On the other hand . . .
Sir: So we are back to breast-beating again and ignoring the historical context (Centre point, 4 February).
I remember, as a child, emerging from a cellar in the centre of Southampton shaking with fear after the blitzes of the two succes- sive nights of 30 November and 1 Decem- ber 1940 (which were neither the first nor the last), and, seeing smoking ruins all around, saying to my father that we would lose the war.
I also remember his reply, 'We can take it. One day it will be our turn to bomb Ger- many. They will not be able to take it and then the war will end.'
It was the thought of that revenge that kept much of the civilian population going through the years of bombing, attacks by Vls and V2s, and deprivation, while we knew that most of our German enemies were out of effective range of our bombers and living on the fat of Europe. When at last 'Bomber' Harris was able to keep faith with us, and our bombers were powerful enough to reach into Germany, the technology of destruction had advanced so that our revenge was inevitably all the more terrible.
When later I saw Hamburg I was pleased to note that it had suffered more than Southampton. I do not recall any regret for that at the time and I cannot say 'sorry' for that now. We then said that `the only good Germans are dead Germans'. Harris and his men were our heroes then and, to many of us, still are. We were all products of the spirit of the times and that cannot be re-written.
Ian B. Bennett
The School House, Otham, Kent
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