The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 60,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.

What the hell is wrong with telling the truth?

They bomb us we bomb them, simple, except the fact that we had enough airpower to bomb them back into the stone age, but hey if you want to start a war of annihilation that's what you'll get. The Germans got everything they deserved.

lotustuned
They bomb us

Well, except they didn't.

Small reductions in German war production" = 60k enemy dead.

Works for me.

Action Replay Nick: Well, except they didn't.

Not the US, no. But the UK, yes. Many, many times.

Action Replay Nick [TotalFark]

lotustuned
They bomb us

Well, except they didn't.

They bombed the shiat out of England, who were our allies.

I don't feel we, or any of our allies, did anything to Germany that wasn't deserved.

Action Replay Nick: Well, except they didn't.

They did attack our ships and send their soldiers onto our shores to engage in sabotage.

So, while they technically didn't bomb us, they sure as hell did attack us.

And, for the record, I feel that everything we did to the Axis nations in WWII was justified.

I also feel that the words in the museum are the truth. It's pretty much just a matter of opinion as to whether a war is good or bad and whether certain actions are right, wrong, justified, or unjustified.

I'm sorry, but if you willfully allow the Holocaust, I'm not going to feel that sorry for you.

tchamber: What the hell is wrong with telling the truth?

Exactly. BTW: the fact that the decision of bombing Germany may have been misguided, doesn't make it any less brave of the individual flight crew to step in a plane to carry out their assigned missions.

zappisfrank: I don't feel we, or any of our allies, did anything to Germany that wasn't deserved.

See, I have a hard time accepting that kind of thinking, since I don't know what you mean by 'Germany' in that sentence. Do you mean: the leadership of the country. Or: the individual people that make up that country? Because an awful lot of civilians who had nothing to do with starting the war and who didn't necessarily support the war or could have prevented the war lost their lives, property and/or family due to this bombing that is so effortlessly justified by assigning collective blame.

I don't think these are easy issues, but it seems to me that condemning the leaders who ordered massive bombings of civilian areas is not quite 'Political Correct revisionism', but more of a reasonable ethical viewpoint.

Can we get a third "politically correct" headline today? Please?

Atvar [TotalFark]

I'm sorry, but if you willfully allow the Holocaust, I'm not going to feel that sorry for you.

That's great, except we didn't know about the holocaust until the end or in the years after the war was over. We didn't bomb Germany to liberate the death camps.

IsayIsay [TotalFark]
zappisfrank: I don't feel we, or any of our allies, did anything to Germany that wasn't deserved.

See, I have a hard time accepting that kind of thinking, since I don't know what you mean by 'Germany' in that sentence. Do you mean: the leadership of the country. Or: the individual people that make up that country? Because an awful lot of civilians who had nothing to do with starting the war and who didn't necessarily support the war or could have prevented the war lost their lives, property and/or family due to this bombing that is so effortlessly justified by assigning collective blame.

Doubtful. The German people were pretty much on board with the Nazi government. They had to be, because Hitler didn't tolerate dissention. Those who opposed him usually wound up dead pretty farkin' quick.

When a country makes war, the civilian population is kinda on it's own. It's a sad part of war, but you can't isolate your attacks on just the leaders or just where the opposing army is. At least you couldn't in 1942.

LyleDAL: And lets be honest. They would have bombed us if they could have.

Yes, they most certainly would have.

Don't think Hitler would have stopped developing V2 technology once he was able to reliably hit British targets :)

RobertBruce: After nine to ten months of the aerial blitz, mostly against london, theres no way in hell anyone was holding back.

Actually, if we want to look at cause and effect, the London bombing only occured after the RAF pulled off a small raid on Berlin. Prior to that Germany was only bombing airfields and radar installations.

There is, and has been since before the war was over, a vigorous debate over the role and effectiveness of Bomber Command. It could be argued that the 'Political Correct revisionism' in play is the efforts of the surviving members of the bomber crews to suggest that their actions were uncontroversial by removing any reference to the debate.

zappaisfrank: That's great, except we didn't know about the holocaust until the end or in the years after the war was over.

The fact that the camps Jews were being sent to were extermination, rather than labour, relocation, or internment centres was known by 1941. The policy of extermination of the Jews was formally condemned by the Allies on December 17, 1942.

The German people were pretty much on board with the Nazi government. They had to be, because Hitler didn't tolerate dissention. Those who opposed him usually wound up dead pretty farkin' quick.

That's something of a contradiction in terms. It is true to say that there wasn't a large scale organised resistance in Germany (not least as a result of the 1933 Concordat) but there were resistance groups, including strands of resistance to Hitler's imperial plans within the army.

SchlingFo: Don't think Hitler would have stopped developing V2 technology once he was able to reliably hit British targets :)

Just as well, really, for the future efforts of the US.

Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Ha, Nazi schmazi," says Wernher von Braun

Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun

Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun

You too may be a big hero
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero
"In German oder English I know how to count down
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun

zappaisfrank: Doubtful. The German people were pretty much on board with the Nazi government. They had to be, because Hitler didn't tolerate dissention. Those who opposed him usually wound up dead pretty farkin' quick.

Uhm, doesn't that exact argument make the civilians more innocent?

That's great, except we didn't know about the holocaust until the end or in the years after the war was over. We didn't bomb Germany to liberate the death camps.

The Allied leaders did know about it and didn't really seem to care that much. Sadly.

When a country makes war, the civilian population is kinda on it's own. It's a sad part of war, but you can't isolate your attacks on just the leaders or just where the opposing army is. At least you couldn't in 1942.

