Great stirring stuff, with a stirring theme tune that I found myself humming on my way to work this morning.
Some odd things though. There is a black Labrador featured in the movie called “Nigger". Although perfectly innocent and absolutely of the time it is an indictment of age that the repeated use of an in context dog’s name should jar such. The dog’s name has been either deleted or dubbed to read Trigger on television screenings of the film since 1999. The Index on Censorship have condemned ITV’s editing of the dog’s name as "unnecessary and ridiculous"

The United Kingdom ratified Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions in 1998. Protocol I states that, “if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population”, but the UK went on to make the following reservation in respect of Article 56:

"The United Kingdom cannot undertake to grant absolute protection to installations which may contribute to the opposing Party's war effort, or to the defenders of such installations, but will take all due precautions in military operations at or near the installations referred to in paragraph 1 of Article 56 in the light of the known facts, including any special marking which the installation may carry, to avoid severe collateral losses among the civilian populations; direct attacks on such installations will be launched only on authorisation at a high level of command."

In short today the Dambusters raid on the Möhne dam, the Eder dam and the Sorpe dam would breach the Geneva Conventions with the exception of the UK who have left a back door open to justify such atrocities. 

Movie trivia: Flight Lieutenant H.B. Martin, D.S.O., D.F.C., A.F.C. is played by Bill Kerr who was also Tony Hancock’s long running sidekick in the radio version of Hancock’s Half Hour. Bill’s appearance in the film is referenced by Hancock as “blink and you’ll miss it”.

Richard Trevithick - designer of steam engines

On 13th April 1741, Britain’s Royal Military Academy was established at Woolwich, it is now based at Sandhurst.

On 13th April 1771, Richard Trevithick, the Cornish engineer, was born. He was famous for designing steam engines and locomotives.

On 13th April 1892, Sir Arthur Travers Harris, who later commanded RAF Bomber Command, was born. He became known as “Bomber” Harris and he instituted the mass bombing raids over Germany in the Second World War.

On 13th April 1912 the Royal Flying Corps was formed.

Damit auch wirklich jeder in den Genuss meiner Käuflichkeit kommen kann, habe ich einen Telegehirn-Shop eingerichtet. Dort kann man allerhand, mehr oder weniger nützliche, aber vor allem schicke Produkte erwerben. Von Tassen über eine Vielzahl von Button bis hin zu diversen Bekleidungsartikeln für Mann und Frau bleibt fast kein Bedürfnis unbefriedigt und so kann sich die verehrte Leserschaft von nun an hemmungslos dem Konsum von Telegehirn-Produkten hingeben. Die Bomber-Harris-Gedächtnisbrigade, das Kommando "Detlev Finkelstein" und Nicky aka. "Shadow" haben ebenfalls einige Produkte beigesteuert und die Produktpalette wird laufend erweitert. Dafür recht herzlichen Dank! Die Entscheidung einen Blog-Shop zu eröffnen ist mir nicht gerade leicht gefallen, auch wenn ich schon seit längerer Zeit mit dieser Idee schwanger gehe. Aus Anlass des zweijährigen Blogjubiläums konnte ich mich dazu durchringen und stehe jetzt ganz öffentlich zu meiner Käuflichkeit.

"Write what you know." Isn't that what they say? So, Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the firebombing of Dresden in World War II in his novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Each time I read this book, I am more impressed by it. His control of tone is wonderful - the simple, repetitive phrases that give it the air of a parodic gospel. The dark satire, restrained by a fatalistic humanism. The downright horror of it all.

He didn't write about the Nazi destruction of the Jews - he didn't witness that. He made no grand claims, other than that in the war, tens of thousands of innocent civilians were burned to a crisp in a city that had no military value. (Some have recently claimed that this was not true, but it certainly took them a while to make their arguments! See my post on Bomber Harris.) More people died there than in Hiroshima, but who's counting? Is the body count all that matters?

The subtitle of the book is The Children's Crusade, a reference to the fact that the American army was largely composed of boys, barely out of childhood, hastily dressed up and shipped overseas in uniform as GI Joes. For the most part, they were woefully unprepared, a point that is amplified in a brief historical book about the US war in northern Europe, The Boy's Crusade by Paul Fussell. (He was there too.) They were fighting a desperate and seasoned killing machine led by experienced and ruthless officers fighting for their lives, the Nazi army.

There are a lot of things in this book that may have seemed very outré in 1971. His description of the American collaborator, Campbell and his tirades against US soldiers; the way the Germans treated the Russian POWs like animals to be worked to death - right next to the Americans and British; the incompetence and chaos of the American fighting - their poor equipment. Lots of things that don't accord too well with our current mythology of The Greatest Generation either.

Of course, the book had added poignancy because it was published at a time with the specter of mass incineration was hanging over just about everyone.

Requiescat In Pace