Your thoughts and input are appreciated

[Former Member]

Great reply Taigh and I commend you for being so restrained. If it were me my response would not have been as tactful and probably would've been something to the effect of..."go take a f*cking leap buddy!"

John

[Steve Nelson]

Very eloquent reply. I find Luftwaffe and Japanese aircraft fascinating, for historical, technical, and esthetic resaons..but I try to keep it in perspective. A freind once looked in my model display case and was shocked seeing several Luftwaffe aircraft (complete with swastikas.) I tried to explain to her that I am a student of history, and that our vanquished enemies are just as much a part of that history as we and our victorious allies. And we all know what they say about those who forget history...

I like the fact that the NMUSAF has their beautifully restored Bf-109 displayed next to an actual boxcar used to transport POWs (I'm not sure if that display mentions the Holocaust, but the implication is hard to miss.) The museum also has a nice Holocaust exhibit before you even enter the WWII gallery.


SN

[Randy Haskin]

My god man what the heck time is it in Afganistan anyway?

Oh, I'm a night flyer, so this is the normal "work day" for me.

It's 0030Z, which I think is about 0500 local time.

[Nathan]

I hate it when I study military history and people want to think that you are some kind of a war lover or something.

In my opinion there is 'some' glory in war. For me it's about protecting a country, your home, a way of life and even for each other. Honor and glory the men and women who sacrifice their lives so that others can live peacefully and freely. War is ugly and should always be avoided. Sometimes that is not possible but we as human beings should strive for that. Maybe we are fighting wars to end all wars?


Sorry, didn't mean to get off track.

Tally ho,
Nathan

[Glen]

As it is siad down in the South get er done ! And the Alies did just that.
I am repulsed by the fact that if One try to show history with factual info to back it up , and the Left winger Cut and Dicet and Re from it to fit their way of thinking then and only then it is ok ! NOT ! I still get my self worked up over the ones that have to be potlical correct when it comes to the Atomic Bombings in WW2 in Japan I Remember as child when the CAF B-29 FIFI was still alowed to Re in act the Dropping of the Big one ! and as adult and when I was a Member it was not done becuse it might offend some one form Japan ! AHHH what about that little thing called Dec -07 1941 ! they really like the Tora Act. And in our Great Captial the Enola Gay Was NOT alowed to be complety Re assembled in the main Hall and in a short way was removed becaused it might caused undo deress between the United States and Japan ! I for one would of let that person know that if it was not for that Bomb Sight and the many more like it He would not be able to Wyne and Cry about it today on a FREE Web page like this ! Let him try that here in Texas about the Alamo ! Never and I mean NEVER let up on your stance and what you belive in . Ok enough of the Soap box Well writen Sir my Hat is off to you !

[Bill Greenwood]

I don't know Dresden details, but I had a small personal experience in Hamburg. For my college graduation my Dad gave me a trip to Europe, just before I was to report to Lackland for basic training. One of the places I went was Hamburg. Here I am in my early 20's, an American during the Vietnam War, and it is the 25th aniversary the Allied bombing raids that destroyed most of the city and killed thousands of civilians. The papers are full of photos of the destruction and stories of the firestorm. The desk clerk at my hotel had been a boy during the attacks. Surprisingly I did not get too much direct hostility. They knew it was a war and they sort of forgave the Americans because we bombed the docks in daylight, a strategic target. They hated the Brits because they came by the hundreds if not thousands and they bombed everywhere. Maybe someone has some specific info on the Dresden raids, which I only know in general.

[Warbird Mechanic]

I'd say you handled the situation very well. There are always those out there who want to share their point of view no matter how outragous it may be. Its like they wish to revise history or get others to follow their point of view as a means to boost their own ego. I remember when the Smithsonian was planning to put on display the forward fuselage of the Enola Gay and have it displayed along with many photographs showing the destruction of the Japanese people from the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus making America look like the bad guy. The museum director at that time was attempting to show the plane in what he thought was a politically correct manner and thinking we as Americas should be sympathetic to the Japanese after what we all put them through. Apparently he did not remember the Death March at Bataan and Coregedor or the brutal medical experiments the Japanese did to some of their POW's they held captive. Needless to say I was more than happy to sign a petition to stop this ridiculious exhibit from ever taking place along with many other proud veterans. The Smithsonian finally gave in to the outrage, especially when Paul Tibbets himself told the Smithsonian to display his aircraft the way it should be, as is with dignity and respect. I can say with great certainty that those two atomic weapons dropped on Japan had saved far many more lives than they ever took. If we had invaded Japan, it was estimated that over 2 million Japanese would have been wiped out in the first week of fighting and severe losses of life among the Allies would have been very heavy. My father was a B-29 pilot and he and his assigned B-29 crew missed the war in the Pacific by only two weeks. He was to report for combat duty at what was then known as northwest field in Guam. If the war in the Pacific had continued on and my father flew B-29 combat missions over Japan, I may not have ever been born or be here today writing this post. The Norden Bomb Site and advances in Radar technology during WWII certainly did help to save many lives.

