PHIL Atkinson has come up with an excellent idea suggesting it is time there was a memorial erected for Bomber Command's heroic crews from the Second World War (September 21).
The way these men were treated after the war is one of the most disgraceful and repugnant uses of "political correctness" (this term hadn't been invented then, of course) there has ever been.
Bomber Command's men were denied any recognition by Winston Churchill after victory over Nazi Germany had been declared and there has been similar "political blindness" ever since. The rottenest way any fighting force has ever been treated in this country.
Every year we hear the same old tired condemnations of Bomber Command and the bombing they carried out by people who don't know their history but have first class degrees in hindsight.
Does nobody ever think about the way these veterans must feel at having first been ignored by Churchill (the man who would have had to sanction the bombing campaign in the first place) and then being condemned by subsequent bunches of know-it-alls for simply doing the job they were trained and ordered to do?
So, "yes!" to Phil Atkinson's suggestion for a memorial to Bomber Command and let's have it in York because this fair city was surrounded by bomber bases the war.
What better place could there be to remember these men?
Philip Roe,
Roman Avenue South,
Stamford Bridge.
Updated: 10:08 Monday, September 26, 2005
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