The Valour and the Horror

The British High Command knew how few bomber crews would survive - it deliberately hid the truth. That's not all that was concealed. The crews and the public were told that the bombing targets were German factories and military installations.

In fact in 1942 a secret plan was adopted. Germany would be crushed through the deliberate annihilation of its citizens. Few airmen would ever learn of that plan. They had joined to save democracy, hearing the words of the Canadian Air Force poet:

Canada volunteered to be both an arsenal and a massive training depot for Bomber Command. It was called the aerodrome of democracy. Between 1940 and 1945, Canada would train 137,000 aircrew, more than England and all the rest of the Commonwealth combined. Volunteers came from the farthest reaches of the British Empire, from all over Europe, and from the United States. The men arrived untrained but enthusiastic.

The young men who signed up with Bomber Command saw themselves as avenging angels. In 1940, German bombers were laying waste to the City of London in the siege that became known as "the Blitz". Forty thousand British civilians were killed. Churchill decided that responding with even more devastating attacks against German cities was his only way to win the war. To accomplish the task, he chose the ruthless Sir Arthur Harris as head of Bomber Command.

Arthur Harris. "There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My response is: it has not been tried yet... We shall see... "

This promised to be a new kind of warfare - no more wretched muddy trenches like the First World War. In the airforce, you could drop your bombs on Germany and come right back to drink and be merry in British pubs. What's more, in the airforce, women served on the same bases as men. There were 150,000 in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, mostly British. Mary Moore joined up in London.

The Canadians in Britain were boisterous and noisy and fun loving... qualities that did not endear them to their British superiors. Canadians had a reputation stemming from the First World War of being fiercely independent - sometimes to the point of insubordination. Some British commanding officers were determined to break that spirit from the moment the Canadians stepped off the boat.

Canadians were facing adversity and death together and being molded into fighting units. But true to the pattern of Canadian history, while many English Canadians resented the superior attitude of the British...the French Canadians were often angry about the poor treatment they received from their English speaking countrymen.