大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Ian Ellis on behalf of Greg Drozdz, David Guyett, Remco Immerzeel, Albert Nuttall and Andrew White. The stories and pictures have been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I wanted to respond to two issues that came up several times when members of the 101 Squadron Association made contact with me to offer advice and their help to trace our other families. Firstly their concern that people now did not understand what it was like and why such a campaign was undertaken. Secondly and I think of more concern, the feeling of surviving aircrew from the Second World War that people now don鈥檛 really care. Let me come back to the first question whether people now have any idea how conditions were. I agree that it is difficult to nigh impossible to describe what it was like in the skies over wartime Europe. How can we from the security of our comfortable armchairs imagine the thoughts of those young men who were volunteers and who knowingly placed themselves in such danger? Not only the aircrew themselves, but the staff fuelling and bombing up their aircraft and the families who supported sons, brothers and sometimes husbands going out night after night. Sir Arthur Harris himself acknowledged this in his 1947 book Bomber Offensive, 鈥淭here are no words with which I can do justice to the air-crew who fought under my command. There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determination in the face of danger over so prolonged a period, of danger that at times was so great that scarcely one man in three could expect to survive his tour of thirty operations... It was, furthermore, the courage of the small hours, of men virtually alone, for at his battle station the airman is virtually alone. It was the courage of men with long-drawn apprehensions of daily 'going over the top鈥�."

There will always be a vigorous discussion of the method and achievements of Bomber Command and the costs to both sides. Danger for the aircrew was present at every stage not only from the anti-aircraft fire and the threat of night fighters that 101 Squadron was specifically engaged with in its specific Airborne Cigar (ABC) radio jamming, but also from technical mishaps and collisions. Crews might only be two or three hours from the warmth and safety of home, facing their greatest risks and yet if spared that night they would go again the next. 鈥淗ere today, gone tonight鈥�, they would say in rye humour. It is truly difficult for anyone to understand this without appreciating the context of a fight for life and liberty against the darkest threat. Sixty years on the peace that you have gained for us and the freedom and democracy that we enjoy means that my generation and I hope our children and grand-children may not have to do what you did. They might not have to know the dangers that you faced and maybe that is actually a good thing that they may not understand the sickening fears that you faced.

I agree that it is hard to imagine the 1,000 young lives lost by 101 Squadron, let alone the 55,000 killed in Bomber Command. These numbers are vast as were the casualties amongst the cities bombed. If we are going to make any comment about Bomber Command we have to consider the circumstances and the norms of the time. It is difficult to comprehend that war, that any war should drive us to do this to each other. But when you focus on one crew, and the eight men, eight young lives and the potential lost it makes a greater impact. It becomes more personal, more real and perhaps easier for others to comprehend. And that brings me to answer the second question, whether people do care after sixty years. Now that we have seen perhaps the last large-scale commemoration of D-Day and VE 鈥擠ay will people still care? My answer is emphatically YES!

As we worked to trace the remaining families of our crew, we made contact with numerous people; in all manner of statutory organisation and voluntary bodies, registries, libraries, reference and resource sources, newspapers and journalists. Many had no connection with the war or the squadron and yet when they heard the story they said, that what our uncles had done mattered, it was important. These strangers once they knew some of the detail of the story, they began to understand, they wanted to help in whatever way they could. It mattered and they did care.

Now after the 60th anniversaries of D-Day and VE-Day the question is what next, will people continue to remember. The message from Rebrechien and I believe from countless other villages and memorials in Britain and Europe is emphatically, YES! Now that time and natural causes is taking its last toll of the aircrew of the 2nd World War, it falls to those who come after to recount and remember the lives and the flights of those who have gone before.

The relatives of the crew of Lancaster SR-V2 (LM462 lost on 28th/29th July 1944, one amongst too many.

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