Bomber Command Research Articles

‘Remember Me Darling’: Memory, Masculinity and Morality in the Last Letters of RAF Bomber Command, 1939-1945

ABSTRACT Across military service, fighting personnel have continually made efforts to provide comfort to loved ones beyond the grave. The ‘last letter’, a practice in which servicemen would write a letter to be given to parents or loved ones in the event of their death, makes a rich site to explore intimate and profound expressions of selfhood, morality, and society. Across temporal, geographical, and cultural spaces, these letters capture a moment when someone is forced to confront their mortality. As a distinct genre of writing, last letters provide an insight into how airmen conceptualised and interacted with national discourses around their service, identity, experiences, and memorialisation, during the war itself. Unlike letters, diaries, and memoirs, the last letter in particular speaks to how airmen sought to be remembered whilst still serving. Through an intimate analysis of last letters, this article explores how aircrew faced their own mortality, negotiating their masculine, national, and spiritual identities and communicated this to their loved ones.

‘Enough to be Seen to be Onside but Hardly Substantial?’: RAF Bomber Command and Operation Husky

This article considers the operations of RAF Bomber Command in support of Operation Husky. Earmarked to play a considerable supporting role, the piece goes on to examine how valid operational difficulties, rather than the usual supposed notion of Sir Arthur Harris’ aversion to bombing Italy, would conspire to blunt its full participation. In attempting to get around these obstacles, Sir Arthur Tedder proposed a number of solutions, ranging from aircraft loans to having a Lancaster detachment in North Africa, but the Air Staff always supported the Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command in the continuation of the air campaign against Germany.

‘The termination of the long immunity from air raids’: The bombing of Berlin under Operation Tannenberg, August 1942–March 1943

Arthur Harris infamously pursued the Battle of Berlin in winter 1943/1944 in the face of an increasingly sceptical Air Staff and a disinterested prime minister. The irony was that originally the C-in-C Bomber Command was lukewarm about bombing Berlin. Instead, it was Churchill who continually pressed for attacking the German Capital under Operation Tannenberg, which went ahead in mid-January 1943, for wider political considerations, especially Anglo-Soviet relations. For the Air Staff and Harris, they endeavoured to use Churchill’s enthusiasm for bombing Berlin to further an agenda of increasing the qualitative and quantitative capabilities of Bomber Command.

S P MacKenzie, Bomber Boys on Screen: RAF Bomber Command in Film and Television Drama

S P MacKenzie, Bomber Boys on Screen: RAF Bomber Command in Film and Television Drama

David Dunger: paediatric endocrinologist and clinical scientist

David Dunger was born in Southend on Sea to Brian Dunger who was an army officer in the second world war and later worked for Standard Chartered Bank. His mother,...

Memorializing RAF Bomber Command in the United Kingdom

This article traces the ways in which RAF Bomber Command has been memorialized in the UK since the 1940s, focusing on those who have organized memorials and associated commemorations. Distinct phases can be identified. Until the 1970s, the Command was accorded a prominent role in official memorial and ceremonial activities. Veterans’ activities reflected this acknowledgement. From the 1980s, in the face of debates about the morality of area bombing of German cities, however, veterans’ organizations and families began to articulate the view that Bomber Command’s wartime contribution had been overlooked. In consequence, they embarked upon activities to revise official memory. This included distinctive forms of memorial activity on the part of veterans and the postmemory generation, including the widespread appearance of ‘small memorials’ and, in the twenty-first century, two large-scale memorial sites, in London and in Lincoln.

The long shadow of the air war: composure, memory and the renegotiation of self in the oral testimonies of Bomber Command veterans since 2015

ABSTRACT The following article examines oral testimonies collected by the International Bomber Command Centre project since 2015. The study considers the challenges posed by post-war discourses that contest the morality of bombing and contemporary constructions of Britishness to Bomber Command veterans making account of their lives. The contested nature of bombing’s position within narratives of the Second World War creates a discursive environment where veterans struggle to assemble satisfying life stories. Despite using a set of similar narrative frameworks to counter questions concerning the morality or purpose of bombing, veterans found limited opportunities to demonstrate personal agency or achieve emotional composure. The interviews illustrate unresolved and challenging feelings stemming from a discourse that has proved inimical to creating satisfying selfhoods. In addition, the difficulty of integrating the story of Bomber Command into narratives of Britain’s wartime myth proved to be a source of considerable discomfort for the interviewees. In their attempts to situate themselves within longer trajectories of Britain and its military in the twenty-first century, the testimonies are thus revealing of the importance to Britain of its wartime past in forming current identities and the ongoing conflict in how Britishness should confront more complex versions of its history.

