Never Again

It was never my intention with this blog to vent about current events or controversies in the world – the purpose was to present ideas and stories directly related to Bomber Command and my Dad’s service in that Second World War campaign. However, in recent months I have increasingly seen a convergence of the past and the present, of history repeating itself yet again. I can’t ignore the parallels I see.
On October 7th last year the world witnessed an attack on innocent civilians that rivalled anything committed by the Nazi’s in World War Two, if not in scale then certainly in the level of monstrous savagery. The atrocity committed during that dark day was, I am convinced, coldly calculated to elicit exactly the response it got. The terrorist group responsible for the sickening crimes scurried like rats back to Gaza, taking many of their victims (both dead and alive) with them, retreating into their maze of underground tunnels and leaving their women and children above to take the brunt of the response from Israel. It is worth noting that the Nazis built tunnels and concrete shelters as well, but they put their civilians into them to protect them from Allied attacks, leaving their military above to fight the enemy.
And what was Israel to do then? Shake their fists impotently at Gaza and say “darn it, they got away! Oh, let us hope they don’t do it again!”
The perpetrators of the October atrocity knew exactly what was coming and, I think, planned for it. The innocents who have died since then are just necessary sacrifices in their cruel, twisted view. And so, like a wounded wildcat who has been backed into a corner, Israel has unleashed everything it has.
With a cowardly enemy who relishes hiding behind civilian shields the results have been horrific and heartrending – no one can deny it.
Again: what was Israel to do? The parallels with the Bomber Campaign cannot be avoided for anyone, who like me, has a passion for history. The RAF and the USAAF attacked Germany with single minded ruthlessness, with all the weapons available to them. If an area of a city had to be destroyed in order to destroy Hitler’s factories then so be it – and if the bombs flattened homes and killed the civilian workers who ran those factories so much the better. Heartless and cold, but if the Nazi empire was to be defeated, necessary – the gloves were off, this was a fight for survival. This is why no one should start a war, and why the moral responsibility for innocent deaths should be laid at the feet of those who started it.
During and after the World War Two, the criticism was constant – accusations that Bomber Command had gone too far, that the brave young men of the RAF and USAAF had taken part in “war crimes” ... “never mind Coventry and Dachau, remember Dresden!” the post-war pundits cried.
Like the soldiers of the I.D.F., the airmen of Bomber Command were given the thankless task of taking the fight to a cruel, fanatical enemy who could not be separated from the civilian population. After the war the Bomber Campaign was condemned by some for the devastation it had wrought in the process of defeating the most evil regime in history.
Well, I for one have lost patience with the Monday morning quarterbacking, the unfair criticism, the condemnation by those not there, the accusations of war crimes – I stand with the “bomber boys”, and by the same token and for the same reasons I Stand With Israel.