Episode 12 Cultural Memory and Moral Debate, with Daniel Knowles

Jane and James are joined by writer and historian Daniel Knowles to discuss the cultural memory and evolving opinions of RAF Bomber Command. They explore topics such as the role of Bomber Command in the defeat of Germany, the influence of the Dresden raids, and the moral debate surrounding area bombing.
 
The historiography of Bomber Command is also examined, with a focus on how perceptions have changed over time. The conversation touches on films and books that have shaped popular understanding of Bomber Command, as well as the impact of events like the Vietnam War. The conversation explores the influence of various books and historical events on the perception of Bomber Command and the bombing of Germany. It discusses the role of authors like Irving, Grayling, and Overy in shaping public opinion. 

The conversation also touches on the changing perspectives on bombing strategy and the goals of the bombing campaign. The representation of aircrews and their personal views on their actions are examined, highlighting the complexity and nuance of their experiences. The discussion concludes with a reflection on the commemoration of Bomber Command and the importance of understanding the wider context of the war.

Transcript

James Jefferies (14:36.002)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Nevermind the Dam Busters, the podcast dedicated to all things RAF Bomber Command with me, James Jefferies, and my co -host, Jane Gulliford -Lowes. So today we're joined by writer, historian, and broadcaster, Daniel Knowles. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Daniel holds a joint honours degree in history and politics. Daniel's work includes Tirpitz, the life and death of Germany's last great battleship, HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and Empire Cruise the Special Service Squadron 1923 to 1924. Hello Daniel and welcome to the show.

Daniel Knowles (15:17.052)
Hi James, hi Jane, thank you very much for the invite to be here, it's a pleasure.

JANE (15:22.232)
Thanks much for joining us Daniel and for giving up your Sunday afternoon. Now I was quite excited to see that you'd written about Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Tirpitz. I'm currently doing a lot of research and writing about the Norwegian campaign so I'm particularly interested in the Tirpitz raids as well. But my last book which I've just finished writing is about Bomber Command minelaying operations and obviously they were one of the few to actually hit the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the Channel Dash.

So I'll be digging into your books about that. So as far as listeners are concerned then, we've invited Daniel to come onto the show today to talk about some really thorny issues and in particular how the work of Bomber Command is viewed in cultural memory today. So we're going to be looking at how opinions of Bomber Command's role in the defeat of Germany have evolved over the years. And in particular, the role that the Dresden raids have played in the popular understanding of bomber command and the influence of factors such as casualty figures upon the moral debate surrounding area bombing. There's plenty to get our teeth stuck into there. Think we could probably do an episode on each of those topics. So Daniel, do you want to explain first of all a little bit about how you first became interested in bomber command?

Daniel Knowles (16:46.366)
Yeah sure, so I first became interested in bomber command whilst at university. So when I wrote my undergraduate dissertation it was on changing perceptions to bomber command and at the time it was 2015 so almost 10 years ago and that was 70 years since the Dresden raid so there was a lot of stuff in the media regarding the bombing of Dresden and also at the time was debate regarding the bombing of a terrorist group Islamic State and Britain's involvement in that so there was debate in Parliament and all of that just combined and I thought it was very interesting study because it seemed to be the case that what was being discussed

2015 regarding whether or not Britain should engage in the bombing of the Islamic State all tracked back to the bombing of Dresden and Piedmont, bombing more generally than the Second World War.

JANE (17:48.312)
We're having similar debates now as well, aren't we, about the situation in Ukraine and Russia as well. And I think that particularly sort of highlights in people's memory the idea and the concept of strategic bombing and the targeting of civilians in particular. So can we begin then by talking a little bit about how you see the historiography of bomber command sort of evolving, particularly where
the historiography is now and what the current views and current debates are surrounding Bomber Command.

James Jefferies (18:27.828)
I'm just wondering for viewers who might not be too familiar, do we want to explain quickly what historiography is?

JANE (18:35.458)
Well go on then, you're the academic, you can do that.

James Jefferies (18:37.538)
gosh, alright, have to, gosh, I have this in my first years every year. Essentially, when I really simplify it, it's a history of the history. So it's how a topic, so Bomber Command over the years, there have been different perspectives, there have been different publications, shifts in understanding. So you might have memoirs that come out and then you have films and interpretations of those films and people having more of a focus on different events. That could be...
new sources coming out influencing it but there's always a constant discussion and it's the historiography is looking at that long historical discussion of that from yeah was that good?

