Lancaster raid in colour + Costal Command in b&w

JezWynd

Remarkable film of a Lancaster raid -

Guitar_Slinger

Somebody played that at work one lunchtime on the big screen.

We all sat in silence glued to it  - fascinating.

HAL9000

Fantastic stuff. Enjoyed seeing the fitters at the beginning since this is what Dad did during the war as part of 460 Squadron RAAF. The particular aircraft he worked on (G for George) still exists and is in the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra. I believe it has the distinction of being the only Lancaster never to have lost a crew member.

https://goo.gl/images/PTzd7c



(Dad is standing just behind the kneeling man furthest to the right, and seems to wearing his cap at a particularly jaunty angle. The difference in the uniform colours is due to the mix of Australian and British servicemen.)

JezWynd

It's strange how colour brings the character of the men to life; back and white casts them as historical artefacts but colour reveals them as recognisable types. Some of the numbers are incredible - a Lancaster's life was typically 40 operational hours. Once a crewman had done 7.5 trips they were on borrowed time. And all volunteers.

HAL9000

JezWynd said:

It's strange how colour brings the character of the men to life; back and white casts them as historical artefacts but colour reveals them as recognisable types.

It really does, doesn't it? Good observation.

scalino65

I will show that to my neighbour. He's 93 and flew these planes for the RAAF in ww2. Got shot down by a 262 jet thingy. Thanks for the link

Moominpapa

The pilot they focus on in the documentary was 22 years old. I was telling my almost-18 year old son about it today, asking him to try and imagine himself in four year's time being the sole pilot of that massive aircraft, with the lives of your aircrew in your hands, on your way to face AA-batteries and German night fighters as part of your daily routine; doing it 30 times before your tour of duty was over, while the base was losing 70 aircraft a month. It doesn't bear thinking about. I sure as fuck wasn't up to that when I was 22. As a child born 15 years after WWII ended I barely grasp what it was like for my parents, but for today's kids I it must be almost impossible to  understand what their great-grandparents and grandparents went through in those years. But this documentary crystallizes it brilliantly. Very moving to watch.

JezWynd

Moominpapa said:

The pilot they focus on in the documentary was 22 years old. I was telling my almost-18 year old son about it today, asking him to try and imagine himself in four year's time being the sole pilot of that massive aircraft, with the lives of your aircrew in your hands, on your way to face AA-batteries and German night fighters as part of your daily routine; doing it 30 times before your tour of duty was over, while the base was losing 70 aircraft a month. It doesn't bear thinking about. I sure as fuck wasn't up to that when I was 22. As a child born 15 years after WWII ended I barely grasp what it was like for my parents, but for today's kids I it must be almost impossible to  understand what their great-grandparents and grandparents went through in those years. But this documentary crystallizes it brilliantly. Very moving to watch.

Good points. Looking at the bomber crews and also the Station staff, many of them look older than their years. But then this was a pre-teenage generation - a generation that transited from boys to men seemingly without any of the angsty teenage traumas that were to emerge in the post war rock 'n roll generations.

Phil_aka_Pip

I googled for add HTML5 to Firefox, downloaded the add-on, restarted Firefox and I STILL can't play the video! Woss wrong?

JezWynd

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I googled for add HTML5 to Firefox, downloaded the add-on, restarted Firefox and I STILL can't play the video! Woss wrong?

Haven't got a clue but I've embedded the video in the page; might that help cure the problem?

darthed1981

It's quite tragic that in re-evaluating both the value and morality of the night bomber offensive, that the terrific bravery, skill and dedication of the crews is denigrated or dismissed.

In reality, they went out knowing the odds, having seen their friend's aircraft burst into flames, and often heard them as the VHF sets entangled, screaming for their mothers as they went down.

Amazing men, from what the Americans rightly call the "greatest generation".

JezWynd

darthed1981 said:

It's quite tragic that in re-evaluating both the value and morality of the night bomber offensive, that the terrific bravery, skill and dedication of the crews is denigrated or dismissed.

That might have been true in the immediate aftermath of the war and for some years after but I think that nowadays their value is truly recognised. The concept of area bombing, bringing whole cities to ruin became an embarrassment to many in the following years. And then the sixties arrived with its peace and love mantra and Harris became a pariah.

