Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
"Excision of our history"?
There is no excision of history, just a fuller re-telling, which includes the bits some people would rather not have discussed, as it doesn’t show our past in the idealised light they would prefer...
An example would be the Battle of Britain - because most people’s idea of the BoB is what they have seen in British films of the 50s and 60s (and the Biggles etc. books), and the "Commando"-type comics of the 60s and 70s, they believe that the BoB was won by the upper-middle class English officers, with some support from working-class Scottish or Cockney mechanics.
The facts are that 20% of BoB pilots were from outside the U.K.(half of those from Europe), 5 of the 10 leading "Aces" during the BoB were from outside the U.K., and 1/3 of the pilots were Sergeant Pilots, from the working & middle classes.
Also, Hurricanes shot down more German planes than the Spitfire.
This isn’t excising the efforts made by Spitfires and the Officers who piloted them, just showing a fuller picture.
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None of that is hidden, if you’re curious about history and especially WWII TV there is lots of literature and other material you can research if you want to, I also disagree the above shows our country in a bad light.
War is always depicted in a glossy format for the masses as the truth is probably too much for most to take.
I recommend anyone interested in WWI to listen to the excellent Dan Carlin series Blueprint for Armageddon and for the Pacific theatre of WWII Supernova in the East. You get the full picture.
---------- Post added at 09:33 ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Yes, but that’s not what is seen as ‘history" - the Spitfire is seen as the main reason we won the BoB, rather than the reality.
Who Shot Liberty Valance - "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend".
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Which itself is incorrect, the main reason we won BoB is that the Luftwaffe underestimated the number of planes we had and overestimated their advantage. We were also replacing our losses at a much greater rate than they were. The ME109 also had a short range and a very limited flight time over the UK and channel.
To say that the main reason we won the BoB was Hurricanes and working class pilots is also as simplistic and incorrect as saying it was Spitfires and toffee nosed fops