RobertSnozers wrote:
As with most of the services, true in 1939, but by 1942-3, the makeup had changed dramatically. Sergeant Pilots commanding 'heavies' and crews made up of people from every walk of life and hailing from every part of the Empire. It was a lot more efficient, too. (Interestingly, the Royal Navy was historically a bit more meritocratic than the other forces and this was true of the Air Arms at the beginning of the war as well - there were a sprinkling of Petty Officer pilots and even some Petty Officer flight leaders technically in charge of commissioned officers).
True enough that the initial problems were overcome. There's the whole matter of whether the night bombing of cities really achieved much in the way of defeating Germany of course, but that's a different can of worms.
As for the navy, unlike the army it was never possible to purchase a commision no matter who you were. A naval officer who can't do navigation calculations or work out how much water the crew need being less than useful. Ditto the maths-using Royal Engineers and artillery.
RobertSnozers wrote:
Churchill made great demands on Bomber Command during the war, and his failure to recognise the crews with their own medal was cowardly, IMO.
I agree, and do wonder if it was a spiteful side-effect of both Churchill and Harris being obstinate characters who were increasingly at odds with each other. If Churchill's concern was about the ethical issues of the campaign then he should have been honest and pointed out that in a war with the likes of the Nazis you fight how you can with what you have, not how you might wish to in an alternative universe. Between 1940 and 1944 the only way the UK had to attack Germany directly was by bombing, so bombing it was.
The other side of that coin being people like a couple of, now deceased, German friends of my parents who ended the war in the rubble of Dresden as teenage refugees. A situation for which they unequivocally blamed Hitler and those round him, not Churchill, Rooseveldt, Harris or Stalin.
RobertSnozers wrote:
I've heard it said that politics in the 50s and 60s was dominated by people who had done military service in the war and had experience of working with people from every social class, and now we've lost that generation, political life is reverting to something more stratified.
I've heard that, and I suspect there might be some truth in it. Though the First World War placed lots of men in the same sort of situation it didn't have the same effect, or at least nothing like as much. I wonder if a combination of the social consequences of 1914-18 followed by the depression decade combined to mean there was no chance of "back to business as usual" in 1945. The Second World War generation learning from their parent's experience and making sure there would be major changes. That war was a political war as well, in a way 1014-18 wasn't
I'm getting tired of calming down....
