SIXTY years ago, on the night of March 30-31, 1944, RAF's Bomber Command suffered its heaviest loss of the war attacking Nuremburg.

Although there had been higher losses in percentage terms (once at least as high as 100 per cent), in numerical terms on this night a total of 95 aircraft and crews were lost from 795 dispatched.

The reason for the high losses in this attack are many. The planning and weather forecast were both wrong; the diversionary mine-laying operations over the North Sea did not work and the Germans were able to deploy their fighters in the right position to intercept the bombers.

As a result, on this night Bomber Command had more men killed, 545, than Fighter Command did in the whole of the Battle Of Britain (507).

Bomber Command played a major part in the defeat of Germany in the last war, not only in the damage it did to German industry but in forcing the Germans on the defensive. But at the end of the war it was ignored despite taking nearly 50 per cent fatal casualties, 55,500 from of a total of 120,000.

No campaign medal was ever issued and Air Marshal 'Bomber' Harris, their brilliant and inspiring leader, was ignored when peerages were handed out to the other victorious leaders and in Winston Churchill's victory address.

In the last war Bomber Command killed approximately 500,000 German civilians. This was about the same as the number of Germans that died of starvation as a result of the blockade of Germany carried out by the Royal Navy in the First World War, yet nobody vandalises the statues of Beatty, Fisher or, for that matter, Churchill.

Mike Usherwood,

Mendip Close,

Huntington, York.

Updated: 10:22 Wednesday, March 31, 2004