Harry’s Place

Yes, we owe these heroes - all those who served, in all capacities- everything.

Disagree. I think the Beeb is simply trying to provide us with as much information about the events as possible.

It is possible to both be thankful for the sacrifices made to defeat Hitler and the Axis powers in WW2 and to make sure you never glorify war.

In much the same way, are we not allowed to think that it was right to fight WW2 but also question some particular strategies (such as the deliberate targetting of civilians)?

The prospect of this looming discourse fills me with dread

especially as we have just had two threads full of it about Hiroshima…

But I think Zdenek has the answer to your worries.

I was Just watching the bbc news video clips of the lancaster dambuster flyover of the derwent reservoir (and the rioting rangers fans fighting the cops in manchester)

Very good posting.

My dad faught in Italy, Normandie and the Netherlands

The revisionism you cite has actually been going on for some years now, you know.

Brett, I don’t have a problem with the BBC’s account of the raid, and I don’t think it detracts from the heroism of those who carried it out. In the end I think most people can simultaneously understand that horrible things happen in war but that sometimes war is unavoidable.

How long before TheIrie turns up and explains to us how the Damnbusters were uniquely more evil than the Nazis garrisoning the damns?

A neocon that does not glorify war is self-contradicting.

Gene, I don’t think the BBC meant anything particular by it either (though I do wonder why it gets its own subheading). I see it more as an omen… the first cough and a sniff before the flu.

Excellent post Brett - totally agree with your sentiments. I too feel great unease at the BBC reportingof this.

“are we not allowed to think that it was right to fight WW2 but also question some particular strategies (such as the deliberate targetting of civilians)?”

There’s a good book by AC Grayling about the bombings of Dresden etc that’s worth reading on this subject. But this is different, civilians were not the target in the same way that the people of Dresden were, they were a tragic by-product of a strategically vital mission’s success, something you just couldn’t argue was the case with the firebombing of German cities.

FWIW, My granddad was one of a small group of British soldiers who fought from the first day hostilities were announced until VJ day, I’ll never forget what he went through. Some of the soldiers he fought with in Burma were captured by the Japanese, and were sent to the war camps there. Looking at what they went through, not to mention what was happening in the German concentration camps, puts the Dambusters debate into some pretty sharp perspective for me.

“A neocon that does not glorify war is self-contradicting”

And this is why my heroes are Fidel and Chavez… both are tin-pot generals, whose strutting and threatening gives me a very non-neocon hardon.

“Dresden were, they were a tragic by-product of a strategically vital mission’s success, something you just couldn’t argue was the case with the firebombing of German cities.”

Oh give it a rest, you neocons supported this as well, the Hiroshima was necessary post is only a week old for xsake.

“And this is why my heroes are Fidel and Chavez”

pfft, I am not the one with the mug of Anthony Blair on my website, I leave the heroworshiping to neocons.

and yet…the hardon remains the same

The raid wasn’t really a great success though. I think it’s possible to recognise this fact without having to beat ourselves up about the civilian casualties.

How dare the BBC even mention that civillians died in the missions. Don’t these ignoramuses realise that they all deserved to die. I think we should all go to germany and piss on their graves.

Perhaps you should piss off and do it yourself, Tagnuzlsx.

Also, far be it from me to point out this will be the only time anyone commemorates the 65th anniversary.

I recently watched The Dam Busters. Excellent. Except for the dog with the unfortunate name.

This post is simply beyond belief. how low can you guys actually go? I’m just relieved that we now have a picture of a grinning tony blair imagining himself something special by standing next to a soldier heading this blog. Tells you all you need to know really.

mesquito: “Except for the dog with the unfortunate name”.
That would not happen to be n__ger, would it?

David All: That would be the dog. It made watching the film a rather surreal experience.

The anti-fascist credentials of the crews of 617 were a hell of a lot stronger than yours, Gameboy. Especially the 50% which died. Even today I’d sooner have Les Munro on my side in a bind than you.

Morgoth: “How long before TheIrie turns up and explains to us how the Damnbusters were uniquely more evil than the Nazis garrisoning the dams?”

I dunno, but johng (rhymes with wrong) is here.

“how low can you guys actually go?”

Not as low as 617 Squadron!

Actually, shouldn’t you be off defending the glorious Iraqi resistance, who would never kill civilians … err, Zionist Imperialist Running Dog Lackeys … err (cont’d p94)

I can only repeat what David T said

Yes, we owe these heroes - all those who served, in all capacities- everything.