JANE (19:17.26)
Yeah, so basically why the history books say what they say. Yeah, pretty much.

James Jefferies (19:21.716)
Yeah, alright, narrow it down now.

JANE (19:24.78)
Yeah, right, off you go then, Daniel. Where would you say we are today in terms of the historiography there?

Daniel Knowles (19:33.55)
Well I think we're in a much more conservative place in sort of the 21st century compared to where we were at the end of the Second World War and in the decades that followed. So you know in modern times there's a lot of focus on commemoration and commemorating the sacrifice of German civilians and the deaths that were incurred during the bombing of Germany but also there's a focus on bomber command sacrifices and commemorating the airmen who were lost on operations of a German -occupied Europe. That's a big change that has occurred, arguably a change that occurred with the fall of the Green Curtain. So prior to that, the historiography was pretty hostile towards bomber command and initially there was the official publications of the air war and they were written by respected historians and who were close to the government and put the official line of what the bombing of Germany achieved. It was only within the 1960s that historians began to put their own views forward and things gained traction then. And within that there was the idea that the bombing was inherently bad and I think a lot of that ties into things which were occurring at the time, like war in Vietnam.

James Jefferies (21:01.856)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Knowles (21:02.526)
Historians were thinking that the bombing of Germany was bad there was a lot of talk about Dresden and it being a destructive raid and if you think of the language around that and being told that's a destructive raid and the horrors of bombing and all of sudden you're seeing the images of American air power in Vietnam dropping of napalm b -52s dropping what seemed to be an endless supply of bombs from their bomb base it's easy to conjure up the image of that's
what Bomber Command did where it was putting up 700, 800 bombers at a time was inherently wrong and bad.

JANE (21:39.938)
I'd never thought about the Vietnam connection actually. But yeah, there's very much a sort of a tendency to see or to view history through the lens of whatever events are current at the time, isn't there? I think Vietnam certainly fits into the way Bomber Command was perhaps viewed certainly in the 70s and 80s.

James Jefferies (21:43.553)
Mm

JANE (22:05.08)
How do you think that kind of reflects itself in the popular culture of the time?

Daniel Knowles (22:16.708)
Well I think that

JANE (22:16.737)
So I'm thinking about things like film, TV, books, know, all of that sort of thing.

Daniel Knowles (22:23.262)
I think that reflects in a number of ways. So within the 1960s you had Slaughterhouse 5 which was published by Kurt Vonnegut which was very much anti -war, anti -bombing and there was a film made about that which if you didn't read the book then you had the film that you could go and see and you would witness the horrors of war. The Dambusters  was a key film.

James Jefferies (22:29.568)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (22:52.702)
It's focused on a specific creation. You've got... ...Barnes -Wallis at the beginning of the film where you can hear it sounds like 200, 300 aircraft flying over. He says it sounds like another heavy raid. And that's implying that there's a heavy raid going to Germany and there's going to be a city laid waste to. And he talks about his idea is to basically bring Germany to its knees by selective bombing

James Jefferies (23:23.222)
Yeah. Well, there's that bit, isn't there, where he's in the air ministry and he says, if we can burst the dams with one bomb, it saves the hundreds and thousands of bombs that are being bombed on factories and such like. So, yeah, I think there is this idea that there is a separateness to the raid because of the technology used and the precision nature of the target. And what you say actually about sort of like the 1960s and Vietnam, of course, you do have the counterculture coming in, 
with the messages of the Summer of Love and such like, which I think are kind of... I don't know, do you think they're influencing this re-evaluation?

Daniel Knowles (24:02.11)
I think to a degree it does in part influence the re -evaluation. think in part as well it's also war guilt, which is... the 50s and the 60s Dresden became a focal point and it was very much used by the Soviets as a propaganda tool to highlight everything that was fundamentally wrong with the West and seeing that the West are barbaric. what they did to Dresden.

James Jefferies (24:11.031)
Yeah.

JANE (24:11.352)
Mm.

James Jefferies (24:20.386)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (24:28.446)
So to a degree I think there was a bit of a rethink in terms of yes, we asked the president, there was talk about upwards of 100 ,000 being killed. So I think there was an assessment of did we really kill that many people? Are we truly barbaric like what the Soviets are saying? Should we put out the message that we're not barbarians?