A ‘Lack of Moral Fibre’ in Royal Air Force Bomber Command and Popular Culture

Royal Air Force aircrew endured mental and physical stresses during bombing operations. Their chances of completing a tour of operations unscathed were around one in four, and many were aware the chances were slim. Some who refused to fly were accused of ‘lacking moral fibre’ (LMF). Although this was not a medical diagnosis it is frequently viewed through the lens of mental health and reactions to trauma and it has become a powerful and important cultural phenomenon. This article re-examines LMF in the culture of the wartime Royal Air Force, before considering how and why LMF is remembered by veterans and in popular histories since the war.

Engaging Young Audiences Before, During and After the Lockdown

This short article focuses on two heritage sites (the International Bomber Command Centre and Creswell Crags) and reflects on the ways in which such medium-size institutions are trying to find ways of maintaining offsite engagement with young audiences while at the same time generating revenues.

Freeman J. Dyson 1923–2020: Legendary physicist, writer, and fearless intellectual explorer

Freeman J. Dyson, one of the foremost minds of the 20th century, passed away on February 28, 2020 at the age of 96. An astute explorer of the natural world, Dyson’s contributions transcended preconceived boundaries and created bridges between the sciences and the humanities. As an author, Dyson brought stunning clarity to the beauty and complexity of the universe and human experience. Freeman J. Dyson. Image credit: Andrea Kane (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ). Trained as a mathematician, Dyson gained early fame in the world of theoretical physics, proving the equivalency of two theories of quantum electrodynamics to describe how light and matter interact. Claiming to have a short attention span, Dyson took pleasure in jumping from one field to the next. His journey led to breakthrough advances in the design of safe nuclear reactors, nuclear-powered space travel, solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics, biology, and applied mathematics. An eternal optimist and unflinching advocate for the future of human civilization, Dyson was a leading voice for nuclear disarmament and fostering intellectual diversity. During the Second World War, Dyson worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command, an experience that … [↵][1]1Email: rdijkgraaf{at}ias.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Public History and Contested Heritage

This article presents a case study of a collaborative public history project between participants in two countries, the United Kingdom and Italy. Its subject matter is the bombing war in Europe, 1939-1945, which is remembered and commemorated in very different ways in these two countries: the sensitivities involved thus constitute not only a case of public history conducted at the national level but also one involving contested heritage. An account of the ways in which public history has developed in the UK and Italy is presented. This is followed by an explanation of how the bombing war has been remembered in each country. In the UK, veterans of RAF Bomber Command have long felt a sense of neglect, largely because the deliberate targeting of civilians has not fitted comfortably into the dominant victor narrative. In Italy, recollections of being bombed have remained profoundly dissonant within the received liberation discourse. The International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive (or Archive) is then described as a case study that employs a public history approach, focusing on various aspects of its inclusive ethos, intended to preserve multiple perspectives. The Italian component of the project is highlighted, problematising the digitisation of contested heritage within the broader context of twentieth-century history. Reflections on the use of digital archiving practices and working in partnership are offered, as well as a brief account of user analytics of the Archive through its first eighteen months online.

S. P. MacKenzie, Bomber Boys on Screen: RAF Bomber Command in Film and Television Drama

S. P. MacKenzie, <i>Bomber Boys on Screen: RAF Bomber Command in Film and Television Drama</i>

‘Crossing the Red Line?’: The Air Staff, Sir Arthur Harris, and the Magdeburg Operation of 21/22 January 1944

On 21/22 January 1944, RAF Bomber Command conducted an area-bombing attack on the city of Magdeburg. The outcome was hardly pleasing, marked by high losses and inaccurate bombing. However, most notable was the rancorous aftermath, in which a full-blown row would erupt between the Air Ministry and Bomber Command Headquarters. This stemmed from the Air Staff perceiving that Sir Arthur Harris had ‘crossed a red line’ in his non-cooperation with their bombing policy. But the truth was much less clear-cut, as this article will show. Nonetheless, the Magdeburg operation led to a new Directive on 28 January 1944, which would force Harris’s cooperation in a combined Anglo-American assault against the German aircraft industry.