The BBC news “reporting” now is shameful, this is just another example of it.

It also rhymes with Kim Jong-Il, Nick. Now, how many civilians died in the glorious revolutionary socialism of last century?

Bizarrely, given his pompous inflated outrage here, in the “Western Leftists and Third World Sadists” thread a few posts below, johng is anxious to put Samora Machel’s atrocities into context:

You’d never know reading (Paul Bogdanor’s) account above that the crimes he documented were committed during a civil war in which there were two sides

Still, I don’t think I’ve been rude yet to anyone on the new-look HP, so I’m not going to start calling johng a preposterous hypocritical gasbag and an unbelievable prick anytime soon.

John Game or Clare Fox, who’s the more jumped-up and self-satisfied? Discuss.

I think it was a poor choice of headline “Civilians killed”. Should have been “Those who died”. It infers there was a sensible other option. Like a possible mistake was made. Will they be heading other historic military operations with “Civilians killed” like the battles of the ancient Greeks?

Get a grip Brett, noting that hundreds of civilians died in the raid is not “revisionism” but a historic fact. Indeed if you actual read the article you will find that sentiment of acknowledging the civilian deaths stems not from the BBC but from former and current service people:

“It shouldn’t be forgotten that hundreds of civilians died that night as floodwaters washed down the valleys below the dams, sweeping aside farms and villages.

“That sentiment is reflected by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight marking the occasion over the Derwent Dam.

“The flight’s motto is “Lest We Forget”. The Lancaster bomber made a series of passes over the dam followed by Tornado aircraft from today’s 617 squadron.

“The names of those who died in the raid are on a special memorial at in the centre of Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire.

“The memorial is shaped like a broken dam and often draws crowds of visitors.”

Well as the saying goes “soldier hate wars.” Only armchair General revel in them.

We all owe the WWII generation, and the men of 617 Squadron. That also goes for that academic poseur, John Game, who appears to prefer visiting Harry’s Place to the hard task of completing his (long overdue) PhD.

Taken from the opening page of James Jones’ Thin Red Line, written by a soldier.

This book is cheerfully dedicated to those greatest and most heroic of all human endeavors, WAR and WARFARE; may they never cease to give us the pleasure, excitement and adrenal stimulation that we need, or provide us with the heroes, the presidents and the leaders, the monuments and museums which we erect to them in the name of PEACE.

What were you saying, Farnos?

Indeed, Sackcloth, and I’ve just seen how I unconsciously plagiarised your good self.

Alec have ever heard of the concept of irony

A British bomber pilot, it’s mission in Noway aborted by weather and leaking fuel, dumped his bomb-load into what he thought was the North Sea. Instead, the bombs fell an the blacked out city of Bergen below. Scores of children in a school were killed.

My mother was a little girl in Bergen at the time. Never was any blame directed at the British, despite the best efforts of Quisling propagandists. These things happen. In may 1945, the Brits showed up to help facilitate the surrender and brough sweet cakes and other long forgotten treats for the children.

Richard, have you ever been compared to Sunny?

What the article fails to mention is that a large number of those civilians were forced labourers and thus victims of Nazism - not the RAF.

Flanker
16 May 2008, 6:09 pm

A neocon that does not glorify war is self-contradicting.

well by those standards all your islamic buddies are neocons. or do you think that islam is not an ideology in which holy war and its glorification is by now a central tenet?

as for anyone calling the dambusters “war criminals”, it won’t surprise me. not to say that it won’t disgust me. i feel sick every time some barking moonbat like arundathi roy or any number of white supremacist cites the “firebombing of dresden”, or the fact that jews had the temerity to fight back against the legions of hajj amin (arafat Mk I) al-husseini, as examples of how the zionists rule the world. silly pricks.

Ugh another logical lesson for harriets.

neocons is the sub-set of war glorifiers.

Not all glorifiers are neocons, but all neocons are glorifiers.

The raid was a remarkable example of derring-do combined with technological innovation. The semi-official book records that there was a prison camp of Russians downstream.

Some of us have less dramatic familly histories for World War II. My parents met at in Secondary School during the war. The quietest of my uncles was at El Alamein and later in Italy. An aunt lost her husband in the war, and never had a home of her own until my grandmother died.

The aftermath of the war was just as important - the end of European empires and the spread of democracies.

