters project binned!
@@tudorpottudorpot8423 Good answer, you`re not on trial. Well done to your Mum.
Breaks my heart to see Britain in 2024. 😵💫
Britain is going to have a civil war over Islam within 30 years
Liz Truss tried to save Britain but the Deep State got her just like they got Trump.
@@rtqii
Voicing the idea that Liz Truss could save anything leads to a short one word response.
I left the country in 1980, since then it's only gone downhill (and not because I left).
Amen
So easy for people to criticise who didnt have to live through all out war they were brave men.
yorkshiremen. Yes! I lived through the Blitz, the so-called 'Baby Blitz' (the whole family nearly copped it in that one), and then the V weapons. I have been involved in many spats in comment columns in recent times, because I get sick and tired of all these know alls, who weren't there so haven't the slightest experience of war , telling US what it was like, what we did or didn't do wrong, or what we should or shouldn't have done. Sheer ignorance.
Yes it is very easy to criticize as you and the Americans seem to enjoy wars. Your entire existence has been predicated upon wars. Medieval knights in Scotland, France and Norway. On to colonization in Africa and Asian. The dastardly opium wars with China. The fiasco in the Falklands. The lost generation of young men at Ypres, Somme and Gallipoli. Oh yes, let’s not forget the poets who wrote so grandly about all your dead soldiers. But you can’t stop as the fighting goes on in places the British have no right being or supporting. Yes, war needs to be criticized! Often and loudly.
@@james-pierre7634you sound like an expert. Were you there ? I suggest if you don’t like what our forefathers did you could emigrate and spread your bile elsewhere.
@@james-pierre7634 If you believe in the "out of Africa theory" then you can colonize whats yours.
@@vincekerrigan8300
Yours is a brave generation.
Such injustice that harris and the aircrews were treated like shit for what the government told them to do in the first place
Definitely got a raw deal, left to twist in the wind for Dresden. Especially since he wasn't the sole planner or even the first to suggest it. Its just that the rest were better at covering their asses, using the media first.
@@dokskwyr4353 That's one of the very reasons why my opinion of the British government and it's leaders of that era is lower than what lies at the bottom of a septic tank and stinks far worse!
@@richardcline1337 You could be right.
This actually makes me feel queasy. The shame I feel is indescribable.
Churchill threw him under the bus.
So many young pilots lost their lives defending Britain in those terrifying years,, courage and strength of heart, knowing it could be their last A written letter to love ones in case of a non return. We owe so much to these amazing souls, many suffered survival from their burning planes, plastic surgery was still not advanced as today.l leaving them with horrific scars for life. We must never forget what was. May it never happen again.
Pilots yes. But also Navigators, Flight Engineers, Wireless Operators, WOP/AGs, Bomb Aimers, Air Gunners, and Spec Ops.
John Thaw was so good in the role that I was hooked from the very beginning.
As famous as he was - I still think John Thaw was massively underrated.
Wonderful. My Uncle was the rear gunner in Lanc NG308, 189 Sqn, shot down on the night of 7th March 1945. All the crew got out, one was shot later 'whilst trying to escape,'. My uncle was 22 when all that happened, he died in 1999.
My grandpa was an Army veteran and I could not get him to talk about his experiences. Whenever there was a war movie on the TV he looked very uncomfortable and left the room. I never fully understood how much he was suffering until I heard him having frequent nightmares and occasionally screaming during his sleep.
@@strikerorwell9232Frequently former service personnel will avoid talking about their War Service with their own families and yet they will open up to another service person who is much younger. I had this happen to me on a number of occasions when I used to install wardrobes and home offices in people's homes around Melbourne back in the 90s and early 2000s. When they found out that I had served in the Australian Army Reserve in Signals, they were happy to let slip some details of just what they had done during the war. I managed to meet a man and a woman, at different times, both Signallers from Z Force, the Australian Coast Watchers and Special Commandos and this was 50 plus years after the end of the War. The woman was a Sgt in Signals based here in Melbourne and handling the Top Secret radio traffic from the Coast Watchers and the Commando units operating in South East Asia. The man was a Signaller (at least a Sgt) in PNG behind Japanese lines deep in the jungle on the Bismarck Sea side of PNG, but situated near their two main bases to be able to intercept their radio traffic and then rebroadcast it in code back to Melbourne for decoding, and interpretation. I can't prove it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they must have transmitted to each other at some point during the war and I got to meet them separately 50 and 54 plus years after the war. Now for the extra spice, have a think about how many wardrobe companies that there were in Melbourne at that time and then multiply in the number of installers, yet somehow I have managed to get to know two people who served in Z Force? That's when things start to blow your mind.
Mark from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺 Former Australian Army Reservist '88 to mid 90s 1:24:52
@@strikerorwell9232Makes me think of the quote all gave some and some gave all, I pray your grandfather and those other brave souls are at peace and rest 🙏🏻
Can you imagine if this was today and asking the average 22 year old to do what you uncle and my family did.
James
Vincde Kerrigan. Appreciate your reply.thanks,I am 94 now good memory good health mustn’t grumble.almost at the end of the road.The world I grew up in no longer exists.I dread the thought of what awaits this country.
I feel the same way. I'm glad my dad isn't around to see what is happening. He passed in 2009, 88 years old. Evil keeps getting more subtle and devious. The stupidity! Never before have people been confused about gender. Thanks for posting.
Save me a seat mate we are all fucked.
Entertaining and John Thaw certainly looks the part; I had forgotten just how good Robert Hardy always was at portraying Churchill.
Thaw and Hardy both very fine actors which we will unlikely see again.
Yes well Dresden after the war became under russian control load of fuckers those germans but today they are back in business
The voice, the cadence, the attitude is spot on. Best Churchill ever.
The late great John Thaw and Robert Hardy excellent, the best Harris and Churchill that I've seen in any Drama.
This movie was absolutely fantastic, the use of actual war and other footage is so much appreciated…. To those who criticize the actions today have no idea what any of the people who had been brilliant in their duties, hoo-rah to these brave brothers in arms !! I do hope that the small group of elites who are planning to make WW3 happen are able to understand the consequences of the technologies that have been created and the consequences they will face as we know that war is purely a evil action
@themenace4017...That small group of elites that you mentioned may full well understand the devastation that a WWIII will unleash upon the civilized world, but it won't matter to them. They think that they will be unaffected by any destruction and will not suffer any personal harm.