Churchill put it best - They sowed the wind, and now, they are going to reap the whirlwind.

HAL9000

Moominpapa said:

The pilot they focus on in the documentary was 22 years old. I was telling my almost-18 year old son about it today, asking him to try and imagine himself in four year's time being the sole pilot of that massive aircraft, with the lives of your aircrew in your hands, on your way to face AA-batteries and German night fighters as part of your daily routine; doing it 30 times before your tour of duty was over, while the base was losing 70 aircraft a month. It doesn't bear thinking about. I sure as fuck wasn't up to that when I was 22. 

^ This. One of my uncles was a Lancaster pilot for 57 Squadron. Got awarded a DFC when one of the engines failed after being hit by AA fire, and successfully continued the raid despite not being able to maintain height, and all this AT THE AGE OF 23. I know lots of people will have friends and relatives who did braver and more heroic things, but this still makes me tremendously proud. I don't believe that at 23 I would have behaved with the same bravery and determination. Especially when you hear what the life expectancy for bomber crews was back then.

darthed1981

JezWynd said:

darthed1981 said:

It's quite tragic that in re-evaluating both the value and morality of the night bomber offensive, that the terrific bravery, skill and dedication of the crews is denigrated or dismissed.

That might have been true in the immediate aftermath of the war and for some years after but I think that nowadays their value is truly recognised. The concept of area bombing, bringing whole cities to ruin became an embarrassment to many in the following years. And then the sixties arrived with its peace and love mantra and Harris became a pariah.

Churchill put it best - They sowed the wind, and now, they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Area bombing was rightly criticised by many at the time, and was exceptionally dubious morally.  The post-war strategic bombing survey was very critical of the effectiveness of carpet bombing at night.  It's fair to say that the "Battle of Berlin" was a definite loss for the RAF, losing 600 Lancasters but neither significantly affecting industrial output or significantly affecting the odds of Germany staying in the war.

It was a reaction to the inability of Britain to effectively hit Germany in any other way, as the British Army on it's own could never effectively engage the bulk of the Wermacht in the field.  Harris considered that it was far superior than throwing infantry at the Germans, correctly most likely. 

"Total war" as practised in WW2 was in of course in itself brutally inhumane and a hell of a lot of women and children were burned alive in Hamburg and Dresden (and of course Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry and London, and later Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

That quote was Harris, not Churchill BTW.  Churchill was unusually uneasy or arguably hypocritical about area bombing and in fact after Dresden sent a letter to Harris essentially saying "steady on, this is almost over".

Historical writing on this topic now is truly fascinating and I have a rule to read any book on the topic.  Richard Overy's which is harshly critical of the campaign is a tome, but others like Patrick Bishop have a more balanced view.  In fact his "War in the West" books completely re-evaluate the old idea that Britain was ever on it's knees, and that from a low point Britain's resources quickly, except in sheer numbers of ground forces, exceeded Germany's.

In the end of course, the US day fighters wiped out the Luftwaffe's ability to effectively protect Germany's cities by day so the RAF started long range day raids, with more precision and massive RAF Mustang escorts!

FWIW I think the hand-wringing in the immediate aftermath of WW2 went far too far, and the denial of a campaign medal was disgusting.

That's sort of my point really.  It is is easy with a modern moral compass to be sickened by the deliberate targeting of civilians by both sides, by the deliberate creation of firestorms, by using delayed action munitions to target rescuers etc.

However, the men who flew those bombers, from the first raids in inadequate bombers carrying a tonne of bombs to the supreme technical achievement of the Lancaster carrying ten tonnes, were the best, bravest and brightest Britain had or arguably ever has had.

James Holland's reassessment of Guy Gibson is straight on the money of my point.  During the war he was an unassailable legend, hundreds of missions before he won his VC on the Dams Raid, many many more afterwards, a superb leader of men.

Then in many books since the war he is painted as difficult, elitist, egotistical, unbelievably harsh with lower ranking "erks".

The reality as Holland points out.  Gibson was deep, deep into both nervous exhaustion and PTSD and should have been taken off operations (and would have been today) long before the Dams raid.  As it was, he kept going, and going and going and in the end was killed in action.

