The camaraderie of the air is an admirable thing, but
I am of sure that it is not sometimes carried unduly far. Here is provincial paper's account of the funeral of four members f the crew of a Heinkel which was shot down by a British ghter. The coffins, I read, were covered with huge Nazi ags of red and white with black swastikas (where were they - cured?), and having reached the cemetery in hearses were • en over by members of the R.A.F., who carried them a con- derable distance to the graves. An escort was provided by a arty of Empire airmen. The usual English burial service i at read, a volley was fired by members of the R.A.F., the Last Post " and " Reveille " were sounded, an R.A.F. officer uted at the graveside, and the R.A.F. men who had formed square round the grave during the service marched away. If is a choice between honouring and dishonouring Nazi air- en, let it by all means be the former, but a middle course— decent private interment—seems to fit the case better than 'her. To put British and Nazi airmen on the same level is o do violence to truth. British aviators do not machine-gun shermen in their boats or children on the beach or shoppers the streets or bomb hospital-ships. To pay the same honours British airmen and to the fallen members of a force in which ch practices are, to say the least of it not discouraged, is a sification of values, and the falsification of values is always ad. Is no distinction to be drawn between the devastators of vzntry t.nd the bravest and best British airmen?
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