An excellent production - it summed it up very well. It was disgrace that it took until 2012 for there to be a Bomber Command War Memorial and the lack of a Campaign Medal was an even worse disgrace. The MoD finally offered a clasp to attach to the Europe Campaign Medal - even worse than nothing at all.
For all 56,000 of my Father's comrades in Bomber Command who died in combat - rest in peace, there are still many who remember your sacrifice and how it shortened the war by diverting so much resource away from the Third Reich's front line fighting capacity.
There was never a campaign medal for ANY pilots - 3,000 Battle of Britain pilots got a clasp to the '39-'45 medal like anyone else, and they didn't complain.
The problem was that Harris wanted a "Bomber Command" clasp for ALL Bomber Command, not just aircrew, including ground crew who never left the ground or the UK and that was never going to be acceptable.
It's like the RAF demanding Iraq and Afghanistan medals for RAF drone pilots who never left their office in the UK (as they have done).
Totally unacceptable.
Edit: and the saddest part of all was that it DIDN'T "shorten the war" - it very nearly lost it, as Harris was nearly responsible for losing the war in the Atlantic until he was over-ruled and ordered to support Coastal Command.
That doesn't detract from the crews' bravery and sacrifice in any way, but sadly it was in vain and achieved very little in terms of winning the war when balanced against the cost.
@@John-G All the more reason for there to be a Fighter Command medal as well! The Russians gave the Arctic Convoy seamen a medal years before the MoD finally coughed up the Artic Star.
Your argument about it being Harris' fault for over-demanding for ground crew is spurious. If they had wanted to give aircrew a medal they would have simply refused the ground crew receiving one. The fact is after all the sacrifice they just threw Bomber Command under a bus because of PR over Dresden which was done to appease Stalin..
Your comment about very nearly losing war is a delusional Anglo-Centric view. Much as I despise Stalin and Communism it was the sacrifice of the Russian people and the Eastern front that won the War in Europe. The Western Front speeded things up, but the defeat of Germany happened on the Eastern Front. Before D-Day the only useful purpose Western resources could used for was to disrupt the Reich from the air and push as much lend-lease kit and raw materials into Russia.
Harris was delusional to think he could win the war through bombing alone; but the impact of draining men, equipment and production away from the Eastern Front was a more important factor. Thousands of men, guns, planes and diverted production drawn back to the Reich plus the logistical dislocation caused by infrastructure damage helped reduce the combat capability in the East.
I used to think the strategic bomber force would have been better applied in direct assault on German Army units, but actual examples show this is false. Flattening Caen just made it more defensible just as flattening Stalingrad had made it more defensible. When the strategic bombers were launched on Operational Totalise they failed - Tiger tanks may have been knocked onto their sides with very lucky blasts, but they were quickly righted - you have only to read Hans von Luck's account to see how pointless the bomber force's use was because they just didn't have the accuracy. The Germans just picked themselves up and their 88s and tanks just blasted away at the advancing 11th Armoured Division.
At least you acknowledge the crews' bravery and sacrifice and at the end of the day that is what medals are for, regardless of the pointlessness of the effort, are they not?
My Dad was fortunate - he was Polish and was decorated with Poland's highest honour the Virtute Militari, the Cross of Valour four times and the Polish Air Force medal (the campaign equivalent), he also won the America Soldier's Medal when he flew with the US Ninth Air Force in 44 for rescuing fellow crew members from their crashed B-26 with his one unwounded arm. He even received three Campaign Medals from the L'Armee de l'Air Francaise for the period from late 1939 to mid--1940 when the Polish Air Force was part of the French Air Force. So I am staggered at how lacking in generosity for the bravery and sacrifice of RAF air crew that the MoD was. Other countries showed a better appreciation for their heroes.
@@kernowpolski It's difficult to know if you're uninformed, deliberately ignorant, delusional, or winding me up.
ALL aircrew who flew over France, Germany or the Atlantic WERE issued either the Atlantic Star with either the Air Crew Europe Clasp or the France and Germany Clasp, or
the Air Crew Europe Star with either the France and Germany Clasp or the Atlantic Clasp, or the France and Germany Star with the Atlantic Clasp.
The 'Aircrew Europe Star' is the ONLY time any British campaign medal has EVER been issued only to a specific branch of a service.
THE ONLY TIME. EVER.
Aircrew were also eligible for the '39-'45 Star (with a clasp for 'Battle of Britain' and, considerably later, a clasp fo Bomber Command') and automatically also got the "War Medal'.
This continual banging on by you and others that they "should have got a medal" as if they were left out of medals is absurd.
All Bomber Command didn't get until much later was a clasp to the '39-'45 Star like that awarded to Battle of Britain crew. Nothing else. THEY GOT THEIR MEDALS, IN 1945, LIKE ANYONE ELSE.
Of course my comment about nearly losing the War in the Atlantic is "Anglo-Centric"! How could it be otherwise when victories and surrenders weren't made at one time???
Of course "Harris was delusional to think he could win the war through bombing alone". but what's also delusional is thinking that the resources spent on Bomber Command wouldn't have been better spent elsewhere, in a balance not only within the RAF commands but across the services.
While Bomber Command had an effect, the return simply didn't justify the massive effort put in.
NO, medals are NOT to "acknowledge ... bravery and sacrifice ... regardless of the pointlessness of the effort", at least in the British military, and they never have been.
That's what 'awards and decorations' to individuals, such as the KCBC, KCVS, MiD, MC, CGC, VC and DSO are for.
Campaign medals are to recognise participation in a specific campaign, with a clasp if appropriate;
Commemorative medals recognize service during specific events, such as a jubilee or coronation;
and Service medals such as the LS and GC recognise particular service.
The vast majority of medals have nothing to do with "acknowledging bravery and sacrifice" at all - if you don't understand that, which is about as basic as it gets, read the medal criteria published regularly by Gov UK and in the London Gazette which spell it out. That isn't my 'opinion', it's the simple fact of whatv they're for.
Different countries simply award medals in different ways so quantity and quality have a radically different meaning, and the way some countries dish out medals is laughable to British military eyes as it simply cheapens the process and makes the medals meaningless.
It's not about showing "a better appreciation for heroes", just doing things differently.
Without wishing to down play your father's medals in any way, Poland awarded "Poland's highest honour the Virtute Militari, the Cross of Valour" 50,000 times in WW2, including four times to your father, while the VC was awarded 181 times.
