Sex, fear and looting: survivors disclose untold stories of the Blitz

[ChiTownScion]

It's important to remember that "The Greatest Generation" never, ever called itself that. Tom Brokaw invented the term to sell a book in the 1990s. Before that, those Americans born between 1910 and 1925 were called the "GI Generation" or the "Swing Generation." They would have been the last people to aggrandize themselves as some kind of holy icons, and it's ill serving them, now that most of them are dead, to treat them as such today. Civic worship of the military is in every way incompatible with the principles for which, supposedly, WWII was fought. (Although those who actually saw combat would probably tell you the only principle they had in mind was "don't get killed.")

That is certainly my experience, and I was practically raised by guys who had served in World War II, including but not limited to my dad. Youth group leaders, bosses, mentors, etc. They were all around me, really- and I learned from an early age to distinguish elders who had served in the Second World War with those who had not. (I remember dating one girl whose father loved to play the tough guy/ father of the girlfriend role who was clearly too young to have "been there" as my dad had been: I regarded him as an overaged punk.)

The flag waving jingoism was an embarrassment to them, something engaged in by older Americans of the World War One generation who were involved in that nightmare for a relatively brief time compared to their generation from Britain, the Commonwealth, France, Germany, and other European nations who had to endure the brutality of trench warfare for far longer.

I've had this discussion before with some of my millennial friends, but the "thank you for your service" accolades that are passed out like Halloween candy today would have embarrassed the hell out of guys I knew who had really survived the horrors of World War II combat. To them the real heroes were the guys who never came home.

 

[GHT]

I am currently reading "Life of the Party" a biography of Pamela Digby. During WWII she was married to Randolph Churchhill, the son of the PM. It is an interesting story.

If you are lucky enough to come across a copy of Walter H. Thompson's memoir, "I Was Churchill's Shadow," you will be absorbed by all things that were kept out of the press.

Detective Inspector Walter Henry Thompson (3 December 1890 – 18 January 1978) was a British police officer who is was known as the bodyguard of Winston Churchill for eighteen years, between 1921 and 1935. And again, between the WW2 years of 1939 and 1945. Thompson reportedly saved Churchill's life on numerous occasions. When he finally retired after the war, he published a memoir that made him famous in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In June 1945, with Churchill out of office and Thompson about to retire for a second time from the Police, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Downing Street, decided that it would be improper for him to publish his memoirs for the foreseeable future and threatened Thompson with the loss of his police pension if it was published, even though he had nearly completed a 350,000-word manuscript. An expurgated version, I was Churchill's Shadow, was published in the 1950s.

Thompson died of cancer on 18 January 1978 in Yeovil, Somerset, aged 87 years. After his death, his great-niece, Linda Stoker, discovered the full memoir manuscript inside a suitcase in their Somerset farmhouse loft.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've had this discussion before with some of my millennial friends, but the "thank you for your service" accolades that are passed out like Halloween candy today would have embarrassed the hell out of guys I knew who had really survived the horrors of World War II combat. To them the real heroes were the guys who never came home.

The other thing that's important to keep in mind about that generation is that it was a true cross-section of America, not some self-selected, self-declared "few and proud." The AEF was made up of good people and bad people, straight-arrows and cheap street-corner thugs, by-the-book types and shiftless, scheming yardbirds, union men and scabs, Communists and Liberty-Leaguers, pacifists and hardened sociopaths. Wearing a uniform was no guarantee of nobility of character, and nobody understood that better than that generation itself.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Agreed. I remembered the term's birth in the '90s, though not that Brokaw coined it, as I never read his book. I've read substantial revisionist writing about the war years, and see the Second World War as chapter two of the First. Even the military tactics of the Allies were sometimes less honorable than those of the Axis (if you accept the notion of honorable warfare), but, heck, I'm happy enough with the outcome.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

"Thank you for your service."
That sets my teeth on edge, but I probably should have raised it in another thread.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

(Although those who actually saw combat would probably tell you the only principle they had in mind was "don't get killed.")

