Snaith
SNAITH see also COWICK HALL
SNAITH: Military aerodrome (Also known as POLLINGTON)
Note: Both of these pictures were obtained from Google Earth ©
Military users: WW2: RAF Bomber Command 4 Group
150 Sqdn ( Vickers Wellingtons)
51 Sqdn (Handley Page Halifaxs)
Post WW2:
1333 TSCU (Transport Support Conversion Unit)
Location: Just E of Great Heck & SW of Gowdall villages, 7nm W of Goole
Period of operation: 1941 to 1946
Runways: 05/23 1280x46 hard 09/27 1006x46 hard
13/31 1829x46 hard
NOTE: The obvious question is why was runway 09/27 much shorter than normal? Had the contractors run out of materials?
SNAITH is one of many WW2 RAF Stations largely forgotten about today. Indeed, the bombing campaign during WW2 was largely officially ignored as soon as the war ended. Which was a disgraceful way to act of course. No campaign medals were awarded and it wasn't until 2012 that a fitting memorial was erected in London.
A CONTENTIOUS ISSUE?
It is often that claimed that Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, chief of Bomber Command from February 1942 was the man responsible for the wholesale, or if you prefer, the area bombing of German cities. He was not, but he was the man given the job and, having taking the job on he proved to be a most dedicated advocate.
As Patrick Bishop relates in his book Wings: “In the intensity of total war , in the face of the enemy’s utter absence of scruples, pre-war squeamishness about harming civilians had vanished….” To me, given the Blitz, it seems astonishing that this was still an issue even by late 1941. Indeed, the Cabinet had asked a High Court judge to weigh the competing views.
From Patrick Bishop again: “Mr Justice Singleton concluded that Germany would not be able to stand twelve or eighteen months ‘continuous, intensified and increased bombing, affecting as it must, her war production, her power of resistance, her industries and her will to resist (by which I mean morale)’. This view became enshrined as official policy in the Directive issued to Bomber Command on 14 February 1942, which stated that ‘the primary object of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular of the industrial workers.’
SOMETHING EXPLAINED
It must surely be of considerable interest to note: “Eight days after it was issued, Bomber Command got a new leader. Arthur Harris - …” Patrick Bishop also notes: “Harris would later complain that ‘there is a widespread impression that I not only invented the policy of area bombing, but also insisted on carrying it out in the face of a natural reluctance to kill women and children that was felt by everybody else…..the decision to attack large industrial areas was taken long before I became Commander-in-Chief.’
He certainly supported the policy with all his heart, pursuing it with dogged determination, even when the progress of the war eroded its value and justification.”
ANOTHER ASPECT
I would take issue with that last statement. Apart from many other aspects, such as adding an essential element of support to the troops making their way towards Germany after D-Day (6 June 1944), what other choice did we have after the V-1 ‘Doodlebug’ campaign commenced on the 13th June 1944 with London as the target? It is perhaps not generally remembered today that the Nazi forces launched some 9,500 of these against south-east England and London especially plus around another 2,500 onto Antwerp and other targets in Belgium.
And, if anything, worse was to come when the V-2s started arriving, again onto London in particular in September1944. It appears over 3,000 of these were launched and, such was the hysteria within the German High Command it is claimed that an estimated 12,000 forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing them. The death toll on the Allied side, mostly civilians, is estimated at 9,000.
It must surely be borne in mind that after the full-scale bombing campaign of Germany started in early 1942 it remained the only means by which Germany itself could be attacked. By the end of 1943 the writing was on the wall for the Nazi leaders, especially after the United States of America geared up for their bomber offensive, based in England, from early in 1942. The USAAF had no qualms about area bombing being the only effective means to attack the German war machine with the inevitable civilian casualties.
The more I learn about this period of history the more I become totally convinced that every bomb dropped on Germany was totally justified. After all, when presented by a regime utterly incapable of accepting defeat, which was so patently obvious the inevitable result by late 1943, there was simply no alternative available but to just keep on bombing with, hopefully, enough horrific consequences to persuade the utterly manic and deluded Nazi regime to accept defeat. In some respects this never really happened in the sense that military commanders, historically, usually know when the tide has turned and the flag of surrender has to be raised. It wasn’t until Allied forces were almost literally banging on the door of Hitlers bunker in Berlin, and he committed suicide, that the end came about.
NO UPRISING
What in hindsight now seems quite incredible given their appalling suffering, is that the German people did not find a way to dispose of their controlling regime. I suspect that the likes of the S.S. and Gestapo had such a stranglehold over the population that resistence was impossible. And as has been proven since, in so many countries, when an utterly pervasive despotic regime succeeds, the abilities of the population to defend themselves evaporate.
