Lancaster raid in colour + Costal Command in b&w

JezWynd

Phil_aka_Pip said:

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

Hmm, that's odd. The original file is 197Mb in total, H264 codec. Nothing there that should cause any problems. At least you got to know they returned safely, you've just missed the debrief. And that particular crew survived the war.

peteri

Thanks for this - my grandfather flew 3.5 tours as a Lancaster pilot (a lot of it in Pathfinders), after having survived the Lancastria (RMS Lancastria - Wikipedia) aged 18 (he was given the George Cross for that but turned It down because 'I didn't do anything but survive' - suspect he bloody did).

Was a tremendous grandfather, but completely irresponsible financially - made for a lot of fun as a kid (but drove my dad mad I think), films like this make you realise why - the rest of his life was gravy and he was damn well going to have fun with it!

scalino65

peteri said:

Thanks for this - my grandfather flew 3.5 tours as a Lancaster pilot (a lot of it in Pathfinders), after having survived the Lancastria (RMS Lancastria - Wikipedia) aged 18 (he was given the George Cross for that but turned It down because 'I didn't do anything but survive' - suspect he bloody did).

Was a tremendous grandfather, but completely irresponsible financially - made for a lot of fun as a kid (but drove my dad mad I think), films like this make you realise why - the rest of his life was gravy and he was damn well going to have fun with it!

Crikey! its astonishing to think what some of these chaps went through. 

ESBlonde

darthed1981 said:

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. 

When the Practice of area bombing was adopted most aircraft flew independently to the target and were lucky if they droped a bomb within 5 miles of the target. Most of the bombers were wellingtons and hampdens so the destructive impact was potentially quite light. Two years later Bomber command could muster 800 4 engined bombers, mainly lancs plus a few halifaxes. With electronic navigation aids, pathfinder squadrons and the master bomber technique they could flatten large areas of a town or city on an almost nightly basis. It is considerred that the lack of industrial capacity and inability to produce the complex jet engines as well as aviation fuel in general was a direct consequence of bombing.

"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.

Good point well made. It highlights the other forgotten battle (The Alantic) which was our lifeline since we had no oil or metal supplies to speak of and the Americans could run thier factories day and night with the lights on. The attrician on for example the luftwaffe was substantial over the war, By the end of 1943 there were only a couple of fighter wings left in the west, the rest were moved to the Eastern front were pickings were richer but conditions harsher. Big week took place at the end of February 1944 after which luftwaffe fighter strength never recoverred. The P51 mustang was only a very small part of the fighter force at this time with most of the US fighter groups being the P47. The P51 was a significant fighter with it's long range and automatic K type gunsight but it too struggled when the Jets arrived so only had a short period of ascendence. Quality of the individual pilot was the key and Germany was low of fuel so training was cut to the bone. Even then training took place in skys full of roving allied P51s.

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.

Gibson was grounded immediatly following the Dams raid, he badgered the top brass for the chance to fly again and many months later was allowed to fly a mossie as a pathfinder, it was his last mission as he crashed and died in holland. The locals hid his body to prevent the germans making propaganda from him.

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.

Gibson always felt the outsider as he went to a minor public school and always felt inferior to others. He worked very hard at his job and was regarded as a bit of a bugger by many, few would doubt his abilities though.

Some good points very well made @darthed1981, We share an interest in the same historical period.

darthed1981

ESBlonde said:

By the end of 1943 there were only a couple of fighter wings left in the west, the rest were moved to the Eastern front were pickings were richer but conditions harsher. Big week took place at the end of February 1944 after which luftwaffe fighter strength never recoverred. The P51 mustang was only a very small part of the fighter force at this time with most of the US fighter groups being the P47. The P51 was a significant fighter with it's long range and automatic K type gunsight but it too struggled when the Jets arrived so only had a short period of ascendence. Quality of the individual pilot was the key and Germany was low of fuel so training was cut to the bone. Even then training took place in skys full of roving allied P51s.

The P-51 however, despite there only being two groups at the time of Big Week, was the crucial aspect as the bombers now did not go unescorted at any point, except due to the odd cock up. 

Where the P-47s once had the painful experience of watching swarms of fighters waiting for them to go home before attacking, the Germans no longer had this option, they had to get stuck in and take their chunks wherever they could.

It also completely removed the effectiveness of German twin-engined fighters, so when groups of Me110 and Me410 and Ju88 fighters once could engage bombers with heavy cannon with impunity, they would get slaughtered by even small groups of P-51s when they tried it in 1944.

Even later in the war, as you point out, while the Me-262 was of course superior to the P-51, it operated in such small numbers from vulnerable airfields, they never stood the slightest chance of being more than an annoyance.  They also accelerated slowly, so if caught at low speed they were sitting ducks.  It is something of a myth they could have been in service much earlier, the technology was just far too new and the engines weren't ready.  As you say, allied bombing did not help, I think once they destroyed a whole production line with one lucky raid.

As you say the losses of trained pilots (and honestly the fact the Germans never trained enough back when they could) in addition to the synthetic oil campaign crippled the Luftwaffe, but it would have been difficult if not impossible to have succeeded as early and as completely as they did without the (British specified with a British engine) P-51.  Never hurts to remind the yanks of the last bit

If you are a fan of Big Week have you read James Holland's new book on the subject?  I can't recommend his work highly enough to a fan of the period.

JezWynd

Another remarkable film from the same period. Again, no actors, all real participants.

Sangfroid: Composure or coolness, sometimes excessive, as shown in danger or under trying circumstances.

darthed1981

My Grandad flew Catalinas during the war, I've got his certificate from flying training in Florida at home.

pigface

Damn ... was hoping to watch this but it appears no longer to be available, at least to me here in Germany :-( Message about copyright claim by a third party.

quarky

darthed1981 said:
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.  

I think area bombing was not as effective as it could have been (mainly switching targets just as they had actually started to do enough to have a real effect), but on the other hand, the main advantage of strategic bombing for several years wasn't damage to the German war effort, but for those years 41-43 when the Russians were taking enormous losses, killing enormous numbers of Germans, it allowed Churchill to tell Stalin, who was desperate for another front, "look, we are doing something" without exposing the British Army to similar losses. That would have been completely unsustainable for us.

Certainly later in the war, when you had the 1000 bomber raids, you could argue about the effect (if any) on the war, and the targeting of cities could have been stopped then. Maybe it should have, but for the Allies (the Americans too), anything which could end the war even the slightest bit faster was going to be considered, and it is difficult to argue against that I think.