If you don’t agree with this post, please don’t argue on this one, start another one.

You think this will stop people having an opinion?

der der der der dedederder der der der der!
heroes armed by a genius.

What what was the dog called? was it ****? oh well, it was 1944 or was it 43?

Doffs hat, cheers boys.

Mind you, I’ll bet they were pleased to have missed Eurovision…

This time last year was the 65th anniversary, I went to the flypast at Derwent Res (where they trained for the mission). Great day out to celebrate some true bravery.

My old fella flew Hurricanes, we live just over the hill from Derwent res and often pop into the museum and leave a few quid, he’s coming out tomorrow so after a dawn patrol on the bike we will have a pint together to commemorate them.

Carling based this advert on the bouncing bomb thing too:

😉

Link to the Telegraph front page of the day

well done lads.at a time when you could be at one with the machine.

Don’t forget that there were many other Squadrons that did just as brave missions that by default haven’t ever been lauded in the same way, just because of a film.

My grandad was in 630 Squadron and was killed 2 weeks before the end of the war over Dresden. His story is sad, because he was in the police so exempt from fighting, but he joined up and died right at the end of the war. His family blamed my grandma for forcing him to join up, which was complete rubbish, but we think she never recovered from that and she never remarried and became a very bitter woman (she was not a nice Grandma).

Bomber Command suffered a 44% death rate of flight crew. Those guys got into those planes and flew over a thousand miles there and back, at night over hostile territory knowing they had almost a 50% chance of never coming back. Takes some guts to do that. Average age of a Lancaster crew was 22.

My last job in the RAF was site manager for 617. I used to look after the tall boy and bouncing bomb as well as doing boring engineering things. It was quite a task as other sqns would try to steal or vandalise it. I came into work one monday to find it had been painted pink. There is also a mock up “****” that gets taken on every detachment. It’s usually the baby pilot’s responsibility to look after him. Invariably it gets lost but generally gets found again. After all the boy that loses him has to replace him.
I have nothing but respect for what they did and all the others that did similar. It pisses me off massively that every Nov we see media staged ceremonies where “lest we forget” is banded about like the latest trendy thang but people today generally have absolutely no concept whatsoever of the sacrifices made by the few and the military as a whole at that time.
Just my stella fueled two penneth worth!

Nothing but respect for all of those who put their lives on the line to protect Great Britain

Thank you

Take the point about the other squadrons efforts too. The dambusters raid was an amazing feat, despite the actual limited physical damage caused in some of the raids, the psychological impact on the German war effort was huge. It is worth mentioning that for the first few years of WW2, The RAF and the combined nations who fought under the RAF banner (Poland, Canada, USA volunteers and India as well as other Commonwealth nations to mention some) was the only fighting force which took the war inside the boundary of Germany and affected the German people in their own country. Sad to think about it nowadays, and there are differing opinions on the morality of carpet bombing techniques which Bomber Harris was an exponent of. I personally believe it was the right thing to do, glib thought this may seem. Read Patrick Bishop “Bomber Boys” – fantastic book – makes it come to life so well. The closing chapters of this book are vey moving when it highlights the lack of stomach to recognise Bomber Commands efforts due to the political unpopularity of the campaign once the war ended. Also blows away the myth of the RAF being an upper class thing. A very vexatious subject but my personal opinion is that these “chaps” were real heroes. Gratitude and respect does not begin to cover my feelings for them. I do not agree with people who say the time to commemorate their efforts is over and we should just start forgetting about it all, entitled to their opinion as they are. Whoops, don’t want to go Basil Fawlty. I also feel very cycnical about current government and their treatment of our current fighting forces – not fit to shine their shoes. I’ll shut up now! Some personal opinions, sorry if you don’t agree with any of them, just a subject very close to me!

The loss rate for bomber command was 3% per operation, so for every 100 men only 3 would be lost sounds like good odds. But if you have to do 30 operations that’s 3% time 30 so you have 90% chance of not making it. Many pilots did 3 or 4 tours of duty.

A quote

“The successes of Bomber Command were purchased at terrible cost. Of the volunteers who flew, almost sixty percent (over 55 000) were killed. Over 10,000 Canadians died serving in Bomber Command. It is a loss rate comparable only to the worst slaughter of the First World War trenches. Of those who were flying at the beginning of the war, only ten percent survived. Even those who began their service after D-Day (June 6, 1944) suffered almost fifty percent losses.”