I see Flanker still hasn’t bothered to do even the most rudimentary reading about the actual tenets of neo-conservatism.

What a tool.

“I see Flanker still hasn’t bothered to do even the most rudimentary reading about the actual tenets of neo-conservatism.”

I did watch its
manifesto video

Ha.

Flanker gets all into logic!

Flanker, you once asserted on this site that 9-11 was Bush’s “Reichstag.” Could you explain what you meant?

Somebody please give Flanker and Johnq the addresses of the English language website of the Russian Army so they can find a military that they can glorify.

mesquito: I am sure dogs, persumerbly black ones, with that unfortunate name were quite common then.

Oriana Fallaci, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal a year or so before her death, said, with the war in Iraq and controversies about civilian deaths abounding, that such deaths were more than morally justified–even if highly regrettable. She noted that many of her childhood friends were killed by Allied WWII bombing, and she herself barely escaped death on more than one occasion but, she concluded, it was all worth it as necessary to unseat a fully ensconced totalitarian regime. In other words better that some
innocents die in order to free an entire nation that to leave the
entire majority enslaved. As Lincoln said in defending his temp- orary suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War: “One often sacrifices a limb in order to save the body; one never sacrifices the body to maintain the limb.”

David All: I’m sure they were. I don’t at all doubt the motives of the film-makers. It does seem odd though. I watched that movie a few weeks ago, and when they first named the dog it came right out of nowhere.

On war films, I recently saw for the first time “In Which We Serve”.

Very, very good.

Of course those who flew on the Dambusters raid were heroes to a man. About 40% of the aircrew were killed. I don’t think acknowledging that there were civilian deaths as a result of the raid detracts one iota from that heroism.

I suppose it’s possible there may well be some things that happened in WW2 that could benefit from a rethink. I don’t think that this is one of them. That also goes for the name of Guy Gibson’s dog too, unfortunate as we may find the name today.

Mesquito, recall the Agatha Christie title. When I was a child, not long ago, it was common to call narrow-eyed classmates Chinky.

If anyone is into WW2 war films can I suggest ‘Went the Day Well?’ and ‘The Cruel Sea’.

Alec: No doubt. And I ain’t allowed to say “injuns” no more.

Does anyone have any idea what the German 15,000 88 mm dual purpose Anti-tank/Anti-Aircraft guns that protected Germans cities in 1942 would have been used for if the RAF and USAAF had not bombed their cities?
The Germans also used thousands of 105 and 128 mm At/AA guns from 1942 to 1945, including those in the Berlin Flak-Towers which chewed up Soviet armor in the battle of Berlin.

Moreover, the Luftwaffe was forced to switch it’s attention from the Eastern front from 1942 onward to combat the RAF at night and the USAAF by day. This switch was the reason the Soviets could no begin to successfully counter-attack

First of all, we’re talking about WWII here, where almost the entire world was in a state of “total war“. Horrible as it is, civillian deaths were almost a given at that time. Is elevating this information from footnote to bold subheading the first step towards applying a dubious and revisionist anachronism?

There’s nothing anachronistic in considering strategic bombing from an ethical perspective. Throughout the war there was a lively public debate in Britain about the morality of the campaign (see Mark Connelly, Reaching For the Stars.) The idea that this never crossed anyone’s minds in the 1940s is itself a bit of dubious revisionism.

There’s nothing anachronistic in considering strategic bombing from an ethical perspective.

Sorry, can’t resist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DR3vGUOVUA

John Game or Clare Fox, who’s the more jumped-up and self-satisfied? Discuss.

I met Clare Fox last Christmas. She was quite nice, good company etc, although she objected to my calling her “Foxy”, which I thought was a chummy and complimentary nickname, although on reflection not necessarily appropriate after only about 10 minutes of having been introduced.

Did she have any good ideas while you spoke with her?

We were in a pub after she’d done an interview with Little Atoms on Resonance FM, and had one marvellous idea, which was “what can I get you?”.

After her comparing, I think, Cyclone Nargis to the Yorkshire Floods on Any Questions, it seems to me, she deserves everything she gets. In my opinion. Maybe.

This wasn’t strategic or area bombing. By the standards of the day it was highly targeted. Even by recent standards it was highly targeted. I tooks the best crews and weeks to practice it when there was a shortage of trained men.

If you want a discussion of the morality and effectiveness of strategic bombing in the context of WWII then to use the dambusters raid as an exemplar is not merely anachronistic, it is completely ignorant.

