For all the military plane fans on here.

Dam busting at it’s finest

“Hey Jude!”

glad it wasn’t just me that read that has hey jude. Or indiana jones.

I thought it was the Little Angels

Can’t be Hey Jude: That’s got one less ‘Naah’.
Coronation Street has two less ‘Naahs’ and I can’t remember how the Indiana Jones theme goes. 🙂

With **** the black dog!

Damn, and I meant to watch that!

iplayer, here I come…

Good to see a fresh perspective on what was, while a marvellous technical victory, another episode to add to the long list of futile acts of war. Apparently it achieved nothing, and served to ensure that in the future, the bombing of a dam would be a war crime under the Geneva Convention. So the next time you sing your dambusters theme tune, spare a thought for the needless deaths of those downstream.

Shirley the dambusters music is ‘Daaah’ or even ‘Baaah’, not ‘Naah’?

kylie?

spare a thought for the needless deaths of those downstream

People died? During a war? Who’d have thunk it?

I watched this and really enjoyed it – as much for the film and soundtrack of flying lancasters.

An odd episode in the war. To some a great heroic act, to others a senseless waste that didn’t acheive much

I thought this was a post about these guys:

To some a great heroic act, to others a senseless waste that didn’t acheive much

They’re not mutually exclusive. My understanding is that it might have achieved more had there been follow up missions whilst they were carrying out repairs. In reality the most important impact it had was on morale – not something to be underestimated.

As to the loss of life, it’s worth remembering that most of those who died in the flooding were POWs 😯

aracer – Guy Gibsons dog was called Niger (Latin for black), the movie scene of the dogs’ grave is a well known error which may have come about as Niger and **** are pronounced the same (when refering to the latin colour as opposed to the African country); incidentlly if you see the movie in the US of A the gravestone scene is removed and the soundtrack dubbed with the dog called Trigger…apparently it’s ok to be responsible for the deaths of numerous people but not ok to call your dog something hugely racist!

As to the loss of life, it’s worth remembering that most of those who died in the flooding were POWs

Interesting point of view, but why should it matter aracer?

Do we still weigh up the ‘value’ of the life of a civilian against a POW?

Was thinking and chatting about this with Ms Spanner after watching ‘Dresden’ on Saturday night.

Do we still feel that the German civilians were more deserving of death and punishment than British ones, even after all this time?

Not trolling, genuinely interested.
I try to be objective, but it’s still very easy to fall into the old patterns of prejudice.

Into – why was calling his dog that racist? It was perfectly acceptable at the time so you can’t really judge GG by 21st Century standards.

As for the Germans, my German pal thinks Dambusters is a great film, and he sat and watched Battle of Britain with my 6 year old at Xmas. He cheered on the Brits, too.

ScottChegg, I didn’t say GG was a racist, I said the word is racist and since I was commenting on how the movie is shown in the US currently then my comment has to be refering to now and not then, applying current morals and standards to historical events is not something I do.

and there was me thinking it was a tread about the banana splits (the original ones not the new fangled things)

I always feel slightly uneasy about the Dambuster’s Raid. The loss of life of both pilots and crew and civilians downstream for what turned out to be not much benefit to the war effort (propaganda notwithstanding) at all. Pretty much sums up the futility of war for me.

Into – Fair do’s. But I’d still maintain that the word is now racist; it was well accepted in the 70’s in various sitcoms.

Do we still feel that the German civilians were more deserving of death and punishment than British ones, even after all this time?

No – I don’t think German soldiers were particularly more deserving of death than British ones either, but killing more of them helped us to win the war. Likewise, at the time killing POWs wouldn’t seem to particularly add to the success of the raid in the same way killing German civvies would, which was the point of the comment.

Thanks for the response aracer.

I wasn’t having a go at you, just questioning my own predjudice TBH.

Was brought up on war stories and all the usual propoganda and still find myself making occaisionally making judgements based on things that happened in the last century.

Strange how these attitudes linger, even when we’ve almost convinced ourselves that we are above such things.

As for the Germans, my German pal thinks Dambusters is a great film, and he sat and watched Battle of Britain with my 6 year old at Xmas. He cheered on the Brits, too.

But did he notice that all the Bf109 engines were upside down?
The ones in the film were all postwar Spanish made, fitted with Rolls Royce rather then the inverted V daimler benz engines..

Ill get me anorak..