In 1943 my uncle and a few other lucky Royal Canadian Air Foce members who were apart of 405 Squadron got to crew the The Ruhr Express. This plane was the first Lancaster bomber to roll off the assembly line in Malton, Ont. at the Victory Aircraft plant in 1943.
My uncle volunteered for the war in September 1939; he served 30 operations with the RCAF aboard Halifax Bombers and he was a rear gunner aboard two Lancasters. He had dreams of flying but during his training with the RCAF he crashed his De Havilland Gipsy Moth training aircraft and was not allowed to be a pilot. In 1944 he was shot down over Germany while on a bombing run. His plane was hit by flak and it came apart in the air and hit the ground in a heap of burning rubber and metal. He was my grandmother’s brother.
I remember as a kid my grandmother showed me all the letters he wrote back home. His personal belongings were unobtainable because his body wasn’t found until after the war. Had he made it to the end the war he likely would of ended up working at my grandfather’s construction company called L.P. Acri.
I imagine the worst part about going down in a plane contorted and damaged from enemy fire is that at some point everyone realizes that their great machine that once ruled the skies and protected them is past its ability to land safely on the ground. Bailing out while under fire from flak isn’t a great idea either.
My uncle was of course part of Bomber Command. During the war a few planes from the Luftwaffe got lost at night over England. They dropped their bombs in hopes of hitting a strategic target, instead they bombed houses and schools. This started bombing campaigns on both sides that resulted in higher civilian casualties. The bombing of Dresden, in Germany in 1945 is a raid that will remain controversial for the rest of time.
The targeting systems on Second World War planes were historically documented as being inaccurate. Bombers were pushed into night bombing runs to avoid contact with enemy fighters and to avoid being seen at all. Between the constraints of the technology on those planes and the way in which they were used at night it was only a matter of time before something would go wrong somewhere. Or maybe, it was only a matter of time before Hitler would order the destruction of the homes and schools of those who worked in the factories that fuelled the Allied war machine.
In Canada today, at least in my experience young people in certain post-secondary courses are being asked to question whether or not Bomber Command committed war crimes against the German people.
Even though I never knew my uncle and I may never have known him even if he did survive the war, I still feel like I lost something, maybe a few extra cousins at Christmas or maybe a few extra family members. On this topic I don’t fall folly to emotions and tears and demand that someone apologize to me for even suggesting that Bomber Command committed war crimes.
On Remembrance Day I remember my uncle for the sacrifice he made to allow the continuation of the freedoms we as Canadians enjoy today. What I don’t forget when it comes to questions of war crimes committed by Bomber Command, is where the onus falls historically on those who started the war in the first place.
The Weimar Republic otherwise known as Germany between 1918 and 1933 was a time of great upheaval, anger, fear and borderline anarchy. Germany in that era was ripe for a dictator to gain power by promising peace and employment in exchange for liberty. The short bitter truth is the majority of the German people adopted a political philosophy of racism based in a morality that makes heroes of those who enslave others for the common good as defined by the ruling political party.
I detest the notion that people are willing to call those from Bomber Command war criminals and I also detest the notion that people are willing to call them heroes. The people who decide this are the people who fought with Bomber Command. Although the times for the German people during the Weimar Republic were horrible a majority of them let Hiter and his code of morality rule them and that, and my uncle, is what I remember on Remembrance Day.