The interplay of the Dirty Hands of British area bombing and the wicked problem of defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War – A lesson in leadership ethics

The British area bombing of Germany in the Second World War has provided for enduring ethical controversy. Eschewing conventional approaches, we present area bombing as a Dirty Hands leadership response to the Wicked Problem of Britain’s wartime strategic predicament. Using historical methodology, we establish two distinct phases in area bombing: 1942–1944, when this was ethically contentious but politically necessary; and 1944–1945, which lacks a Dirty Hands legitimation. The second phase follows upon a six-month lull in area bombing during Bomber Command’s assignment to Overlord (D-Day) duties. It is characterised by credible alternatives to area bombing, a waning sense of proportionality in Bomber Command activity, and intensifying death and destruction without justifiable purpose. We relate the breaching of the boundaries of Dirty Hands in Phase II to a precise date – September 1944. This coincides with the mutation of the strategic Wicked Problem into a Critical Problem, visible in the stalling of the Allied land campaign in France. Mistaking this for a Tame Problem, the C-in-C of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, exploits the political context to escalate his commitment. Following Watters’ alignment of Critical Problems with Virtue Ethics, we argue that Harris’ leadership in Phase II is not consistent with Virtue Ethics (of which recognition of the boundaries of Dirty Hands is a function). Harris is the archetype of the leader who gets away with exploiting a Wicked Problem because his superiors have let down their guard. In the final instance, his failure of ethical leadership becomes their own.

Bob Dingle – pathfinder at war and in the Antarctic

Bob Dingle (1920–2016) retired in 1975 to Swansea, Tasmania, after an adventurous and peripatetic working life. During the Second World War he served with Bomber Command. He was a wireless operator with 78 and 35 Squadrons, was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Medal and was commissioned. After the war he migrated to Australia and in 1950 joined the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology as a trainee weather observer with the express intention of serving in the Antarctic. Over the next 25 years he wintered seven times with the Australian and United States Antarctic programs, was awarded the Queen’s Polar Medal with two clasps and served as the senior Australian weather observer for four years on the US Navy Ship Eltanin.

Bodies and Ruins: Imagining the Bombing of Germany, 1945 to the Present by David F. Crew

Reviewed by: Bodies and Ruins: Imagining the Bombing of Germany, 1945 to the Present by David F. Crew Tony Joel Bodies and Ruins: Imagining the Bombing of Germany, 1945 to the Present. By David F. Crew. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. Pp. 274. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 978-0472130139. From the Kaiser’s cumbersome yet imposing Zeppelin airships and the more threatening Gothas during World War I, to the Condor Legion’s obliteration of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, through to heavy Luftwaffe assaults during the early phases of World War II, Germany played a pioneering role in directly targeting—or terrorizing—an enemy’s home front population. Hermann Göring’s bombers had “sowed the wind,” remarked Royal Air Force Bomber Command chief Sir Arthur Harris in his postwar memoir Bomber Offensive (1947), and in time all Germans living in the Third Reich were to “reap the whirlwind” (52). The Western Allies’ bombing offensive, which gained momentum from February 1942 onward and continued until the final weeks of World War II, damaged or wholly destroyed over 130 German cities and towns. Statistics on the devastation caused by the bombing war against Germany are imprecise, but commonly accepted estimates include some 600,000 civilians killed, around 900,000 others wounded, and 7.5 million left homeless. Countless historically and culturally significant public buildings and artifacts were also lost. How all these “bodies and ruins” have been imagined and reimagined, particularly by German authors of local publications in the half-century following the war’s end, is the central focus of this new book by David F. Crew. Bodies and Ruins explores both textual and pictorial representations of the bombing war against Germany, but the role of visual imagery is given special consideration. Crew’s stated aim is to gain an understanding of “how authors of local publications tried to use pictures to create meanings and to tell stories” (8), and, furthermore, to search “for what were considered to be the ‘right’ stories and the ‘right’ pictures of the bombing war in local publications and picture books from 1945 to the present” (9). Crew’s repeated emphasis on local representations should not be misconstrued as a sign that this work restricts itself to a few carefully chosen case studies. On the contrary, a wide range of cities feature—some fleetingly, others more prominently—throughout this temporally and topographically ambitious survey of how Germans have imagined the bombing war through selected books and other media spanning seven decades. Bodies and Ruins is structured around six chapters, which follow a loosely chronological order while each is driven by its own thematic bent. Chapter 1, for instance, examines the “local master narrative” (10) established by (West) [End Page 195] German accounts in the immediate postwar period, whereas chapter 2 explores the “essential role played by images, primarily photographs, in these local publications” (10). Chapter 3 asks why “shock pictures” (of dead bodies) were not as prevalent as photographs of ruins. Chapter 4 probes how the themes of “mourning, denial, and celebration” were visually conveyed in picture books (again, limited to West Germany). Chapter 5 claims to focus on the anticapitalist/anti-Western Marxist interpretations of the bombing war promoted in the GDR. The sixth and final substantive chapter covers the post-reunification period, especially how the advent of the internet shapes and reflects ways in which Germans now attempt to remember the bombing war. Crew can be commended for attempting such an ambitious project, and for producing a thoughtful and at times thought-provoking account. While there is much to like about this highly readable work, it ultimately suffers from trying to do too much. A tighter focus—perhaps on a shorter time frame or fewer cities—would have enabled deeper analysis and greater clarity of argument. To cite just one frustrating shortcoming: there are periodic, vague references to the Cold War throughout the book, but it is unclear what function it actually serves. The early chapters concentrate on West Germany almost exclusively, so there is no comparative analysis. Then, suddenly, Dresden emerges as the main case study in the latter chapters. Again, however, no comparisons are made with West German...