JANE (24:43.842)
Mm

James Jefferies (24:44.055)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (24:51.55)
and I think in part that was manifested through things like the dam busters,  633 squadron, mosquito squadron. They're all films in a very similar nature of specialised units undertaking precision raids.

James Jefferies (24:57.6)
Yeah.

JANE (25:01.868)
Yeah, all the old films, yeah.

James Jefferies (25:04.034)
Yeah. Yeah, and it is during the 60s you get, I hate mentioning his name, but you get Irving's book as well. Is that sort of tied in with that at the time before he's obviously been discredited and denounced for his work? That's still played an influence probably for about 20 years or so.

Daniel Knowles (25:24.606)
I think very much so because Irving put forward the idea that 100 ,000 people were killed in the raid on Dresden and he said at the time that until he wrote his book no one in the West knew about the horrors of Dresden which...

That's a debatable claim as much as people did know about Dresden, but I think it gave it a bit more focus than it had perhaps previously had. And I think when that's taken into the wider context of what was occurring at the time with Vietnam and with firms that were being released, I think it'll only be to a perfect storm.

JANE (26:00.706)
Yeah. And you've got Grayling's book as well. Among the Dead Cities, that one. What was that? Was that 70s or 80s? Yeah, Which I mean, I think that one had a sort of massive influence at the time as well, didn't it? But then, of course, counter to that, you've got the evolving work of  Richard Overy coming in, what's that  late 80s, early 90s?

James Jefferies (26:06.432)
Yes, that's the one. Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (26:08.551)
Yes.

JANE (26:29.976)
putting a sort of different perspective on things altogether and saying, well, actually, perhaps this did have a purpose and it did help to win the war to a degree. It had a very sort of limited role, but it played a part. And perhaps the thinking was sort of beginning to change and not come full circle, but perhaps going a little bit more in favor of bomber command would what do you say that's fair?

Daniel Knowles (27:01.938)
I'll say that is fair. think it's in two parts to the answer.

in as much as I think by the 70s and 80s and continuing through the 80s and 2000s there was more information being released. Generally government documents are held under lock and key for period of what was 40 years it's now 20 I think. So think by the time you get to the 80s documents which had been under lock and key like it was thunder clap memorandum were perhaps a bit more accessible.

JANE (27:19.49)
Right.

Daniel Knowles (27:37.916)
So I think when you contrast the likes of Basil Liddle Hart's work at the beginning of early 70s to Max Hastings at the end of the 1970s, within the period Hastings had a lot more access to documentation that perhaps Liddle Heart didn't. I think, well, there's a continual reassessment of what bombing was and what we wanted to achieve. And I think even today no one is quite sure of what the goals were in terms of the bombing of Germany.

James Jefferies (27:42.87)
Hmm.

James Jefferies (28:05.324)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (28:07.23)
Harris famously in 1942 on the chin said that bombing has been said can never win the war that is counter -ordering it's never been tried and we'll see so I think there's the idea of Harris thought let's just Germany into submission and you know Germany and that he's not worth the bones of one British grenadier but you contrast that with the idea of we need to bomb Germany to stop them effectively producing weapons of war. It's the idea of, okay, let's target the oil, let's target the transportation links. within the different campaigns of the bombing war, it's all become modelled up in terms of what the actual strategic goal of the bombing was.

JANE (28:51.115)
Yeah, I think different people had different goals as well, didn't that was part of the problem. I think people thought of bombing and what it could achieve in in different ways. Obviously, Churchill is pushing it, isn't he? He's pushing Harris to to do area bombing. And this is something we talked about with Alan Allport as well a few episodes ago, that it's not Harris who is

James Jefferies (29:07.255)
Hmm.

James Jefferies (29:13.568)
Mm

JANE (29:19.018)
creating the policy of area bombing, he is simply implementing the policy based on the orders and instructions that he is being given. And I think that's something which is often lost in that whole sort of tying up of Harris with strategic bombing and its effects in the popular memory.

Daniel Knowles (29:49.054)
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more with the point. think it has to be remembered that when became commander in chief of the bomber command in early 1942, the seats of the bomber war had long been served and that Harris was, rightly or wrongly, the recipient of the strategic force which could do untold damage and which was going into a force which could lay waste to Germany. And because of that, it's become associated forevermore with the one with Germany and the destruction that it ruled.