And, "watch your brother's back." It seems to always come down to those two things when all hell breaks loose.

 

[Woodtroll]

Every American armed force has been, to some extent, a cross-section of our country's population. But from the threads that were added here this week, it seems this thread was drug out of 2006 (the last post prior to this week) just so we could speak ill of dead-and-gone veterans. I find that in extremely poor taste, if not outright disrespectful.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Every American armed force has been, to some extent, a cross-section of our country's population. But from the threads that were added here this week, it seems this thread was drug out of 2006 (the last post prior to this week) just so we could speak ill of dead-and-gone veterans. I find that in extremely poor taste, if not outright disrespectful.

That certainly wasn't my intention, friend. When I talked about the axis sometimes behaving with more honor, I was actually thinking more of the Brits than the USA. The film we have of bombing Germany is almost always of US missions, because we bombed in daylight, and usually (not always) focused on strategic military, manufacture or transport targets. Churchill's pilots intentionally bombed civilians, flying at night, and even rated their munitions by to damage they could do to civilian populations. That's a fact. If it soils the image we're easier living with, it may say as much about us as about them.
Truth is, and has always been, the first casualty of war. Various military leaders have made that point over the years. Respect is owed to those who earned it, not to every swinging dick that wore a uniform or managed to get into a picture.
If we thank the quartermaster that handed out uniforms for their service, haven't we cheapened the thanks we give to the combat veteran that watched his best friend die with a bullet in the head, but fought on?
People join the armed forces for myriad reasons. Sometimes it's patriotic duty, sometimes it's family tradition, sometimes it's for the education bennies, sometimes it beats the job prospects at home, and there are a few loonies just looking for a chance to kill people. Do we disrespect the true hero by slamming the wannabee hero, or by letting him claim a share in glory he never earned?

 

[GHT]

That certainly wasn't my intention, friend. When I talked about the axis sometimes behaving with more honor, I was actually thinking more of the Brits than the USA. The film we have of bombing Germany is almost always of US missions, because we bombed in daylight, and usually (not always) focused on strategic military, manufacture or transport targets. Churchill's pilots intentionally bombed civilians, flying at night, and even rated their munitions by to damage they could do to civilian populations. That's a fact.

It is indeed, but please note that British pilots were following orders.

Reap the whirlwind is a term derived from the proverbial phrase, "They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind", which in turn comes from the eighth chapter of the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament (Hosea 8:7). Its idiomatic meaning is to suffer the consequences of one's actions. The phrase was famously used by Arthur "Bomber" Harris in response to the Blitz of 1940 when he said:
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now, they are going to reap the whirlwind."

It was Nazi policy to break the will of a population by indiscriminate bombing of civilians. After failing to break Londoners will, Hitler turned his attention to the City of Coventry, his intention was to destroy it completely, to that end the word, to Coventrate, meaning to destroy completely, entered the English lexicon. Not my understanding of honour.

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4 percent death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war.

 

[LizzieMaine]

People join the armed forces for myriad reasons. Sometimes it's patriotic duty, sometimes it's family tradition, sometimes it's for the education bennies, sometimes it beats the job prospects at home, and there are a few loonies just looking for a chance to kill people.

The most important fact about US forces in WWII is that the majority of them -- over 62 percent of the total who served -- didn't enlist because they wanted to. They got greetings from Uncle, and they went where they were told, whether they turned out to be hairy-chested sergeants riding a tank or nearsighted T-5's cranking a mimeograph.

That vast diversity in what it meant to be a "World War II Veteran" meant that nobody was going up to WWII vets in 1955, 1965, or 1975 and "thanking them for their service." Any random man that one met on the street was probably a veteran -- which meant there was nothing particularly special about that status so far as the general public was concerned. "You was in the war, so what? So was 16 million other guys."