The public in this era seems to have forgotten the random bombing in the beginning of the war.
@@dlb3512 th-cam.com/video/o0FIDjxbqlI/w-d-xo.html
A real leader that had the British people, soldiers foremost in his goals. Tens of thousands were saved both in Britain and all of Europe. Thank God for these leaders. A Veteran.
Coastal Command had a very different view of how many lives he saved - or, in their view, cost, as do many who could have done with RAF support in North Africa and across Asia.
Think how forward thinking it would have been for British leaders to not enter the war on the continent. Germany dominates Europe today anyway. Maybe GB could have held on to more of its empire.
@@thomaswayneward Bizarre. Just bizarre.
Thanks Will, for the service that you and your fellows gave to save Great Britain from the tyranny of the Third Reich. Born just after the WWII, I owe my very existance to you.
As tyranny rises again We, The People will once again strike back to defeat those that seek to destroy us. Good, strong, honorable Leaders in the Human race are extremely rare.
@@thomaswayneward
"Germany dominates Europe today anyway"
That has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen written in a TH-cam comment and that says quite a bit, I really don't think you get how the Germany of the 30's and 40's would be dominating Europe as compared to the way today's Germany is doing it.
Even claiming that they "dominate" Europe in this day and age is a pretty far stretch in the first place.
I can't believe that anyone would believe that if Der Fuhrer was allowed to have Europe that things the past 80+ years would have been just peachy for England, Stalin thought that same exact thing, "Oh whatever, just let the little crackpot have what we don't really want anyway, just smile and wave and he'll go away", look how that worked out for him.
And here's a newsflash for you, there's a whole new modern day Fuhrer that's on the march in Europe right now, maybe get with the times and quit worrying about the last one that got barbecued in a parking lot in Berlin 79 years ago and start concentrating on the one that's doing the same thing in the here and now, because just like the last Fuhrer none of them are ever happy with what they already have, if they're not taking what belongs to others they're just not happy, it's in their nature.
Remembering the crew of Lancaster ND820 and the other 9000 who were killed in training
Shocking. Where can one read more of these accidents ?
@@fraseredk7433 a good start would be books on Lincolnshire & Yorkshire Airfields Patrick Otter wrote a good series.
The Lincolnshire Aircraft Recovery Group at East Kirkby museum are also good
Tim webste…. We all owe these wonderful men who gave their all for us a great debt of gratitude. A breed of men the like of which will never be seen again.
@@fraseredk7433 ahh read most off new zealand men in airforce fighting japan were killed in accidents and not in action.'''- Have counted 3 O'Dwyer who were kiled in accidents in pacific war
Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill was a stroke of genius. Superb.
Was in London for the 1970 anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Boy scouts ' international jamboree! Pilots of the Battle talked to us about it! Amazing, and disquietingly haunting!
a great movie about a great man. Who helped shorten the war and got betrayed by his political leaders
Sounds like a familiar song I'm afraid. Betrayed by his leaders.
"A great man"? A bloody war criminal!
He was "betrayed" by no-one. Had he done the same thing after 1948 it would have been a war crime.
@@John-G yeah whatever. Best you stick to your comics and let the adults speak boy
That was actually Bomber Harris' view, as he openly admitted in a presentation he gave to RMAS when I was there nearly fifty years ago, "boy".
my dad was front line through out the war from africa to Germany never saw home for years after Germany surrendered he was on stand by for Japan then the bomb was dropped and he was stood down, did the bomb save him and ultimatly gave me life big questions on the morals of war in my mind
Interesting story. My Grandad was in the RN , he was a mechanic on an aircraft carrier. He ended up in the Pacific near the end of the war, the two atom bombs got him back home and demobbed. I wouldn’t be here now if the Americans hadn’t used those bombs, as approx nine months after he came home, my dad was born. 👍🇬🇧
@davidgaSto…In war there are no morals,you fight to kill to win. The strong do not go to the wall like the weak. An unarguable fact.
@@autisticdrone. The British gave the U.S.much of the atomic research.they wouldnt have ot so far even with the German scientists.
My dad signed up to go to Japan after VE day. So l to owe my existence to Harry Truman😮
@lenwilkinson672 Unarguable tripe. The strong usually have to carry the weak, and are consequently inevitably at greater risk.
Speer noted that "in the western theatres of war ten thousand anti-aircraft guns were pointed toward the sky…the anti-aircraft force tied down hundreds of thousands of young soldiers" (381-2).
Consider if you will, that many of those Anti-Aircraft guns were the dreaded 88 mm flak gun which could also serve as an Anti-Tank gun. How much harder would it have been for the Western Allies and the Russians to advance towards and into Germany if those flak guns had been available for use as Anti-Tank guns? The casualty figures amongst tank crews, tank mounted infantry and fighter-bomber aircraft would have been far higher.
Mark from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺
Markfryer: they still wiped out those sorry Sherman's without all those 88s. The Sherman was a sorry tank
Speer got off lightly however he was probably the most intelligent out of that gang.
An anti-aircraft gun at that.
Speer also stated that losing the submarine factories by RAF Bombing (Earth Quake Bomb) was a strategic blow - losing the Battle for the Atlantic. The BBC drama does not mention this fact.
John Thaw’s finest hour! Very moving.
Robert Hardy played Winston Churchill four times!
A relative of mine who I never knew was a rear gunner in an Avro Lancaster. He didn’t make it through 1942.
and now we can't even stop a rubber dinghy.
Sickening isn't it. Sunak is certainly no Churchill, he's not even British in my opinion.
@@andrewhoward7200 What is he then- Irish?
@@kindnessfirst9670 No..... He's Indian. He has no rights being in 10 Downing. Are you into Suicide ?
@@kindnessfirst9670he's a litte Indian with not one speck of white British/English DNA in him why....
There's no such thing as white, British or English DNA.
Where would we have been without these courageous people.
Dumping truck loads of ashes and crushed bone in the Severn..... just like they were doing in the Sola.... and the Vistula.
Different times, different breed of cat back then.
Speaking German and most likely not have all the garbage we have now. Germans are responsible for everything we have now. We stole all their technology. I am not stating I agree with anything Hitler did with the Jews. But even today Germans are the smartest most efficient culture.
The greatest generation. In my opinion.
Not in the war at all?