JANE (30:22.348)
Yeah, particularly given Churchill's sort of dumping of him at the end of the war as well, and his attempts to distance himself from the strategic bombing campaign which he himself had demanded really.

James Jefferies (30:45.44)
I think that comes to my mind as well with Dresden and maybe another reason why it is in the conscious collective memory of the Bombing war especially is because of the memorandum that was withdrawn by Churchill and the political fallout and I wondered if that might be a factor as well that contributes to it.

Daniel Knowles (31:04.978)
I think it does. mean Churchill, he was very much a proponent of bombing Germany. mean everyone has read about or heard about the books which Harris put together which were given to Churchill and the King was given a copy. But it to be remembered that Churchill wasn't always comfortable with the bombing of Germany. There's a story that he was shown a film taken in the aftermath of a raid on Germany and entered the room with him and said, are we barbarians?

and from when we'd questioned the bombing of Germany, I was reminded by the Chiefs of Staff, know, look what the Germans did to Coventry, look what they've done to Rotterdam and Warsaw and all this other places. And that sort put him at ease. And then, you know, the bombing war continued and he asked the Chiefs of Staff in, well, time of the Yalta Conference for the plans for bombing the Germans in their retreat from Breslau, culminated in Brest. And then afterwards thought, fall out shouldn't be associated with this.

JANE (32:10.126)
One of the things that which gets me again, picking up on the Dresden point is why there is so much attention on Dresden as opposed to say Hamburg when there were many, more casualties in the Hamburg raids of July 43. Why do you think that everyone is so focused on Dresden or has it almost taken it on its own  cultural and historical significance f away from the wider discussion, if you like.

Daniel Knowles (32:50.366)
think what the reason is behind the main focus on Dresden is the reported casualty figures and how close it was to the end of the war. I think lot of debate which just came up in the aftermath of the war has been to say well you know there was anywhere between 75 ,000 and 100 ,000 if we look at the 1960 figures which is trying to put forward and have said you know

you kill between 75 ,000 and 100 ,000 people in one sit you learn that was terrible but what makes it worse was it did in February 1945 and the war ended on the 8th of May. I think certainly during the war no one thought about it in that context because by February 1945. Well that's it I mean January hits in the end of the Battle of the Bulge so Germany was still viewed as being a credible threat.

JANE (33:37.122)
They didn't know when the war was going to end, they? Exactly.

James Jefferies (33:39.742)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (33:47.216)
and the Rhine wouldn't be crossed until March. you know, Germany was still very much a force to be reckoned with and after that there was Japan to deal with. So I think all of the debate regarding Dresden, it's what we're doing out of proportion, but it didn't help that at the time. The briefing given by the SHAEF Air Intelligence Officer which said that

You know, one of the purposes behind bombing was not only to target the communication centres in the industries there, but also to cause terror amongst the refugees fleeing from the East. And within that, the Associated Press managed to put out that communique, which went around the world and said that Allied Air Commanders had finally adopted a policy of deliberate terrorization. And I think that word was key because terrorisation implied that all of a sudden the Allies were there to terrorise the civilian population to cause them great fear and sort of crush the morality of the war that the Allies had been fighting. And I think within that even though the Allies came out and said there's been no change in bombing policy by that point the cat was out of bag and the story had grown arms and legs which sort of led into the German propaganda of thousands of people had been killed which helped to create the furore  as it is today.

JANE (35:18.818)
Yeah. Well, we've seen in recent just in recent weeks how sort of misinformation can spread and how easily it spreads, especially today. And I suppose things were no different in those days either. People latch on to particular aspects of stories, don't they? And then those those aspects sort of evolve and take on their own their own life, if you like. As far as the the Dresden casualty figures are concerned, actual figure is believed to be somewhere between 25 and 40 thousand, is that right? Of casualties, which again is a lot less than were killed in Hamburg. It doesn't make it any less awful, but it's certainly a lot less than the figures that were being bandied about at the time and many years later as well.

Daniel Knowles (36:09.278)
I think that's what the crux is with not only the bombing of Dresden but also the bombing of Germany more generally is no one's quite sure on the casualty figures I mean it's certain that the raid on Dresden killed somewhere between I think the latest estimate is between 18 ,000 and 25 ,000 which is far less than it's far less than the 40 ,000 which was killed in Hamburg during this two firestorm raids

James Jefferies (36:18.988)
Yeah.