Truly, one of the greatest men this country has produced, IMHO of course.

JezWynd

Great post @darthed1981 and very informative. Historical events are often reassessed or revised over the years, often by historians who are out to make a name for themselves, sell books, or who have a particular axe to grind. Nothing can make a historian's name more easily than by arguing against the current perceived wisdom.

I've confined my own reading to autobiographical accounts by participants, which often doesn't give an overview, so the shifts in thinking have largely passed me by, but I think I'm right in saying that there was a recent reassessment of the WW1 generals that recast them as intelligent thinkers rather than donkeys. The sheer numbers of dead and wounded would argue against any such revisionist thinking.

Re. the greatest generation, you are right, they were. They did have one advantage that current generations lack - a clearly identified enemy and an almost cartoonish evocation of evil in Hitler (you only have to hear one of his speeches to know he's a man deserving of a slap). They also had a clearly defined sense of community, something that we seem to have lost. I wonder if we would face up today in a similar way; or is it simply that time has moved on and technology has made such a response obsolete.

darthed1981

JezWynd said:

They also had a clearly defined sense of community, something that we seem to have lost. I wonder if we would face up today in a similar way; or is it simply that time has moved on and technology has made such a response obsolete.

A very fascinating question indeed.

WW2 helped create the "liberal consensus" that has governed much of the world (or the wealthiest block of it) ever since.

Now this is being seriously challenged again from both foreign and domestic opponents, who knows what will happen and indeed what we as citizens will need to do about it.

Nitefly

Yesterday I visited the Imperial War Museum North, in Manchester, as they now have some of the ceramic poppies from London on display.  In some detail it covers the first and second world wars, supported by contemporary exhibits, many of them quite personal. 

There were, for example, a set of pen and ink sketches drawn by a Frenchwoman named Violette Lecoq (a member of the Resistance), of her time in the Ravensbruck womens' concentration camp - quite shocking in their brutal simplicity.

There are also some impressive commissioned works of art, as well as bits of hardware, including one of our atom bombs from the 80's/90's.  Such an innocuous-looking thing to say it was capable of such massive destruction - just 3 metres long and 20cm in diameter.  It frightened the crap out of me, a child of the Cold War.

After 2 hours, I needed to get out.  I'd recommend a visit, but it's not what you'd call "fun".

prowla

What evil machines!

Years ago I was in the loo minding my own business, so to speak, and there was this almighty roar approaching; I made it to open the window in time and a bloomin' Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane flew over my house at treetop height!

They were doing a display for the RAF college just across the road (now a housing estate) - bloods marvellous!

lasermonkey

Around twenty years ago I got to spend half an hour inside Duxford's Lancaster. Aside from being a huge thrill, it was surprisingly difficult to get around, especially that main spar.

Considering it was still on the ground, I was wearing relatively light clothing and no one was shooting at me, it was surprisingly tiring. I wouldn't fancy that at 20,000ft and -20°c  for eight hours with the Luftwaffe after me, that's for sure.

scalino65

My ex-Lanc pilot mate told me lots about his days. Small practical details like you had to be over 6ft to fly one as you needed to put your feet up on the dash in order to get enough leverage to pull it up into the air. I also asked him about the flying jackets, "didnt faackin get one. They all went to the "man with a fan" i.e. the fighter pilots
 I also saw the tears in his eyes as he told me that 70% of his mates did not come back from every single raid the Aussies did during one of his stints (460 Squadron). Being absolutely decimated on one particular raid and then being ordered to do exactly the same mission the following night. Like many, his overiding emotion is one of guilt and incomprehension as to why he wasnt killed too. " just doing my faackin job, sport". 
I'd like to see some historian argue with him that what he did was wrong or misplaced...he's 93 and I wouldnt argue with him. Tough as hell and the fight of a tiger. I just hope he sticks around a good while longer. 
An amazing generation of people in our eyes, through his, nothing special, just simply what he had to do. An amazing human being.

Phil_aka_Pip

JezWynd said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I googled for add HTML5 to Firefox, downloaded the add-on, restarted Firefox and I STILL can't play the video! Woss wrong?

Haven't got a clue but I've embedded the video in the page; might that help cure the problem?

It did let me see it as far as 54:37