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British cities bombed in the Blitz
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veneta1
223 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 06, 2017, 19:08
I'm in my sixties and live just outside Manchester City centre. No more than thirty six hours after the Manchester bombing I travelled into the city to meet a couple of friends. I would have used Victoria Station but it was closed due to the events at the MEN Arena, so I travelled into Piccadilly Station. We walked around the centre, went over to St Ann's Square to look at the floral tributes, and then went for a couple of pints in a pub on Oldham Street, just up from Piccadilly Records. We never thought to change our plans and were in no way frightened or cowed by the events of two days before. The same could have been said of the thousands of other people who were going about their usual daily lives. To have acted differently would have played into the hands of the murderers who had caused this atrocity.

My grandfather served in both the First and Second World Wars. My father was in the RAF for thirty five years. I know what they would have called anybody who allowed themselves to be 'cowed' by such events.
Sin Agog
Sin Agog
2253 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 06, 2017, 19:28
From my own experience actually knowing a (now dead) member of IS, most of the bombers themselves are extremely credulous types possibly with learning difficulties, or at least cut in that "newborn adult" mould, who are perfect for being reprogrammed into human weapons. The people doing the planning, however, are clearly much more assiduous and canny individuals, and I suspect their agenda is letting us know in the most horrific, explosive way possible that we are all in fact world citizens who won't be allowed to continue our dreams of mantelpieces and driveways any longer without experiencing a patina of the fear being felt in the epicentre of the war. So we may not be cowed, but that virulent germ has been planted and we are feeling it, and maybe we should? We've been solipsistic for too long, acting as if we only have compassion enough for ourselves and our immediate loved ones (the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi wrote about the dangers of this 'tude). Whatever their agenda, I wonder if this side-effect of being forced to stare long and hard at parts of the world we'd otherwise sooner brush aside in our minds is actually a good thing. 'course blowing citizens up is unacceptable under any circumstances, but now that it's happened I think we should embrace the fear we're feeling as a way of uniting with the huddling, shuddering masses who got the fuzzy end of the geographical lollipop.
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat
6200 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 06, 2017, 20:15
Much to agree with here Sin. I don't really agree with "embracing the fear", but I am with you completely on the need to look at what is happening elsewhere, how we are part of that, and to share some compassion for people in places that have become unimaginable hell-holes where once there was civilisation and culture. The idea that we can only feel horror for people killed or injured here, while tacitly allowing our leaders to kill, injure and make homeless hundreds or thousands of civilians in other countries is deplorable to me.

I think you're also right to acknowledge the psychological issues of the saps doing the blowing themselves up - not to excuse in any way what they have done, but we cannot hope to stop this if we aren't prepared to look at the causes.

Our collective head in the sand (pun intended) attitude to world affairs and our leaders' foreign policy should be pushed out into the open and considered objectively. Exploring cause and effect is not apologising or excusing, but it might get us on the road to stopping. More tanks and bombs sure isn't working.
drewbhoy
drewbhoy
2550 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 06, 2017, 22:59
Nae probs LS, my father was taken out of Glasgow along with his brothers and sisters during WW2. They were settled into farms in the NE of Scotland.
Locodogz
Locodogz
254 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 07, 2017, 08:56
Oh no! Ole Dhaji's sure been called now...

...dem lefties think they're in for a lynching now...little do they know {chuckle}. Ole Dhaji's too sly....

...watch him twist like dat ole catfish and win the day.

Dhabi's my hero.....
tk421
121 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 07, 2017, 10:02
I think you are right about the USA being a beacon around the world.

You're point reminds of a story my father told me. He is a big fan of Chomsky and he went to see him giving a few lectures years ago on American (and the West's) foreign policy. He was at one such lecture when a member of the audience made this point - 'even though we can sit in here and criticise American policy, foreign and domestic, it's irrelevant to the majority of the people outside this hall. For them, America is still the dream.'
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
986 posts

Edited Jun 11, 2017, 19:52
Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 11, 2017, 19:47
Of course it wasn't just cities. Many industrial towns were targeted by the Germans. Clydebank was blitzed. 1,300 people died in the two nights of that blitz. 250 died in the Greenock Blitz. Many towns were hit across Southern Scotland as the German Bombers ditched their remaining bomb loads as they were chased by the RAF from Prestwick. One bomb landed in Biggar close by the War Memorial and lay unexploded (I have read the air raid wardens notebook!). The fields and hillsides above Old Kilpatrick, Mountblow and Duntocher still bear the scars today in the form of bomb craters. When I worked in Clydebank in the late 1980's there were still streets and areas which hadn't been rebuilt.
Edinburgh and Glasgow both still have "gaps" in streets of victorian flats where bombs took the buildings and people out. Some of the gapsites still have the massive props used to brace the surviving buildings on either side.
Montrose and Fraserburgh were very badly hit too. Unbelievably Fraserburgh was the second most bombed place in Britain after London.
The last Scottish casualty from a German bombing raid in Scotland was Mrs MacGregor in Fraserburgh. The Hun had just bombed Aberdeen and killed 125 people and were dropping their left-over bombs on their way back over Fraserburgh (as usual) and one dislodged a slate on Mrs MacGregor's roof and it hit her on the head. That was on April 21st 1943.
Mrs MacGregor survived!
Lawrence
9547 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 12, 2017, 00:28
I think sweetcheat is right. You obviously hate Iraqis and Syrians. It's so obvious, scumbag! Go cheer on all the EDL scum in Manchester that are your friends, dipshit! Ha ha ha. No crap you say will change this THIS time!
Lawrence
9547 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 12, 2017, 00:44
Transparent Fascist.
dhajjieboy
913 posts

Re: British cities bombed in the Blitz
Jun 12, 2017, 02:56
Lawrence wrote:
Transparent Fascist.
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