JANE (36:30.382)
Right, so it's lower still, yeah.

Daniel Knowles (36:38.974)
July 43. But I think what hasn't helped is, you had the Germans put forward the idea that potentially quarter of a million people because Goebbels was given a figure of 25 ,000 as an extra zero for propaganda purposes. Irving in the 60s put forward 100 ,000 and since then various historians and even the popular press have put forward different figures of between 75 ,000, 100 ,000.

Daniel Knowles (37:07.336)
There's been comparisons between Dresden and Hiroshima and the idea that Dresden kills more people than the nuclear bombings. I think, you know, the problem with the bombing was no one showed how many were killed in the way the bombing of Germany more generally. know, that figures put forward.

JANE (37:24.238)
Hmm, yeah.

That's it. think it's really important not to focus just on one particular raid or one particular city. You've got to see this , try and view it as a whole and put it in its wider context of what's going on generally. There are people being killed all over Europe by various means at this point in time, not just by area bombing. And I think that's something which

James Jefferies (37:33.739)
No.

JANE (37:56.524)
is often forgotten. We tend to try to, whether it's just human nature, I don't know, but we tend to compartmentalise things, don't we? And it's so difficult to try and see things by way of the broader picture of what's going on on the continent generally, I think.

James Jefferies (38:19.842)
I think with the wider memory we say we remember just Dresden, the other side of that is also the Dam Buster's  It does seem to be those two different prevailing memories, certainly collectively and publicly. And that's just to sell the podcast to anyone who might be listening. That's what we want to do. We want to talk about this, have these wider, more rounded discussions because there is still lots to discuss and understanding.

And certainly a big part of my PhD thesis just to plug mine is understanding why certain things are remembered more than others Which I think is important. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it Yeah

Daniel Knowles (39:03.592)
think another fundamental issue that has to be looked at is the way in which Bomber Command and the campaign against Germany is contrasted with the American campaign against Germany. the Americans maintained that they engaged in a precision bombing campaign and that they only hit specific targets, but it has to be taken with a pinch of salt to a degree. I there was an American Air Force colonel

James Jefferies (39:12.544)
Yeah, yeah.

JANE (39:13.496)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (39:31.4)
delivered a seminar in the post -war period looking at the bombing of Germany more generally and he came up with a rather unique line where he said that bomber command engaged in precision bombing against area targets whereas the US Army Air Force engaged in area bombing against precision targets.

To a degree, you know, that is right. mean, you've got Stephen McFarland, respected American Air Force historian, who's turned out and said that American air crews then punted the broadside of a barn and that on average an air crew was dropping their bombs within 1200 feet of the aiming point, which is a significant margin of error. And when you think of the box formations that...

the air force flow and bombs are going to be spread over a wide area so what is the difference between an American position bombing raid and one of bomber command's city busting raids.

JANE (40:24.29)
Yeah.

JANE (40:31.096)
Yeah, I think one thing that people perhaps aren't conscious of is that, I guess people talk about the Norden bombsight and what have you, but the precision bombing, what we would think about precision bombing today,  you see all these  Russian and Ukrainian attacks, or even going back to the Gulf Wars and Iraq and what have you, what we think about precision bombing, you know, following a missile,

James Jefferies (40:47.535)
yeah.

JANE (40:59.874)
basically down someone's chimney. It just didn't exist in those days. The technology just wasn't there. You just couldn't do it. And I think perhaps our view of what precision bombing means today has coloured how we think of what precision bombing should have been in the 1940s. And it just wasn't that.

Daniel Knowles (41:25.848)
Well, yeah, that's a very valid point. mean, if you compare the Lancaster to the modern, you're going to fight a typhoon you're not comparing apples with apples exactly. You've got a fairly robust but mundane aircraft against a top of the range £300 million aircraft which best of all you can buy some of the best technology in the world as it is today against what was arguably the best technology in the 1940s but is fairly primitive by today's and I think you know when

JANE (42:02.584)
Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel Knowles (42:05.214)
It's a bit of a difference in what you're capable of.

JANE (42:10.924)
Yeah, just no comparison, there? Yeah, no comparison at all. Can I touch on how you think aircrew themselves have been represented over the years since the war and also about how their own particular stories have been put across, both  in fiction, but...

James Jefferies (42:15.211)
Yeah.

JANE (42:38.808)
in fact in the history books as well.