Jim

[Bill Greenwood]

Jim, if you look at the Atomic bomb question narrowly, either use the Bomb or high losses from an invasion, it may frame the answer although there are different estimates of how high these lossses would have been. But what if you look farther, what if you neither use the Atomic bomb nor invade. This is not my idea alone, no less than Gen. Eisenhower said Japan was finished and there was no need for Bomb, as did a prominent admiral. I believe I read those exact quotes on WiX or maybe in the paper a few days ago. The Japanese had no real offensive capability left and peace negotiations had already begun. Unfortunately, as in most wars, the Bomb victims were women and children, not those directly responsible for the Bataan March, though that commader, Houma???, was executed as a war criminal.

[TEXANTOMCAT]

What a shame, especially as the Twin Beech site is so good *-

We occasionally get similar comments at our museum, they range from the ignorant to the vitriolic but you have to compare that to the many thousands of positive comments.

I think you handled it very well - and dont take it to heart - the legacy of WW2 is that everyone (no matter what their opinion) is entitled to free speech.

I dont think my grandad (a fireman in the Blitz in London) or my grandmother (who would have taken her own children's lives in 1940 rather than let them fall into the hands of the Germans in 1940) would have given such a courteous reply.

TT

*shareholder Beech D.18 G-BKRN

[Forgotten Field]

I love these airplanes and feel that flying monuments get better attention than ones which eventually get overgrown with weeds. I think Taigh handled the situation well. It never hurts to be polite and listen to another's point of view.

But I'd like to speak in defense of the person who spoke to Taigh. For many educated people, this is the viewed true legacy of WWII- lots of people dead, and lots of them from airplanes. An author in one of the books I read spoke about the absence of aerial battlefields, no evidence of the horror in the air, the flak, the blood. He is partially right. There is no evidence of the warriors who fought the aerial war, but there is plenty of evidence of the victims and collateral damage caused by the aerial bombing and ground attack in WWII.

Very often, we see this "evidence" listed as numbers. 70,000 killed, 100,000 killed. That number is easy, clean. It is not a graphic depiction of people who were severely burned, blast injured, blinded, without adequate hospital care because the hospital was bombed as well, starving because the trains bringing food were bombed, losing their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. These people bore the true cost of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito's folly.

Was that cost worth it? Even 60 years later, in the country of one of the victors, in the presence of a piece of technology that may have ultimately saved their life, the answer you come up with may not be the same for a person who lost an immediate relative from Allied aerial bombing. That person's relative did not die at the hand of Hitler, but at the hands of a team of Allied airmen. I believe they died for a noble cause, but that is my opinion. Obviously it was not the opinion of the person Taigh spoke with.

It is all too easy to dismiss any idea which puts a bad light on our precious warbirds. But I think most people are a bit more intelligent than that. I don't think we need detailed discussions of fields full of corpses and pieces of bodies, blood spattered roads, intestines laying out in the sun. But we have to remember the things we love so much were extremely effective killing machines, and actually killed lots of people in WWII.

In honor of ALL those who perished, let us continue to do the important work we do.

[REGINALD VON GLEASON III]

Awesome" reply

[airnutz]

An excellent and well tempered reply, Taigh. Maybe if he had an idea of the Allied
civilian casualties vs Axis civilians he might realize how misguided his opinion was...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

[Django]

Excellent reply Taigh. And I do agree with the "spit on" comment perhaps being too harsh for his tone, but then again, how do you really "read" tone in an email correctly? I agree with Bill too... we tend to focus on the military, but many civilians paid the ultimate price as well and don't deserve to be forgotten either.

The death toll wikapedia link was very informative!