After her comparing, I think, Cyclone Nargis to the Yorkshire Floods on Any Questions, it seems to me, she deserves everything she gets.

Well I suppose they both come broadly under the category of “weather”. There was some light drizzle in Middlesex this evening as well, but I’ve not been out with a collecting tin asking for sympathy. Was that the line of argument?

mesquito and Alec Macpherson: No doubt there are a lot of ideas, words and phrases that were common then that would now be considered strange, to say the least. You mention Agatha Christie’s classic thriller about ten people alone on an island with a killer. It is an interesting commentary on different views between Britain and America on which Race or People are the ones most easy to put down that while the tittle of Christie’s mystery in Britain was “Ten Little N__gers”, here in the States, it was “Ten Little Indians”. No doubt had it been an American film, Guy Gibson’s dog would have been re-named Blackie, or perhaps Redskin or Injun. This is of course, the official treatment of such matters. Unofficially and ironically, Black American soldiers found their treatment by British civilians to be quite better then the treatment they frequently recieved from their fellow White Americans.

Have never seen “Went the Day Well?”, though have seen both “In Which We Serve” and “The Cruel Sea” and found both excellant and quite moving. My Dad’s oldest brother, Uncle Floyd, who was a ground crew chief of B-17 Flying Fortress bombers in Britain, said the most realistic fictional presentation of the US Bombing Campaign was the novel and movie, “12 O’Clock High”.

Uncle Floyd died early last year at the age of 85. I was glad I got to see him one last time when my Dad and I went up to visit him over the Christma holiday, a few months earlier. My Dad’s other brother Uncle Ed who died in 1970, served on a destroyer off Normandy on D-Day and latter was in the invasion of southern France. Converted to a minesweeper and transferred to Pacific, his ship was sunk by Kamikazes off of Okinawa. Uncle Ed was waiting on the West Coast to be transferred to a new ship when the A-Bomb caused the Japanese to Surrender. My Mom’s only brother, Uncle Joe, who was born on Armistice Day, 1918 served aboard a Navy repair ship in the Pacific. He was frequently on detail to repair damaged ships, often in the midst of combat. After the War, Uncle Joe went to college on the GI Bill and became a civil engineer and worked for the navy for more then 30 years. He now lives in retirement in northern Florida. An elderly friend, whom I need to call, was in an Army reconissance unit and helped to liberate Buchenwald. He still has nightmares about that once or twice a year. For more then 50 years he would not discuss Buchenwald untill he decided to do so for his high school students. To these and all the other WWII veterans both living and dead, we owe a debt of gratitude for our Freedom that can never be repaid. It reflects nothing adversely on them, though to mention the civilians killed while making clear that such losses were inevitable given the nature of the weapons used and the scope, magnitude & fierceness of the War.

of course fallachy considers Muslim deaths acceptable, geez.

As for german materiel. The bare bones 88 was too bulky in late war given the adecuacy of later pak guns that and the red army was already advancing even before the near usless (but highly criminal) stray bombing

DocMartyn makes a good point. I think the proper figure is about 1/3rd of all total Nazi assets–men, equipment, production & logistics, etc., were directed to the air defense of the Reich–an
effort that otherwise would have been directed elsewhere. A good read on this subject is the book “Blue Skies and Blood” which was published in the late 70’s.

My mistake, a senior moment, “Blue Skies and Blood was about the Battle of the Coral Sea, the one about the ETO air war effort that I’m thinking of came out at the same time but now for the life of me I can’t think of the title.

Read this article to see how low the modern world has sunk.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/may08/irena.htm

The fact that gore was preferred over such a woman is painful and shaming.

Put me in the camp that says the BBC does not need to add the stuff about civilian deaths. It is not glorifying war to report on brave folks like the dambuster team.It’s glorifying the dambuster team. The only reason to mention the civilians deaths is the BBC can’t stand heroics by Brits. You need The Sun for that.

“I think the proper figure is about 1/3rd of all total Nazi assets–men, equipment, production & logistics, etc., were directed to the air defense of the Reich–an
effort that otherwise would have been directed elsewhere.”

Stupid lies from stupid authors, seriously you neocons rely way too much on quasi historical opinion that passes off as scholarly work.

http://axishistory.com/index.php?id=7288

It only got to be 1/3 to 1/4 (East vs West if you include all fronts it is much less) AFTER D-day.