Many thanks for posting this excellent film. My father was a navigator in a Manchester that was shot down during the 1000 bomber raid over Cologne. The plane was hit by flak and eventually crashed on the return home in occupied Belgium. My father bailed out and was captured and a POW at Stalug Luft III at Sagon, occupied Poland, till near the end of the war when he and other POWs walked westwards for months in Winter 1945 to eventually be liberated by the British army. At last bomber command have received recognition for their bravery though too late for my father's passing.
John Thaw ...The Actors Actor
dunno what that means but he was a bloody good actor
@@billynomates920 Let me help you. It means that other actors admired and revered him
@@ingerlander yeah, he was good
I was great friends with John Nettleton in 1951-4 at school. We were 7 or 8 at the time. He often talked proudly of his father, John Nettleton who was awarded the Victoria Cross for a raid by Lancaster Bombers in 1942. He played Wing Commander Harry Weldon in this Film.
WOW!
My Grandfather was General Eisenhower's transportation officer during WWII. I loved hearing his stories. That drove me to learn as much as I could about the so called war to end all wars.
The "war to end all wars" was WWI - not WWII.
@@John-G yes, He fought in WWI also. Both of my grandfathers did. I am so proud of you for all your knowledge.
@@chuckgilbert2035 Sorry, I wasn't trying to be one-up, but if you re-read your original comment I think it'd be fair to say that it sounds very much as if you're referring to WW2 as "the war to end all wars", not WW1.
Interesting..My Uncle an MP and was Eisenhower's jeep driver, I have a picture of him with Eisenhower, General Clark and two female aids in the jeep..
@@MrDonJBerg My Grandfather was badly burn by mustard gas in WWI. They did not take many pictures with him in them. BTW the General had him check out the M1 before it was issued. The third one in production was presented to him with serial # 3 on it.
Outstanding video. Thank God for men like him & the thousands who flew the missions. Both in Bomber Command & the 8th Air Force. 🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️ 🫡 🇬🇧 🇺🇸
The mission of punishment by reducing the German population as much as possible. Churchill admitted that openly.
Cant see much difference between this and the Nazi mission to kill as many jews as possible.
Definite subjugation or ethnic/ moral clearances justifie any actions in total war too?
@billotto602. Many years later when a statue was raised for HARRIIS. The only official who went to unveil it was T5HE QUEEN MOTHER .not a member of the government was present.
@@lenwilkinson672 that's sad.
Yes, Well Said
If you are at war you will either win or lose. Which will it be ?
excellent point!
There is white peace right
@@PotatoSalad614 Peace Lite. 🤣
Imagine only "Half winning" against National Socialism ? ? Like Israel's dilemma now, to DEFEAT evil or only "Half win"
@@PotatoSalad614 Shut up!
I met Bomber Harris at his Home by the Thames. What a Man. A Gentleman . We had quite a chat at the time. That was in the 1970s. Something i never forget.
I was born 13 Feb 45, date of the Dresden raid, always aware that I was given life, as so many died. Around year 2000, I had the chance to see Dresden,as Captain of a private jet. Mostly rebuilt,but racks of stones and pieces all numbered, still awaiting reassembly. Went to a museum dedicated to that night,could hear people talking angrily in German sbout we British, kept my mouth tight closed. And Iremember as a kid playing in old bomb shelters,and being scared of gas masks. Still got my old ration book
Suggest that everyone read, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five.”
Isn't it strange that those angry Germans don't take into account the fact that Germany bombed so many cities during the Blitzkrieg, thereby opening the door to the use of such tactics by the allied forces?
Same thing with America bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki...There are museums there as well, some Japanese are still not happy with the U.S. But damn it..Start a war, but don't cry when you get your ass handed to ya, and I was born in Japan in 53.
@@james-pierre7634 Suggest you look up the facts about Luftwaffe raids on the UK.
Over 80,000 civilians were killed in them.
By the way, the RAF didn't drop a single bomb on Germany to start with but dropped leaflets advising the German people to stop the war before they started paying the ultimate price.
Germans would do well to remember that they and the Russians started WW2 when they invaded Poland. They also should remember that they allowed Hitler to take power, allowed the Nazis to take control and sat back while up to 10 million people were murdered in camps in their name - Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, disabled folk, political opponents, scientists, artists, actors et al.
And if you are French, you would do well to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by so many British, Commonwealth and American troops on behalf of your country.
Comparing what actually happened in Dresden to a work of Science fiction is hardly appropriate.
I suspect their anger was aimed more at Adolf & Co. Germans are a self hating bunch now.
look at us now
The Allies and all Western peoples lost.
Sadly a country in decline. Riddled and corrupted by woke ideology and indiscriminate immigration.
The rot started with the disastrous policies of Tony Blair and New Labour.
@@davidb2206 Because we lack conviction in all we believe..... it has been been beaten out of our souls by successive Governments pandering to those whose only aim is to see Great Britain fall into chaos: To see us humiliated for simply being damn good at what we once did.
What we did in a world in which many others did exactly the same.... Compete.
(And yes.... I cannot wait for the red arrows of dissent from those accusing GB of colonialism and abuse of foreign nations:
Well, let me remind those small minded people: All nations did exactly the same...and many left a far worse scar on those countries...... far worse than Britain.
Those countries are now subject to civil unrest and corruption at the highest levels. They have progressed minutely since their independence; They have been used and abused by their own .....far worse than any colonial power ever did. It's your backyard: Clean it up.)
We can't even stop a rubber dinghy
In 20 years most of Europe will be Muslim.
The acting is superb, what well-spoken men, what gentlemen.
In those days most people spoke well. Now, they seem proud to speak with ugly local accents. It makes me sad. I am 86 and I remember it.
the public want to enjoy all the benefits of freedom. But many want to criticize what it takes to be free. You don’t win over pure evil without pulling out all the stops. Everyone love sausage but know one wants to watch it be made.
I met John Thaw in a service station in Milton Keynes months before his sad death, his best role was of DI Jack Reagan in 'The Sweeney'.
Seconded.
Same with John Wayne whom I couldn't stand but appreciated his final film.
Thanks for posting this excellent movie.Bless those brave people who noticed the loss of friends, and kept on flying anyway.
"We're the RAF son , and we haven't had our tea!"
Good one!!
