History is not only bunk but also written by the victors and is just a lot of propoganda all lumped together. So its good to reassess these iconic events every now and then.
Maybe we should also review the 'Heros of Telemark' and 'The Colditz Story' and 'Reach for the Sky' as well.
They may not have had much effect directly on the conduct of The War, but they made cracking good yarns and boosted moral no end.

It should also be remembered that the raids caused massive loss of civilian life, and would now be considered war crimes - or as acts of terrorism.

whoever steward purports to be,

watch out for his name, because if the rest of his writing is as ludicrous as that about the jap-bomb, don't waste your money on him.

The Manhatton project, was the greatest engineering success of history, up to 1945

The financial and physical resources expended, was so great, the Brits, who contributed some input, with their TUBE-ALLOY organization, were only a small fraction of the total -effort

What is certain, is that the japs, no only did not have the intellectual background, nor the sheer physical/engineering ability

to work in that FIRST DIVISION of research,

even the mighty-3rd Reich, went down the wrong research road, with their HEAVY-WATER research.

This TV show, might have had more credibility, if it had shown THE REAL CYLINDRICAL 6TON BOMB, instead of posing with a research bomb, which was part of a program called HIGH-BALL, whose intention was to 'skip-bomb' across the water, german ships, wherever found.

The one shown, was similar to the test bomb, that the mosquito was shown dropping, in SECRET-WAR, intro' Proff R.V.Jones some years ago,

As for the germans, they were fortunate, that the Allies, did NOT treat them, with the same ruthless bestiality, that THEY showed to every population they invaded.

If you want to bleed, bleed for the millions MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD by the Germans,

The Germans started the 'whole-show' in 1914, and the allies closed it down in 1945,

It ill behoves anyone to lament for their self-inflicted fate

I've always accepted that. And the fact that 'History' is an open book, never definitive, and we should be open and objective and ready for a reinterpretation of events, and to beware of 'junk' or popular history as fed to the general populace, as Walters byline says.
My point is also that alternative views and interpretations are not that readily available, and sometimes deliberately 'censored' by the authorities.

@Dark Heart of Toryland

I think you need to study something about the context of WWII before coming to the conclusion that such mass civilian deaths would be considered a war crime. It's a trite and simplistic view which bears absolutely no relationship to the context and existential nature of the events at the time.

If you think there was some magical way to conduct a total war type effort without mass civilian killings in the context of a total war and a ruthless enemy, then it's escaped historians. Undoubtedly there were allied activities that resulted in more civilian deaths than can be justified by the military impact. However, it's very easy to make such judgements in retrospect, and even then they may be wrong conclusions.

Dark Heart of Toryland has a point: there were thousands on civilian casualties, most of em Polish or Russian forced labourers. The RAF bombardment of Germany killed hundreds of thousands of civilians: and I doubt it did much to shorten the war. If anything, just diverted resources from D Day.

One of my relatives was in the RAF in the sixties: attended a lecture by the then retired Bomber Harris. He apparently said: "If the Germans had won I'd be a war criminal. But they didn't, so I'm not."

@ swatantra nandanwar

WHO opened up the "second front"? Exactly who invaded who in June 1941? ;)

Regarding the poppy debate - it's the British symbol of national remembrance, worn by the English national team in the English national stadium; if England were playing abroad during an equivalent national festival of remembance, England's players would be happy to honour that local commemoration.

And how many people were killed by our heroes and their bouncing bombs? The article doesn't seem to want to say.

"Maybe we should also review the 'Heros of Telemark' and 'The Colditz Story' and 'Reach for the Sky' as well."

We already have done, in several media. Douglas Bader's larger-than-life legend was finally put to rest as far back as John Ray's "Battle Of Britain:New Perspectives", Bader was revealed as a disobedient officer who lied about the early successes of the Duxford "Big Wing", and who probably only missed being courtmartialled because his claims provided ammunition for Sholto Douglas in his ultimaely-successful feud with Hugh Dowding.

Ther German Atom Bomb project was a chimera - by 1943 is was clear to the Allies that Heisenberg had made basic mistakes in the scale of the fissionables required...and the *second* German atomic project under Otto Hahn turned out to be more danerous to those around it than to any ultimate enemy.

As for the damage that CHASTISE created...Bomber Command must have believed it worth the effort....for they went back eighteen months later to try to finish the job at the Sorpe Dam! On October 15th, 1944, BC Lancasters attack the Sorpe Dam with 5-ton Tallboy bombs.

swatantra nandanwar writes, 'History is not only bunk but also written by the victors...'

So you've never read anything about the Spanish Civil War written by Anarchists and Communists? Or on the Second World War by Germans? You haven't seen any histories of the American Revolution by British historians? No French historian ever wrote about the Napoleonic Wars? What you say is something even a first year history undergraduate learns is absurd after the first few weeks.

@ Rod

"The invasion of Crete was known about well before hand. Deliberately the troops on the ground were denied information that could have saved lives"

Quite correct, it was - and referred to by Winston as "the best chance to kill enemy paratroops"....and while Crete is always pictured as a defeat - we DID emasculate the Fallshirmjaeger there, to the point that the Germans never dared attempt another massed airborne operation for the rest of the war. And given that we didn't know *100%* that the Germans woudn't attempt to threaten invasion again in 1941 UNTIL the hour they headed East against the Soviets, that death toll caused on Crete was quite a relief for Great Britain.

Over the years more and more has come out about ULTRA and its place in the campaign on Crete - but don't ignore the many analyses of events there carried out BEFORE Bletchley's role was known about; Freyburg was in on the "ULTRA secret"...and couldn't reveal how he got is intelligence - but that doesn't excuse the mistakes made on the ground by Commonwealth officers - the late, weak or plain non-existent counterattacks, the badly concealed positions at Maleme compared to other Commonwealth outposts, Wavell's refusal to send more and decent tanks fron the TIGER convoy to the island, etc. etc.

The fact is if the Russians hadn't opened up the 2nd front, we'ed probably all be speaking German as the lingua franca these days, millions of Russians died to save the West and their own motherland.
The poppy is not a symbol in every country so FIFA were right in refusing it to be displayed on shirts; I think facist Spain were siding with the Nazi Regime in WWII anyway. But FIFA were magnanimous to allow its appearance on the black armband. And it has tobe remembred that it was Cameron William Cambridge and Beckham that spectacularly failed to get us the World Cup in 8 years time with their poor presentation.