Why don't we honour our bomber boys?

2:30pm Friday 1st August 2008

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HIGH Wycombe was the headquarters and nerve centre of Bomber Command during World War Two but where are the Bomber Boys remembered now?

There are beautiful and well deserved memorials to Fighter Command and the Battle of Britain at Capel le Ferne in Kent and on the Embankment in London and it is right that the bravery of these men, The Few, should be recognised and remembered by all of us.

From 1940 until June 6, 1944, Bomber Command was the only force continually attacking the enemy's homeland to rid Europe of the scourge of Nazism that had overwhelmed the continent and was perilously close to invading our country.

Attacking strategic targets in 1944, Bomber Command paved the way to the eventual invasion of Europe on June 6 of that year. 125,000 aircrew, all volunteers, flew on Bomber Command Operations and 55,573 sacrificed their lives for the good of us all.

The aircrew death on a single operation could equal the total death toll for the whole of the Battle of Britain.

Apart from a memorial stone in Lincoln Cathedral and a plaque at the foot of a statue of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris in The Strand in London, there is no national memorial to commemorate the great service rendered to this country by the aircrews and ground crews of Bomber Command. In some French villages where our bomber aircrews lie interred in the local graveyard, their names are inscribed on the village war memorial and they are honoured as Children of the Village'. They are not honoured in this country.

Bomber Command was not always about destroying the enemy and was used for humanitarian purposes.

Towards the end of the war, a large part of Western Holland was completely cut off and some 20,000 people died from hunger and ten times that number from malnutrition diseases.

Over a period of several days we flew at low level and at slow speeds over still occupied enemy territory to drop 7,000 tons of food such as powdered egg, corned beef, chocolate, flour, coffee and other items. Operation Manna, as it was called, is commemorated on a memorial in Rotterdam.

Efforts are now being made for a national Bomber Command Memorial and donations are needed to achieve this goal.

Donations can be made to The Bomber Command Memorial Fund and addressed to The Bomber Command Association, Grahame Park Way, Hendon, NW9 5LL.

Those of us who still survive hope to see that "The Many" are as well remembered as "The Few".

John Funnell, Orchard Close, Dover