That's a pretty definitive statement and many in Ethics classes would argue that point. To a large extent it was possible, even in 1942 and later, to spare the civilian population as much as you can whilst waging war. This does, of course, reduce the effectiveness for fighting to some extent. You can argue what the right balance is, but Allied Bomber Command overwhelmingly chose to just bomb the snot out of 'all those Germans'. They had some arguments for that, but to pretend it is plain 'revisionism' to say that the choice is at least controversial is, ironically, true revisionism.

Oops, refresh before I comment; FarkinNortherner has said it much more eloquently already.

I fail to see how this has anything to do with political correctness except as a way to use a buzzword to get the reactionaries responding.

Is Political Correct revisionism going to turn the men of Allied Bomber Command into War Criminals?

Yeah. In a couple of years, schoolbooks will have a section about how the eeeevil Americans killed all the dinosaurs with global warming and McDonalds Happy Meals.

This is not new, and yeah it involves the Pacific War, but... FWIW:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/quotes
[regarding his and Colonel Curtis LeMay's involvement in the bombing of Japan during World War II]
Robert McNamara: LeMay said if we lost the war that we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He... and I'd say I... were behaving as war criminals.
Robert McNamara: LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side has lost.
Robert McNamara: But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Moreover, the war crimes charges of Karl Dönitz had to be dropped once it surfaced that unrestricted submarine warfare had been the order of the day as ordered by Chester Nimitz for the US Pacific Fleet. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials)

/ History is written by the victors
// All wars are crimes
/// I'd have ordered the same as LeMay and Nimitz

Well they are.

But that was the past. There should be thousands of us troops being brought up on charges in iraq. I don't think we've seen so much murder and rape from our troops than we have seen in iraq.

Thats what happens when you let the dumb and poor join the army.

In 20 years, the revisionism school of "history" will make everyone who wasn't a fascist, communist, Nazi or dictator look like a war criminal. The entire revisionist field was created by the New Left and those historians all carry fairly large chips on their shoulders re: America and the West. At least some (Paterson, Holsti, Hogan) can admit to their biases in their research.

Revisionism, on the whole, is crap. It's basically populated by people who a) can't cut it researching real history and/or b) people with a political axe to grind. Frankly, it's about half a step better than "Womyn's history".

Post-revisionism seems to be where the real money is at. It's not as simplistic as realism, but you also don't get the "George Kennan's Long Telegram is really a sexual metaphor for the United States's urge to dominate the world" crap.

>>ten_of_spades

The only reviionists are the righ-tards who change the meaning of the war in iraq and ESPECIALLY VIETNAM.
They blame the left for their defeats because we were always proven right.

I assume the tag refers to submitter.

The ones who blew the shiat out of civilians in dresden?

Well, they WERE war criminals. And it WAS terror bombing. The fact that our enemy was far, far worse doesn't excuse what our side did -- because it doesn't take war crimes to win a war.

They are in fact war criminals. But I think everyone gets it in context.

All actions have good and bad consequences.

PC naval gazers live in a universe of inaction, where they NEVER have to answer for anything.

Dear submitter:

In the first place, truthtelling is not "Political Correct revisionism." In the second place, learn the proper application of the shift key, and how to spell "politically." In the third place, you're talking about one director of one memorial. What the fark makes you think this is a trend?

People like Pat McCroch have an internet and Freedom of Speech because the collective militaries of the West, fought, bled and died for those freedoms.

In short, screw you and all your ilk who are too gutless, naive and stupid to value their sacrifice.

Putting stupid rules on war makes it easier for people to rationalize going to war in the first place.

Anyone seen pictures from the firebombing of Dresden? Yeah, the Allies did some nasty things in World War Two but since we won and wrote the history of it, horray and good job!

I'm glad I don't get the kool-aid that submitter gets. Telling the truth does not equal revisionism. Just because the truth isn't pretty doesn't make it any less the truth.

That was a time when such a thing was the way it was, and there was no other way to wage war. Sure, now they would be viewed as war criminals. Then, they were heros, and they deserved it.

I keep waiting for the 'politicaly correct revisionism' to start. Serioulsy, I'm sure you could find lots of examples but this plaque ain't one of them.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

/not obscure

The raid destroyed or damaged about 60,000 buildings over hundreds of hectares in the centre of Coventry and killed 568 civilians. The raid had reached such a new level of destruction that the Germans later used the term Coventriert when describing similar levels of destruction to other enemy towns. During the raid, the Germans dropped about 500 tonnes of high explosives, including 50 parachute air-mines and 36,000 incendiary bombs of which 20 were incendiary petroleum mines.

I think the Germans had the market cornered on terror bombing first

JohnnyDread
In the first place, truthtelling is not "Political Correct revisionism."

It is not the truth. The strategic helped bring down German war industry. Without it, the war would have drug on far longer.

If the Germans had won, the Dresden firebombing would have been treated as a warcrime.

Well, they did (towards the end of the war) choose to bomb German cities simply because they would "burn well" and were accessible, not necessarily because they were important to the German military.

ericjohnson0: People like Pat McCroch have an internet

He gets his own internet?! I want one too! I'm tired of sharing!

Flash86
Anyone seen pictures from the firebombing of Dresden? Yeah, the Allies did some nasty things in World War Two but since we won and wrote the history of it, horray and good job!

It was war you morons. Yeesh.

zappaisfrank: That's great, except we didn't know about the holocaust until the end or in the years after the war was over.

No, we didn't acknowledge them until they were in our face. We'd been told many times, but we didn't believe it. Jews, Poles and Catholics alike had escaped the camps and sent word, through letters and eye-witness testimony.

Can't say I blame folks for being credulous, it's almost to horrific to believe even after seeing the proof decades after the fact. But yea, we can't say we weren't told.