I had a close friend who was a B17 pilot in the U.S. 8th Airforce and was shot down twice over France. One of my uncles was in Patton's 3rd Army, another was captured in the South of France and in a German POW camp for the duration of the war. Another was driving trucks after the beachheads were established on D-Day. They were my greatest heroes in life. Compared to them I haven't accomplished much in my life.
Well you certainly managed to boor me half to death
me neither😂
Yes you have. You are living the life they fought for.
hard act to follow
@@davidfrazerwray7525 They didn't fight for what Britain and the U.S. has become today.
I don’t know if anyone here has visited the RAF memorial in Runnymede, thousands of names all around 19-25.
I was there in 1979. I saw a letter to a pilot downed in 1939:
“To my dear brother, I will never forget you. Your loving sister”.
I had to hide my tears.
I saw this drama when it was first shown on the BBC, but listening to Sir Arthur Harris's 1977 interview as I just have, he talked about working together with the army, especially in the lead up to D-Day, and with the navy in so far as fighting the U-boat was best done by destroying lots of them where they were being produced or in harbour (as they were easier to find there) and he said that Albert Speer agreed on the impact on U-boat production from heavy bombing.
So I don't think that he would would have said that Bomber Command would win the war alone, but it was a way to take the war to the Germans before D-Day happened for certain.
My mother, babe in arms, in South London, turned a corner and found her house gone. She had to live with relatives and they weren't very welcoming. She didn't see her husband for three years. Try and get inside the head of that young woman. See if you have any sympathy for Germany.
It was the UK and France that declared war for the sake of Poland, that heartland of the British Empire. Two weeks later they saw the USSR invade and played dumb.
One further thing: the on-screen announcement before the final credits (1:25:41) states that Harris was not made a peer. That's true, but not exhaustive. He refused a peerage in 1946, in protest at Bomber Command's crews not receiving a special, separate campaign decoration; but at Churchill's insistence was made baronet in 1953, which is just shy of the peerage, but apparently was the most he would accept.
Thanks, didn't know that.
The treatment of Bomber Command by the British Government after WW2 was shameful.
ANZAC Day tomorrow, down here in NZ . We will remember and pay respect to the many Kiwi's who served and gave their lives in Bomber Command during WW2.
That wasn't "the most he would accept" - that was what he was offered.
Thanks did not know that
His 'protest' and the enduring problem wasn't that he wanted "Bomber Command crews" to have their service recognised with a clasp, like the 3,000 pilots who had a 'Battle of Britain' clasp to the '39-'45 star, but that he wanted to include ground crew as well, even though they never left the ground or the UK.
That was never going to be acceptable, nor has it been since.
FWIW the RAF are pushing similarly for medals now for 'drone' pilots who sit in a nice air conditioned office in UK, "piloting" drones in Iraq or Afghanistan or over Syria and the Gulf, to get the same medal as troops on the ground.
(and 'no', I 'm not joking 😮)
grateful for that information. I see some similarities to the unnecessary criticism the Israel Air force is experiencing despite the country being at risk. I often wonder if the West under our present leaders have to fight again if there is the will & capability ?
I remember this from its first airing. Thanks for posting it here.
I was born on the very day in 1942 that this hard headed uncompromising man took control of Bomber Command.
You can't compromise when the lives of your own country are at stake because of a madman intent on taking over Europe in whatever way he could. Namby pampy methods of today like smack the naughty boy on the hand don't work. It only gives rights to ricidivism. And that's what happens today.
Back in the real world of back then, in WW2, all Harris wanted to do was nip it in the bud, and "get the bloody war over and done with without losing too many lives"!
Like he said when asked by the reverend, about the horror, he said it was horrible. His methods unfortunately, would not work today due to the snowflakes in the top brass more worried about diplomacy in favour of the enemy, than getting rid of a tyrant. Had Bomber Harris been given the support when he needed it, the war might have been over sooner.
History told us that.
So how did he do?
@@buddah_stickwrong
@@buddah_stickIn Goebells own words 'We are at war, and we want total war!' Don't forget the Nazi's murdered about 10 million people: Jews, Homosexuals, Anti-War protestors, religious people of various faiths, the mentally ill, insane, deformed, coloured, in fact anyone they decreed to be unworthy of living because the were not Aryan enough. Any who ancestry had Jews in it had to have as a maximum of 1/8th - 12.5% Jewish ancestry to stand a chance of surviving; that figure by the way meant that if your great grandmother was Jewish you were in with a chance of being murdered, great great grandmother being Jewish but not practising you stood a chance. They were evil beyond measure.
Hitler and the Nazi's decided that if the German people were declared to be unfit of the evil philosophy, then they must die and Germany destroyed. They did a pretty good job of visiting their version of Wagner's 'Gotterdamerung' on Germany.
@@buddah_stick I think you are saying in 1942 best learn German and collaborate in the Holocaust.
I disagree.
Having almost lost our army in 1940, most of our artillery, tanks etc it was the only way to pursue the war in Europe.
I remember some of the brave men who were my teachers at high school in Bundaberg Queensland, and who served in bombers over Germany. Some lost their lives while returning over Denmark and are fondly remembered by the Danes.
I was in hospital recently, and the chap in the bed next to me was LOLUIS P WOODRIDGE DFC, a rear gunner in WWII, He had written a very interesting book
DAY SQUIRE NIGHT FLIER
He talked a lot but not about his DFC and war career but disgusted at how after the war he joined FIFE POLICE and had a big problem with his and their religion denying him promotion, I spoke to him everyday and had the same anti police diatribe, I told him to forget FIFE POLICE and be proud of his DFC and WWII experience
A marvelous production about a marvelous man played impeccably by a marvelous artist.
"I haven't got VD" classic !!
RAF Bomber Command lost 55,000 air crew. The highest percentage of deaths of any UK service during WW2
@@doreekaplan2589 Um, what do Native Americans have to do with the Royal Air Force?
@@kimchipigAbsolutely nothing.
@@doreekaplan2589 irrelevant
@@doreekaplan2589 I have no doubt what you say is true, but I was talking about British RAF bomber crews during WW2
Merchant Navy losses greater percentage wise
Germany had the option of stopping the war at any time by surrendering.
Really? Who'd have guessed ...
Same could be said for the vaunted Allies.
@@conveyor2you mean successful allies, surely .