The modern idea of "every uniform a hero" is very very recent -- it goes back no further than the First Gulf War of 1991, a product of the same made-for-TV era that gave us Stormin' Norman, the Scud Stud, and novelty plastic "Support The Troops" ribbons. And "thank you for your service" itself is purely a media-driven product of Gulf War II.

 

[Harp]

...Truth is, and has always been, the first casualty of war. Various military leaders have made that point over the years. Respect is owed to those who earned it...

A man knows the truth within himself, respect is mercurial, and in the sum of things the individual confronts
his own demons for better or worse. During Vietnam and afterwards, derision was stock in trade.
I recall walking through an airport in khakis and jump boots when a protester approached me with what
appeared to be a jar of urine. I told him I wouldn't throw that at me if I was him. He took my advice and backed off.

 

[MisterCairo]

"thank you for your service" itself is purely a media-driven product of Gulf War II.

And yet I still say "You're very welcome" each time it's said to me.

 

[MisterCairo]

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4 percent death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war.

45,000 or so Canadians were killed in action or died of wounds in the Second World War.

Just over 17,000 were aircrew, overwhelmingly from Bomber Command. One can do the math.

A controversial "documentary" was made at Canadian taxpayer expense vilifying Bomber Command. The producers were compelled to call it a "docu-drama" for the "poetic license" they took in their version of history.

Germany started the war. No apologies for us winning it.

 

[MisterCairo]

we bombed in daylight, and usually (not always) focused on strategic military, manufacture or transport targets.

Like the city centres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example?

 

[GHT]

45,000 or so Canadians were killed in action or died of wounds in the Second World War.

Just over 17,000 were aircrew, overwhelmingly from Bomber Command. One can do the math.

You are right and it was remiss of me not to have brought the important fact that many nations fought alongside the British, in all our services, and in all theatres of war, and many gave their lives in doing so.

 

[MisterCairo]

You are right and it was remiss of me not to have brought the important fact that many nations fought alongside the British, in all our services, and in all theatres of war, and many gave their lives in doing so.

Understood, mainly to emphasise your point that aircrew had such a high rate of casualties. We were at total war, and at a time with looser rules, and no laser guided munitions.

As for the idea that one nation or the other had purer hands is crap. Ask any dead civilian if they care which flag was on the plane...

 

[LizzieMaine]

As far as I'm concerned, we all owe a debt we can never pay to 20,000,000+ dead Soviets, both uniformed and civilian, who by far bore the brunt of the war against Hitler. And yet all during the war there were fat-bottomed, fat-headed Americans who bitched and moaned about how much they were suffering because the ration board wouldn't give them a B card.

One of the most egregious myths of the war is that it was a time when "all Americans patriotically pulled together for victory." Tell that to anybody who ever worked for the OPA.

 

[ChiTownScion]

"As far as I'm concerned, we all owe a debt we can never pay to 20,000,000+ dead Soviets, both uniformed and civilian, who by far bore the brunt of the war against Hitler."

Agree to a point, but until the Soviet Union was itself attacked in the summer of '41, Hitler was a man that Stalin believed that he could do business with. And that business included both nations invading Poland. The Molotov- Ribbentrop Non Aggression Pact had rendered both nations as de facto allies. Up to that time and after the fall of France Britain and its Commonwealth allies stood alone against Hitler.

But you are correct regarding the staggering casualties suffered by the people of the Soviet Union. It's doubtful that the German Reich could have suffered defeat had it not been for the Red Army. Strategic bombing of German industries certainly assisted in that end as well: Speer and Goering, after their surrender, stated as much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Of course, had the Western Allies taken Stalin up on his offer of an alliance against Hitler in the wake of Munich....(insert Alternate Rest of 20th Century Here.)

 

[Harp]

Of course, had the Western Allies taken Stalin up on his offer of an alliance against Hitler in the wake of Munich....(insert Alternate Rest of 20th Century Here.)

The Soviets still would have invaded eastern Europe.