On the dog-naming issue. ‘Nigger’ is simply Latin for black. Unless it is meant as an insult to a black person, it is no more intrinsically racist than ‘blackboard’. There used to be a type of confectionary called ‘nigger balls’. This reference was simply to the fact that they were black, and I’m sure no slight to black people was ever contemplated, much less intended. Sometimes these words are unfortunate, as gay people know well - cigarettes and certain pork dishes, for instance.

Brett - you complete and utter prick. Everyone knows what that word means (and by the way, you’re wrong about the Latin word anyway, which is niger), and everyone knows the motivation of anyone who calls there dog it, now or 50 years ago (”before racism” - Ricky Gervais’ joke). It is to reinforce the actual meaning of the word - which is that people with black skin are animals - dogs if you like.

Aren’t you South African? Comments like the one above feed a certain unfortunate stereotype you know.

Irie, do you have any evidence that the dog was named “Nigger” or that the sweets were named “nigger balls” with racist intentions, or any reference at all to the AMERICAN racial slur?

Is the use of the word “fag” to “reinforce” that homosexuals ought to be burned, or “faggot” a suggestion that they should be chopped up into little pieces?

If there is even the slightest suggestion that the dog was named “Nigger” with any reference to black people, or any intention of suggesting that black people are like dogs, then I’d like to hear it.

Idiotically, you say that the word “Nigger” does not derive from the Latin for black. So what is the etymology, eh? Do you have a dictionary to hand?

If you want to retroactively claim that Gibson was a racist, then let’s have some proof. Proof, I hasten to add, is more than just that he named his dog with a word that has offensive connotations today.

Or campaign to have ‘faggots’ removed from supermarket shelves.

TheIrie’s speaking sanctimonious bollocks as always. It must pain him that not only he cannot control the thoughts and lexicons of people nowadays, he cannot demand that words he disagrees with be expunged from the historical record.

Personally, I won’t be surprised if the dog were named with black humans in mind. But, the charge that it was in bad intent is required (did they rejoice at the mutt’s death?), especially as it was not in this country that it carried overtly pejorative meanings. Calling it wog would have been a different matter.

I wouldn’t name a dog as such nowadays, but this is 60 years on and I will be judged by different standards 60 years hence. Just as TheIrie will be (or, even, today’s standards).

(and by the way, you’re wrong about the Latin word anyway, which is niger)

Actually it’s the same word. Again you’re judging yesteryear by today’s standards, albeit the less offensive misunderstanding of Latin declension and ignorance of nominative and accusative forms of a noun.

Our Latin teacher used to warn us that if we didn’t do our homework, we’d find ourselves in his ‘libri nigri’.

Don’t confuse the poor boy with dative, Brett.

It may, and does, have the same derivative, Brett, but that isn’t the same as saying it is “simply Latin for black”. The word has one meaning. ONE. Its meaning is not obscure now, and wasn’t 60 years ago. If you and Alex really want to pretend it is just some word which can objectively mean something other than how every other person on the planet understands it, your both stupid (and that’s my most generous interpretation).

Just in passing, it must be possible to fully support World War Two while regreting certain aspects of it. Fighting with Stalin for instance. Bombing civilians would be another. I don’t see any particular justification for Dresden nor, in fact, for Hiroshima. Although it would have cost me relatives, I think that an invasion was the only moral choice.

However. Clearly this raid was a good raid. If civilians died, they died as collateral damage. As the unintended consequences of a justifiable bombing mission which was caused, ultimately, by the invasion of Poland (by both Hitler and his chum Stalin by the way).

It was not exactly wrong for the BBC to mention the civilians[*], but it is absurd to think this reflects badly on the pilots. They did good. But even good actions have bad unintended consequences some times.

[*] except of course for the fact that the BBC cannot be trusted to deal with any moral issue more complex than a six year old member of a pony club might have trouble with.

If you and Alex […]

The tactic of someone not yet at GSCE level, not PhD.

[…] really want to pretend it is just some word which can objectively mean something other than how every other person on the planet understands it,

Except we’re not, you liar. I have just said that I would not use the word nowadays, and also that words I used not a few years ago are now inappropriate. You, as always, have bypassed the main point in a thread and seized upon non-points which no-one is seeking to emulate and demanded apologies for offences which no-one has committed. You make Waltham Forest look reputable!

your both stupid (and that’s my most generous interpretation).

