COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
The small hotel was airy and comfortable, with a balcony outside
each bedroom, where we could relax and watch the world go by. The
bar offered plenty of choice, and in the galleried dining area there was
a small orchestra which played to our bidding. As the evening wore on,
and candlelight gleamed softly on the long stemmed glasses, we took
a great fancy to the Radetzky March. It was rousing, blood tingling,
stuff. We would adopt it for the Squadron and put words to it. The
unfortunate orchestra was urged to play it again and again - and the
wine flowed like water - until we were almost incapable of putting
words to anything.
In the morning we woke to the sound of bells and a multitude of
hurrying footsteps down below in the square. The locals were out in
force on their way to church.
Churchgoing on this scale no longer happened in the UK. How
could we even begin to reconcile it with the Germany we had known
as our enemy? The arrogant brutality of the Nazis and the horrors of
the concentration camps were still too close. In the future perhaps we
might come to terms with the idea that behind these outward evils
there had been something else. A despairing silent majority, decent
citizens for the most part, dragged down into the abyss, fearful for
themselves and their Fatherland.
The shattered towns of north Germany seen from the air, or close
at hand on the ground, were in unbelievable contrast to Bad Harzburg.
For those who have no personal experience of the destruction wrought
by Bomber Command it is almost impossible to describe the appalling
devastation, the endless acres of rubble, the total absence of shops and
public services of all kinds. And everywhere was just dust, more dust,
and the ever present smell of burning and death.
To have seen the urban and industrial wreckage of Germany, in
the summer of 1945, was proof enough of the extent to which the
bomber offensive must have affected the course of the war. Those who
still argue to the contrary claim, as of course they would, that the
substantial growth in enemy arms production from 1942 onwards, was
clear evidence of its failure.
But, and this seems to be the fundamental weakness in their case,
there has been little effort to assess the further increases in output and
the acceleration in new weapon programmes which would have
occurred if there had been no strategic bombing campaign. The
scenario might have been very different if that extra capability, and
fuel, together with the resources tied down for home defence, had
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