Hilter, Musso, and Churchill held a highly secret meeting in the Dolomites during the Phoney War. There was a pond nearby and Hitler suggested 'whoever catches the single carp in the pond would be deemed the winner of the war so it need not be fought'. Adolf unloaded his Lugar into the pond, but deflection saved the fish. "Musso," Hitler said, "you are a gutte svimmer, jump in and catch it". Half an hour later, Musso emerged fishless and freezing. All this time, Winnie sat sipping his tea. He finished, put down his cup, took up his tea spoon and began emptying the pond. "Vat are you doink?" yelled Hilter. Winnie continued draining the pond, replied, "Mit is going to take us long time mbut we are going to win this war!"
There's a YT historian who goes by the handle "Lord HardThrasher" who did an excellent series on the WW2 bombing campaign. He especially details the failures of the first half of the war.
My mum went into the Land Army at 14 and into a factory making electronic parts for RAF bombers when she was 18.
Where she lived was surrounded by airfields from which RAF and US bombers were stationed.
My dad volunteered for the Navy as soon as he turned 18 then served on minesweepers in the Med and Adriatic being demobbed in 1947.
Oh how their lives different from that I and my siblings have lived.
I knew Canon John Collins personally as he was a Client of mine during the 1060/70's.
He and I had many long conversations as he tried to defend Religion and I constantly challenged it's existence other than by FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real).
On one occasion I remember suggesting to him that I found it difficult to believe that someone with his intelligence could belief in Fairy Tales...He took no offense but quietly said "Al Dear Boy" and tried to qualify his theory... BUT you see he was a Theorist and could not actually understand Practicality so when I asked him to Prove to me there was a GOD he would meander verbally.
One retaliation Bomber Harris could have stymied Canon Collins with related to his feeling about the morality of Bombing Berlin/Dresden.... Coventry and the Cathedral?.
If Canon Collins and other Pacifists had had their way the U.K. would have been speaking GERMAN now.
The 1060s? A thousand years ago?
German is easier to Learn than Urdu.
@@davidlauder-qi5zvhe's older than he looks.
In the Bible's Ten commandments it says "thou shalt not kill". which is good advice. But if someone is raising his rifle at you and yours is levelled at him, are you allowed to shoot him before he shoots you? What would Canon Collins have you do?
The sons and daughters of the pacifists made sure England would accept religion: Islam. Why? Because the failed to have a belief structure ingrained in the culture to defeat it.
This proves that the absence of good...allows evil to prosper. That in itself should be proof enough that God exists because it has been replaced with evil throughout England.
You make war as you can, not as you would. The bomber offensive was the only way the western Allies could carry the war to continental Germany until June 1944
Unfortunately, many people make that same first statement. In their eyes, they are waging a legal war therefore killing defenseless civilians is a necessary evil. To other eyes, it's murder. It carries on today in many forms. While men (and it is normally men) continue to wage war for power or money, so will the horrors it brings.
That's simply not correct on any level.
@@John-G Evidence?
@@guygardiner1920 Evidence? What you're saying is that the "western allies" did nothing to "carry the war to continental Germany" from 1940 until June 1944 apart from bomb it, as if "continental Germany" was somehow unaffected by everything going on around it, and as if prioritising resources to Bomber Command at everyone else's expense somehow made no difference as long as we just "let them know" we hadn't forgotten about them.
It's simply an absurd construct to make.
@@John-G It's absolutely correct on every level
Or do you not understand that the allies wanted to end the war as quickly as they could? They knew what was going on in those camps too but were all but powerless to stop it. Did the German people do a single thing to stop it? ~Answer - NO, they did not.
The only way to get at Germany was to strike at their homeland - where they thought they were invincible. To strike at their arms production, their maritime production and every other area of production they could access. To do that, only bombing them was effective.
You seem not to like the truth, but there it is.
By the way, have you bothered to examine the fact that, at the same time, Germany were launching V1s and V2s indiscriminately at the British mainland, killing thousands of civilians? My mother's family narrowly missed being wiped out when one landed at the end of their street with no warning. It killed every member of six families who were probably sitting eating lunch together.
“Come with me to Berlin, by night.” Really? The Americans weren’t capable of operating by night. No navigational equipment, no operational procedures, no experience, no nothing. To get the USAAF to operate in the dark of night would take more than a year and then only if they adopted RAF navigating equipment, bomb sights (forget about the Norden; it was no better than the RAF’s bomb sight and it wouldn’t work at night anyway), navigators and bomb aimers. Not to mention that with the paltry bomb load a B-17 could carry, you’d have to switch them over to Lancasters first. Not an option.
They were also ordered never to fly below 10,000 feet as they would get in the way of the RAF.
Thanks for this .
Wasn't it Sholto and Portal who threw Dowding and Park under the bus. The very people whe helped save this country at the battle of Britain.
“Save this country”
Royal Navy: are we a joke to you?
A great man, a man of extraordinary vision who helped buy us the peace that gave revisionists, years later, the luxury of calling him a war criminal.
"extraordinary vision" ? Yes.
Correct? No.
@@John-G Stop your hate against a man who did far more to save his fellow Brits and others than you could ever do in five life times.
@@ChristineRead-ck1uq There's no "hate" involved - sober up.
Excellent discussion. Is there a moral way to do the immoral ? My father was bomb aimer in an RCAF Halifax. He didn't talk much about it. Brave to face death, and brave to continue with life after.
The wartime footage shows JO-P preparing to take off for the Dresden raid. My good friend flew that raid and was in the rear turret of JO-X 463 RAAF “Press on Regardless”.
This poor man got the blame for a lot of things Churchill wouldn't admit to
Ike!
There's a British guy at 1:03:58 on a landing craft heading fir the beach on D-day. I've been interested in WWII since I was a kid. I'm now 60 so I've seen this guy so many times!
I can't be the only one who recognises him, he's shown so many times.
I always wonder if he made it to V.E. day & if he did, what became of him.
Anyone else recognise him every time?
Probably him @1:04:23 on the left, so no.
Extraordinary film and history.
The Greatest Generation.Men arent made like this anymore.A different time, a different place. Flyers in Bomber Command were extremely brave men,the likes we shall probably never see again..
Rubbish. Before the war most young men were like those of today - make some money & have a good time. But, cometh the hour, cometh the man. The same would be true today but let's hope it never comes to that.
@@janetmacdonald5455 Bomber Harris didn't want the war. Sadly didn't get any credit for his efforts, despite his good intentions to minimise the destruction of Britain and its people. The good news, it wasn't all in vain..the Allies won.