Daniel Knowles (42:43.962)
So to say that the aircrews themselves in the years since the war have been unfairly treated and you know the treatment that they've received has been largely unjust. They were at the end of the day following orders. Now I am aware that that does open up the idea of the Nuremberg defence if you want to press the idea of them being war criminals and the bombing of Germany being a war crime.

bombing war was fairly impersonal and it has to be remembered that the men who were in bomber command were all volunteers and what's often forgotten is the casualty rate. were 55 ,000 men killed. You had a worse chance of surviving in bomber command than you did as an officer in the trenches during the First World War. The airmen very much viewed themselves as hitting back at Germany.

JANE (43:35.459)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (43:40.572)
they didn't see the faces of women and children, it was just a big landscape and often they were just burning fires. When you're flying at night, you couldn't exactly see what you were hitting. If you were fortunate, you made it to the end of the streets through the fire, otherwise you were burning the flames, which helped to...

JANE (44:02.412)
I think a lot of them obviously were aware of what they were doing because they'd seen what the sharp end of strategic bombing could achieve in this country. Blitz, London, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow,  Hull, Newcastle,  everywhere up and down the country. So I think it's perhaps not right to suggest that, you know, that they just kind of went into this almost in a...

in a robot like state, you know, and just drop the bombs and don't think about what they're doing. I think each man perhaps had a different view of what he was required to do and what the results of his actions would be. Some of them, it didn't bother them at all. They thought that they were doing the right thing, but others, I think, they really, really were concerned by what they were doing and what the end result of their particular actions were. And I know talking to some of the aircrew that that I've met and interviewed over the years, some of them continue to be very troubled by what was actually happening on the ground, I think. But again, others equally were like, well, you know, we were just doing a job. We did it because we had to, you know, brought about the, helped bring about the end of the war. So I think, I don't think we can.

How can I phrase this? I don't know we can just group everyone together and say, you know, they were just doing a job. They all thought this or thought that. I think it's very, very nuanced as to how we should approach that. And, you know, to...

sort of portray everyone as, what's the word I'm looking for? Almost like machines just delivering these bombs, coming home again and not thinking about what was actually happening on the ground. I think is perhaps not right. What would your view on that be, Daniel?

Daniel Knowles (46:09.195)
I think you've made some valid points there. mean, know, the aircrew have expressed remorse equally as those that have turned around and said that at end of the day they were bombing Germany and their attitudes took it to a degree of being, Germany started it, we're going to finish it.

I think, well, it all depends on who was being bombed. As much as there was lot more resistance to the bombing of France, for example, and potential collateral damage than there was in the bombing of Germany.

James Jefferies (46:36.054)
Hmm.

Daniel Knowles (46:39.802)
lot of debate was in allied circles about bombing occupied territories as opposed to bombing Germany so I think all of that factored in and I think as well you know with the benefit of hindsight you know to do change thoughts change I mean you you can speak with veterans or watch documentaries and whatnot

Daniel Knowles (47:09.584)
It was an impersonal... and then... brought home to them and their views have changed and is of the... as opposed to being in their siloed compartments and seeing the picture and more flesh has been added to the poems. Opinions have changed, thoughts have changed and... I think that's a good thing.

JANE (47:34.136)
Yeah, think that's a valid point. People's views do definitely change. Definitely.  Yeah. I know that I've mentioned this before, one of our earlier episodes, but one of the crews that I've done a lot of work on, the skipper was quite a religious man and he actually used to pray for the German people before every raid. Now I think that's perhaps quite unusual and quite an extreme, but I think it's an illustration of that, of that nuance, if you like.

James Jefferies (47:36.33)
Hmm, yeah.

JANE (48:04.034)
that I've been talking about just there. Is there anything else that you want to mention, James, or any other questions that you want to mention of Daniel?

James Jefferies (48:13.506)
I'm quite interested because, yeah, we're talking about memory and such like and commemoration. The whole debate and topic of memorials for Bomber Command is one that I've talked about and talked and looked at. And I think that the first National Memorial 2012, which was crowdfunded before that, you'd had the Arthur Harris statue in 1992 met with the protests and such like.

Do you think that's also been influenced by these wider discussions and also have they in themselves influenced the discussion? So there's kind of like this, this, this two pronged influence both on each other with the wider memory and how, how this story is kind of memorialized and how people come to terms with it.

