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A CRITICISM OF THE DAM-BUSTERS WAR STRATEGY
In 1943 I was a schoolboy at the Friends School, Lisburn where about 80 boys and girls were boarding and another 120 were day-Scholars. Among the teaching staff at the school were six who had a Christian and Quaker conscientious objection to serving in the Armed Forces.
These men and women were in no way pro-Nazi, yet they felt that they must take a public stand against civilian loss of life, unjustified in their eyes. Four other local pacifists joined the six in writing a letter to the Nor1hern Whig, a Belfast daily newspaper. The letter appeared on Monday May 26th 1943 as follows:

Sir,
We have read with disappointment and distress the account in The Nor1hern Whig of the -carefully prepared and skilfully executed destruction of dams in the Ruhr district by the R.A.F. Surely such an act means that many civilians, including women and children, will have been drowned or rendered homeless?
We would suggest that this does not fit in with the original aim of the British Govemment to break the power of the Nazis, but at the same time encourage the German people to overthrow the Nazis and so to play a useful part again in the life of Europe.
On the contrary we feel cer1ain that this act will be represented in Germany as one of
deliberate cruelty to the German people, and will be used to goad them to a prolonged
resistence.
Yours etc.
Dorothy E. Clay, K.W.Young, Gerald A.J.Hodgett, Kenneth Clay, Donald Smeltzer,
F.Smeltzer, A.R.Whitley, Rosemary Kerr, Cecil F.Pritchard, Denis P.Barritt
6 Magheralave Road, Lisbum.

The address given was a gate lodge and teachers residence belonging to the School so the School was immediately implicated. I remember the days after publication of the letter when to raise any voice of public criticism against the Government and Armed Forces was deemed treasonable by many. The Northern Whig received lots of letters in reply of which four1een were published, all expressing indignation and disgust such as :
" ...cannot feel the slightest pang of conscience for any scion of the German race"
"I do not believe that any Lisburn man or woman would wish to sully the name of his or her old town in this manner"
"..read with delight of how the R.A.F. bombed the German dams"
"..pitiable reading just that sort of soppy, sickly sentimentality that was par1ly
responsible for our unpreparedness for war"

The Editor of the newspaper brought the correspondence to a close with this note: -
"Owing to pressure on space it has been possible to give only a selection of the many letters received. All of them, it may be added, are in opposition to the sentiment of the letter from ten lisburn signatories"
In the aftermath, some parents threatened to remove their children from the school. Some suppliers to the school expressed their patriotic principles in unpleasant ways. There was a small amount of damage to school property. The Headmaster sent a memorandum to staff asking them to air their political and religious views privately without involving the institution for which they worked.

We are now used to having all sorts of issues publicly discussed in the media but in the middle of that World War were those ten signatories injudicious and naive? Or were they courageous and idealistic in expressing ideas, anathema at the time, but important in every civilized society?

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