@@janetmacdonald5455 if you think the young men and women of today have the same strength of character and spirir as this generation you are delusional. Until i retired 5 years ago. Ive worked with both generations. I knew men who served in WW2 in all services and i proud and humble to have known then. These lot now dont have it in them.
You're posts have become more than Tiresome.
@@janetmacdonald5455The world is a totally different place. Most kids have grown up with central heating,full bellies and a disregard for this country. Yes they may have trouble buying or renting a home but that's because millions of people have swept in and destroyed the housing market. Strangely the young seems to be compliant with the situation leaving us oldies to moan about it.
First class,Harris was a legend.
I missed this when it was first aired really good thank you😮
Thankyou for these uploads. R.I.P. lads and you did the job as been ask to do.
He sent his whole command out every night the weather permitted. What other commander ever bore such responsibilty ?
All of them, on all sides.
When I see movies about WWII air war I think of my friend General Alpha Fowler of the 8th Airforce. Loved hearing his point of view on the war.
It's so very sad that nearly ALL THE LOVELY GREAT PEOPLE OF THAT TIME HAVE NOW GONE GOD BLESS THEM look what we got now
Disappointed about that bit where Churchill threw Harris under the bus. Politicians!
Churchill was an amazing leader but, not without his flaws. He could turn on a sixpence if required and swear he paid a shilling. But, still one of my heroes.
I always understood that Harris never got the recognition he deserved. But, service politics is every bit as savage as the civilian kind! As we used to say; "Please God preserve me from Staff Officers!"
It's a movie
@@Baskerville22 Are you saying the BBC is traducing Churchill?
@@gordonepema722 The BBC "traduces" anyone and anything that tends to add lustre to British history
@@Baskerville22 The BBC is anti-British. It has become everything our forefathers tried to defend against.
This not simply a "movie" as you so casually state....it is a record of facts and a matter of public record.
The only surprising thing is that it is a BBC production....someone there seems to have a backbone.
He/she must feel terribly lonely.
He was acting on the best information on what Britain could do to put the most pressure on Hitler's war effort was to target the houses of German workers in night raids. They were quite prepared to kill or injure those who did not get to shelters but they did not expect that would be enough to collapse war production. They calculated that they could make a significant percentage of German workers homeless with would reduce their productivity and morale and put a major strain on government resources to take care of them.
The way the world is heading it looks like it was all for nothing. We as a species have learned absolutely nothing from the horror of past wars and sacrifices made on all sides. 😢
@GaryNumeroUno....I think that on the whole, Humans are good people and who just want to be left alone to raise their families...or themselves. It is always the relatively few who are evil and want to control and dominate others. It is these people who cause wars and cause so much misery to others. They are the ones who get noticed and not the millions of other ordinary people who just go quietly about their lives.
I grew up with Mr Forester who flew 20 missions over Berlin in a Lacaster named "F for Fred" aka "Fred the Fox".
John Thaw's Finest Performance.
At least QE II got Butch's statue up
Nothing to do with the Queen. She didn't decide it should be put up. It was a political decision.
It was paid for by private donations, pushed for by Maggie Thatcher and ex-Bomber Command. Nothing to do with QEII at all.
... and FWIW, the nickname "Butcher" is hardly complimentary.
My parents lived thru this in Kent. I used to play in the bomb shelters in Cliffe. We were told never to go in them!
Politicians start war , men like Butcher finish them. My uncle was a bombaimer with 51 Squadron on Halifax's. KIA April 16/17 1943. My Father completed a tour of Ops as a bombaimer 90 Squadron 43/44. He had the upmost respect and admiration for Butch.
Then why did he call him "Butcher"?
@@John-G He didn't. "Butcher" is a retospective term used by his detractors.
He was known to his aircrews as "Butch".
@@robertstallard7836 You evidently need to do a great deal more homework. "Butch" was an abbreviation for "Butcher", which is what he was "known to his aircrew" as.
It's so well and widely documented and reported that you're making a bit of a fool of yourself over it, and that's being polite.
@@John-G lm pretty sure to my dad it was a term of fondness. He had no time for armchair critics. They had a job too do .
@@robertmccardle5113 I've only met three people called "Butcher" while serving, and while it may have become a term of "fondness" for some for Bomber Harris it certainly didn't start out that way.
The other two were Martin McGuiness, the Butcher of the Bogside, on my second tour in NI when he was a "don't stop" before he became deputy first minister, and the other was Ta Mok, brother #4, in Cambodia.
Hardly good company.
Your father wasn't really in a position to judge but it's unlikely that Bomber Harris did anything to hasten the end of the war or even save any allied lives, despite Bomber Command killing well over half a million innocent civilians, most of them women and children.
He bullied Churchill and the RAF into making Bomber Command the priority at the expense of anything else, including not only precision bombing such as the Dambusters, but Coastal Command which he trashed regularly, nearly costing the allies the war in the Atlantic until he was overruled.
By the end of the war it was becoming clear just how much of a mistake it had been, although Bomber Harris never accepted that it hadn't achieved what he'd constantly said it would.
Bombing people into oblivion has simply never worked, then or since.
With the priority on Bomber Command, troops elsewhere missed out not only on air support they needed badly, particularly in North Africa and Asia but also in Europe, but also weapons and ammunition.
It also cost the RAF an enormous amount of pilots and aircrew killed and injured, with more than twice as many pilots killed as took part in the Battle of Britain.
Was Harris a war criminal? He was never tried, and is entitled to the presumption of innocence, so no. But is it as simple as that? Israel is accused of genocide, but RAF Bomber Command killed more civilians in one night over Hamburg than Israel killed in six months in Gaza. Was area bombing justified? If it shortened the war, then perhaps it was. But did it? Was it the best use of resources? Most especially the lives of the aircrew? That is an even more vexed question. I would say it was not, but there's a great deal of 20-20 hindsight in that. I thank God that I never had to carry such burdens, on mind, conscience or soul. I would certainly have been broken by them. Harris was made of sterner stuff. But is that admirable? I don't know. I just don't know.
Harris wasn’t a war criminal, he had written lawful orders and he didn’t exceed them. These days those orders would be illegal, but that’s because the events of WWII changed the conduct of war. The total war used by both Allies and Axis was initiated by Goebbels, so its nothing to be proud of.