Operational Research and the British Bombing Offensive against Germany, 1941–1945: Calculating Choices in War

Operational research is a scientific discipline that appeared in Great Britain on the eve of the Second World War. Bomber Command’s Operational research section began its studies in September 1941, using civilian scientists to analyse the bombing operations. Two potentially conflicting goals were pursued, one intended to maximize the offensive power against Germany, the other striving to minimize bomber losses. This article uses the Operational research performed during the conflict to illustrate the choices made by Bomber Command between those two possibilities, concluding on a clear priority in favour of the offensive.

The Royal Air Force, Bomber Command and the Use of Benzedrine Sulphate: An Examination of Policy and Practice During the Second World War

This article explores the development of policy in the Royal Air Force (RAF) relating to the use of Benzedrine, a potent amphetamine, by aircrews during the Second World War. This policy evolved from total prohibition in September 1939 to cautious approval for the use of the drug on operations in November 1942. Such caution reflected the subjective evidence available about Benzedrine, the media profile of the substance, and wider social and cultural factors relating to the use of drugs during this period. This challenges our understanding of drug history, demonstrating that while amphetamines were framed as a ‘miracle drug’, more nuanced, functional interpretations of the substance were in evidence. In turn, the article examines evidence from the operational context, including new data gathered from questionnaires and interviews with former Bomber Command aircrew and existing oral history material held by the Imperial War Museum. Both policy discussions and operational evidence allows for a re-evaluation of the arguments of Nicholas Rasmussen, who suggests the RAF made use of Benzedrine as a frontline ‘psychiatric medicine’. Such conclusions downplay the significance the RAF attached to the drug’s effects on wakefulness and concerns about the drug’s effects on wellbeing.

Digging deep for Portland Stone

The Island of Portland has literally given its heart to London, and the heart of London comes mainly from Portland. Many of London's most recognizable buildings and monuments are constructed either wholly or partially from the white Upper Jurassic oolite quarried from Portland. St Paul's Cathedral, the British Museum, The Bank of England and more recently the New London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square and the Bomber Command Memorial and the tube station in Green Park, are all built using Portland Stone. London is not the island's only beneficiary, Portland stone has also been widely used throughout the rest of Great Britain as well as having been exported for use in many other countries.

Birds and frogs: selected papers, 1990-2014

This book is a sequel to the volume of selected papers of Dyson up to 1990 that was published by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. The present edition comprises a collection of the most interesting writings of Freeman Dyson, all personally selected by the author, from the period 1990-2014.The five sections start off with an Introduction, followed by Talks about Science, Memoirs, Politics and History, and some Technical Papers. The most noteworthy is a lecture entitled Birds and Frogs to the American Mathematical Society that describes two kinds of mathematicians with examples from real life. Other invaluable contributions include an important tribute to C. N. Yang written for his retirement banquet at Stony Brook University, as well as a historical account of the Operational Research at RAF Bomber Command in World War II provocatively titled A Failure of Intelligence. The final section carries the open-ended question of whether any conceivable experiment could detect single gravitons to provide direct evidence of the quantization of gravity — Is a Graviton Detectable? Various possible graviton-detectors are examined.This invaluable compilation contains unpublished lectures, and surveys many topics in science, mathematics, history and politics, in which Freeman Dyson has been so active and well respected around the world.