Daniel Knowles (49:04.606)
I think so. think with the Harris Memorial, with it being a memorial of Harris, it seemed to be that the Parkman Association was commemorating a man who had done untold death and destruction to get with human beings and that he should be vilified for that, that he should commemorate him. I think it didn't help that the memorial went and was unveiled by the Queen Mother  on the 31st of May, in 1982, was 50 years since the bombing of Cologne, which created a bit more...
ill feeling shall we say, was perhaps necessary and I think you know that debate because the 1980s it was still very much a time when bomber command was out of favour and the bombing of Germany was very much still questioned.

JANE (49:55.512)
Mm

Daniel Knowles (50:13.05)
and

Daniel Knowles (50:16.498)
thousands veterans are dwindling you know there's about commemoration and you know not what both sides went through

I think, well, it became odd to not commemorate Bomber Command. Then we got to the Bomber Command Memorial in 2012. There'd been various reasons put forward over the years for why Bomber Command shouldn't be on it with various memorials, why they shouldn't get a campaign medal. So it becomes hard all of a sudden when you're trying to crowdfund to create memorials and it's gaining traction to come out and...

James Jefferies (50:51.062)
Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (51:00.262)
sort of opposed that. The government of the time did try and oppose it but miraculously.

James Jefferies (51:03.68)
Yeah, yeah, and I think that the concept is you say of the living memory of the veterans now disappearing so to speak we've seen it with the First World War there was you do have the last Tommy's so to speak in books and in documentaries and such like and I think we're going to be approaching that with the Second World War as well and I think because of that First World War experience it's now happening with the with the Second World War let you say with the we must have this memorial we must do this and try and do that

JANE (51:35.578)
You can't force people to remember or commemorate stuff though, that's the thing. And well, I don't want to get into the whole  poppy debate and poppy gate and poppy watch and all that nonsense. But there's almost that, it's almost gone too much the other way, I think, and people are sort of almost forced into these commemorations. I think it's got to be a personal choice ultimately.

Daniel Knowles (51:36.797)
Yeah.

James Jefferies (51:39.476)
Nah. Yeah.

James Jefferies (51:44.736)
Well yeah, no absolutely not.

James Jefferies (51:57.078)
Hmm. Yeah.

Daniel Knowles (52:02.566)
Yeah, I mean, as you say, you can't force people to commemorate. As well with, bomber command, it's important to recognise the sacrifice because before that, you've got various RAF memorials which commemorate the Battle of Britain. You've got the Dowding Statue, you've got the Battle of Britain memorial down in Dover. There's the...

Daniel Knowles (52:33.562)
I can't remember what the memorial is called, where there's various different names of airmen listed who were missing, presumed killed. Runnymede, thank you very much. So I think, you know, got all the commands I grouped in with RAF memorials generally, so I think I'll commemorate them separately.

Even the International Bomber Command Centre, there's more of an international focus, it doesn't just focus on Bomber Command as we see it as being sort British squatters but it's also there to commemorate the sacrifice of German civilians, French civilians, various different nationalities which served with the command.


JANE (53:24.234)
they do a brilliant job as well. They've got the balance there I think just right in terms of  commemoration and  respect and yeah it's absolutely spot on I think they've done a brilliant job.

James Jefferies (53:28.662)
Yeah.


JANE (54:32.14)
Thank you very much, Daniel, for that really, really interesting and thought -provoking discussion. I think that there's so much more there that we could have gone into, and definitely some further episodes, I think, will arise out of that discussion. So coming up then in our next episode, we're going to be talking to Dr. Dan Ellin of the International Bomber Command Centre and the University of Lincoln. We've had Dan on the show before. He's absolutely fantastic.

and Mary Brazier about the RAF's notorious lack of moral fibre policy and about the treatment of psychiatric casualties generally within bomber command and within the RAF. So I'm really looking forward to that one. It should be a really, really interesting discussion.

James Jefferies (55:24.054)
As always, do give us a follow on social media. We're on Twitter and Instagram and please continue to send in your questions. We love hearing from them. We always have absolutely brilliant questions and comments from you. Now, Jane and I are hoping to increase the frequency of our shows to once a week, but to do that, we really do need your help.

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JANE (56:19.586)
Yes, and please do leave a review or star rating wherever you get your podcasts. That really does make a difference and really helps us. So thank you for listening once again and we'll see you again very soon. Bye.