What is your point 👉
@@andyb.1026 That history is a matter of interpretation. That moral questions require individual answers. That the moral beliefs of whole societies change in accordance with the consensus of many individuals. That assessing Harris, or any historical figure, according to current morality is futile and even unjust. That all any docu-drama can do is present as complete an interpretation as possible, as this one does. Stuff like that. And above all, don't get the notion that you know better, because you don't.
I think the historical objections to him, most from the West, are due to the irrelevance of his decisions re finishing the war.
Germany voted for the National Socialist Workers Party in increasing numbers over a series of elections knowing that they were murderous street thugs. Many of them actively wanted another go at war and they loved it when they were invading and doing the bombing. There was no sympathy for them when the fighting was over, the cost should still be unforgettable.
Glad to see some of the old film footage
John Thaw brilliant
“I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side.” - USAAC Gen. Curtis LeMay
RIP Air Marshall Arthur Harris
Air Chief Marshal Harris. Please don't demote him to Air Marshal.
yeah, of course what curtis and arthur didn't take on board was that they may have escaped justice in this world, but in the next life they know every name of EVERY man, woman and child they killed and injured AND they are experiencing EVERY death and injury they inflicted, neither are resting in peace
@@soggybadrongle They bombed a nation ... that was gassing kids....
@@soggybadrongle How would you know this to be true?
Thanks for sharing this.
I was born in August 1953...not quite the 'anniversary of the bomb', (or bombs) of Hiroshima (& Nagasaki) ...but perhaps close enough to sadly commemorate the events _and_ _continue_ to hope that no further weapons such as they, will ever be employed again, on our world, or, indeed, any other, especially where any form of sentient life (at least) exists.
With respect and thanks to those involved in making this film, to the now deceased actors within it, to Lady & 'Bomber' Harris...and R.I.P. to the lost souls of the services throughout the war(s) and likewise, to the civilians, who suffered injuries, and / or lost their lives to the senseless, yet necessary actions of war brought about through the actions of the evil which (some) men do. ...
R.I.P. John Thaw & Robert Hardy, (et al).
Outstanding production!
I watched the whole of the film, not for the first time. It is well done on many levels. It focused on the story of bombing, and to a significant extent - on the morality of bombing. My uncle, Bruce Martin participated in the bombing of Germany in the Second World War as a bomber pilot. He learnt to fly at Barton Airfield adjacent to the Manchester Ship Canal in 1937. He had previously attended a boarding School whose motto was Vincere Aut Mori. (Conquer or Die). He did two tours and survived the war through a mixture of luck, skill, endurance and aggression. His younger brother, (my father) went to the same school and survived the war serving in the Royal Navy as a marine engineer. They had a "good" war. If Wall Street did not have a 1928 crash, the Germans would never have been forced to repay the post World War 1 rebuilding loans prematurely, there would not have been six million unemployed men unable to feed their families, and Adolf Hitler would never have won the German General Election. Wall Street gave us the sub prime mortgage crisis in 2008. I wrote a paper about a radical form of housing mortgages which has no interest! I dubbed it "The Table Mountain Housing Finance Model"! It is available online.
For all that, Thaw played a great part. Great movie.
my dear old mum was a waaf on the bomber squadrons used to bomb up the aircraft and drive the airmen and officers a young girl of 18 she had no time for war later in life the boys would go and so many wouldnt return she said
Excellent and Outstanding!!!
Air Chief Marshal Harris was a true Englishman, but more than that he was a true patriot and military commander. Some terrible things are done in war but sometimes necessary. The Air Chief Marshal's actions and commands in the words of that other great commander from 2500 years ago, Alexander The Great, 'IT WAS NECESSARY'. He was to a certain extent shunned by the Establishment apart from one, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. When unveiling the long-delayed memorial statue to Bomber Command at Hyde Park Corner, she commented, 'He loved his boys so much' and may I add especially the 55,000 that never returned.
Commeth The Hour Commeth the Man!
The hour has come for Britain, but where is the man?
Now we're just giving it all away.
I never knew my Uncle Tom. A Sgt Navigator lost shot down over France in his Lancaster coming back from a raid on Germany. My father was in the navy at that time. Imagine being at war and losing your brother and no funeral to attend. And today we have learned nothing on the brink of war again.
Those heroes are spinning in their graves to see where we are now. Lost.
Britain and France had either been at war, or preparing for war with Germany for the first half of the century, the idea was also to impress on the German people: you can’t keep doing this.
Great music !
If he hadn't been there to carry the brunt of responsibility, a responsibility that should have been carried by the politicians giving the orders, and all the criticism on his shoulders, the seaborne attack of Europe would have cost the allies over 400,000 casualties more, the difference of which was paid by the RAF Bomber Command Boys and the USAF, allowing all those spared, to return to their loved ones. Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, London and all the other cities that where ONLY civilian targets and were bombed by the Luftwaffe, were reasons enough to retaliate. It was only a taste of what was to come: what was sown, was reaped, and by God-allmighty it was only a just return. In War, nobody is right, and nobody is wrong, nobody is innocent but all are guilty! Just as white is not white, and black not white! The tone of gray dominates in such dark times, and the victor has the saying: he makes an writes history and bends it to his will. It was so in antique times, and it will be so in future times, VAE VICTIS is the word. Will the fighting forces of Ukrainian, nowadays be declared war criminals for defending theit homeland ...?
You need to either re-read your history or re-learn your English. "Retaliation" can only be AFTER an event, not before it.
Germany's 'blitz' campaigns came AFTER Britain's bombing campaigns were up and running.
It's like blaming Australia for bodyline bowling when we started it.
@@John-G Grammatically correct no doubt, but a totally irrelevant comment. War is war, you do what you need to do to win it.
@@John-G th-cam.com/video/o0FIDjxbqlI/w-d-xo.html
The planners were right about knocking the synthetic oil production out. When they did the effects only took weeks to produce results.
Except that at the time, all was not known about the extremely fragile oil supplies of Germany - trains were still shipping POW, Jews, Romani, Resistants, etc... to concentration camps - POWs especially from the Eastern side were tortured and killed and oil/fuel production was still enough to launch Bodenplatte and the Battle of the Bulge. Ciao, L (Veteran)
Excellent production....
The way Harris was treated and all those brave men in Bomber Command was vile. May they rest in peace and i for one give thanks for what they did to save us all from a greater evil.
Winston Churchill was a great British Prime Minister, but his politics over this was not his "Finest Hour".