Who gives a flying fuck what you think? If you had just once expressed outrage at the more pointedly offensive terms such as Black Bastards of Rhineland or Black Shame, and obscene response without prattling on about the context of Versailles or the Allied bombing, I would take your outrage over the use of a word 60 years ago and a belovéd pet which everyone grieved over with mocking humour and not utter contempt.

This is ridiculous. How difficult is a preview button?

Although it would have cost me relatives, I think that an invasion was the only moral choice.

By dear boy, what on Earth is moral about sending tens of thousands of conscripts to certain death and/or hideous injury whilst also consigning hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians to a similar fate?

The fact that gore was preferred over such a woman is painful and shaming.

Yeah, the same occurred to me when I read about her death. The actions of Zegota and other covert bodies compare to those other Poles who took advantage of the period to carry out pogroms such as Jedwabne. Yesterday, I was speaking to one Pole whose grandfather appears to have been one of the “Righteous”, having hidden Polish Jews in his cellar.

Plus, Irena Sendler’s continued self-effacement compares to those Smurfs for Jihad who live off the kudos of some street protest. Another fantastic woman.

I apologize for bringing up the dog’s name. I thought it was more a curiousity that anything else.

The idea that the “N” word had no racial meaning at the time is far from the truth. Only a couple of years before, in 1939 Agatha Christie had published her popular crime novel – “Ten Little Niggers”. Indeed according to Wikipedia (not the most reliable source, I grant you) the word “Nigger” referring to black people does of course from Latin but via Portuguese and Spanish and somewhere along the line a extra “g” was added. As The Irie has pointed out, therefore, that fact that Gibson named his dog “Nigger” and not “Niger” he is clearly, if subconsciously, is equating his dog with black people.

Does this mean that Gibson is Satan, or merely the child of his time? I think it should be recognised that the Britain in the ‘40’s was a dripping with racism - a paternalistic racism that saw black people as little children that need the wisdom, discipline and protection of white people. A position that was even shared on many of the Left – just read George Orwell’s “Lion and the Unicorn”. However while recognising that Gibson behaviour would have seemed perfectly acceptable at the time, objectively it was racist.

What I find worrying is Brett’s (and Alec’s?) seeming desire to completely whitewash the past. Here I fear, a link between Brett’s and Alec’s desire to turn a blind eye to Gibson’s causal racism and not mentioning civilian deaths. Instead of real people struggling with moral dilemma’s from whom we can learn, Brett and Alec seem to want perfect superheroes that never do anything that is questionable, and whose personalities are perfect.

I don’t see what you have to apologize for, Mesquito. It has shown that what really gets TheIrie’s goat is acknowledging the use of a word 65 or 45 years (take your pick) ago, and his complete disconnect from statements by Johng such as: “You’d never know reading (Paul Bogdanor’s) account above that the crimes he documented were committed during a civil war in which there were two sides”.

Now, Went the Day Well had a truly unsettling scene in which a German bayonetted a post mistress (and a young Thora Hird). My favourite British WWII film, though, is a toss-up between Ice Cold in Alex and A Matter of Life and Death.

Washington Post, Jan 27, 1999:

The director of D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams’s constituent services office resigned after being accused of using a racial slur, the mayor’s office said yesterday.

David Howard, head of the Office of Public Advocate, said he used the word “niggardly” in a Jan. 15 conversation about funding with two employees.

“I used the word ‘niggardly’ in reference to my administration of a fund,” Howard said in a written statement yesterday. “Although the word, which is defined as miserly, does not have any racial connotations, I realize that staff members present were offended by the word.

The idea that the “N” word had no racial meaning at the time is far from the truth.

Is there any point in saying, yet again, I am not disputing that?

What I find worrying is Brett’s (and Alec’s?) seeming desire to completely whitewash the past.

Rather unfortunate choice of words, given the context of PM-CNs’ attempting to seize control and police the use of words.

I think it should be recognised that the Britain in the ‘40’s was a dripping with racism

D’you actually have any evidence of that, you little Leninist, or is this the same as your calling football fans thugs and racists? Forty years whence, not one but two Asian has sat in Parliament.

Here I fear, a link between Brett’s and Alec’s desire to turn a blind eye to Gibson’s causal racism

Brett grew up in South Africa so has first hand knowledge of racism which would turn your hair white, and not the use of a single word deemed unacceptable by a pair of PM-CNs. Once again, if you and TheIrie have evidence that Guy Gibson treated blacks (or had even had real contact with them) with derision, provide it.