THE NUREMBURG RAID
The bombing of Nuremburg is another episode regarded today with a degree of infamy, along with Hamburg and Dresden. This city is very important to the German people as it was the favoured centre they consistently returned to of the somewhat nomadic Kings of the Germanic States before these became a unified ‘State’ or ‘Empire’ in January 1871 under the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismark.
If justification for this raid is needed, and it isn’t, here again I would answer with just one word: ‘Coventry’. It could of course equally be any other city that suffered in the ‘Blitz’. “Those that sow will reap their rewards.” etc, etc. Once again, in his book Wings, Patrick Bishop has a most interesting account.
“On the night of 30-31 March 1944 the distant city of Nuremburg was chosen for a full-scale raid. The weather forecast predicting concealing cloud for most of the journey, but clear skies over the town. Then a Meteorological Flight Mosquito returned from a reconnaissance reporting just the opposite: the likelihood was that there would be clear skies en route and poor visibility over the target. These were the worst conditions possible, but the operation nonetheless went ahead.”
Such circumstances were far from unique, and as as pointed out elsewhere in this ‘Guide’, certain people within the top echelon of RAF planners displayed a remarkable propensity towards ensuring that the maximum amount of RAF Bomber Command casualties occurred whenever the opportunity arose. It is such a consistent pattern it surely cannot be attributed to incompetence – the usual excuse. And, think about it, what the hell was the purpose of having crews in the ‘Met’ Flights risking their lives if the results they obtained were then ignored?
STILL A CONTENTIOUS ISSUE
It makes no sense at all. Unless of course the ‘unthinkable’ is considered and there really were Nazi sympathisers lodged within the system? If so, looking at the history, it wouldn’t be the first time and certainly not the last. And, it seems very foolish, given our history, not to consider the possibility. After many years of research it seems very hard to conclude that this wasn't the case.
It is also very important to emphasise that I would most certainly not accuse ‘Butcher’ Harris or the very top brass in RAF Bomber Command or the Air Ministry of being Nazi sympathisers, far from it, although you cannot rule out the occasional ‘rotten apple’ as the Cold War proved. Nothing much changes and as anybody in charge of a huge organisation will happily testify, when a segment within it goes bad, the bosses are usually the last to hear about it. For obvious reasons – such people are hardly likely to denounce themselves.
A SOMBRE PICTURE
Once again from Patrick Bishop: “There is a famous photograph of the pre-operational briefing, taken at 51 Squadron’s base at Snaith. Squadron Leader Peter Hill is standing in the aisle, looking confidently ahead as he instructs the crews. In front and behind him, men stare, expressionless, at the board on the platform and the red ribbons stretching far into the heart of Germany. Hill did not return from the trip. Nor did another thirty-four men in the picture.” I have seen this picture and it brings a lump to my throat too. Very moving to realise that the majority of these men knew quite well, their lives might well end within a few hours. And yet, knowing this, they climbed aboard their aircraft and took off.
It is of course now well understood that confronted with a situation like this, quite deliberately arranged within the way the war machine functions, that ‘stepping back’ is regarded as cowardice, or, to put it another way, the only course to take if you are sensible and sane, a dilemma very well illustrated by Joseph Heller in his famous book Catch 22.
On the other hand of course these men knew damned well that if they didn’t climb aboard their aircraft and take off to bomb Germany, along with the USAAF bomber crews, nobody else, (apart from the Soviets making progress from the east with utterly appalling losses, generally conveniently disregarded in popular accounts in the ‘West’), was attacking with effect and resisting the Nazi regime where it really mattered. On their ‘front doors’.
THE DRESDEN RAID
51 Squadron also took part in the now infamous raid on Dresden but here again I feel that RAF Bomber Command have been unfairly judged. I appears that the request to bomb Dresden came from the Soviets who were finding the sheer amount of German troops in the city and surrounds were making any advance a very slow and costly business. Surely there must have been an attitude of belligerence on the Allied side by then, when it was patently obvious the war was won. It must have made complete sense to wonder just what would convince the Germans to surrender.
Plus of course with German V-1s and V-2s raining down on London and the south-east of England, there must have been an appetite for arranging something really devastating. Let’s face the facts, with the Germans having no qualms on laying waste to cities, why the hell should the Allies now back-off? Everything points in the opposite direction – to hit the Germans as hard as possible.
It strikes me that far too many people have been guilty of making judgements based on hindsight, which is of course both unrealistic and very unreasonable. For the crews involved it was just another target, only this time a long way into Germany. And, I am very certain, not one of them could have foreseen the consequences. I strongly suspect that nobody foresaw the utterly horrific consequences of this raid and indeed, just like the raid on Hamburg in 1943, a particular set of unplanned circumstances conspired to produce the result. And this, even today as is so often seen, is exactly what happens when war is waged.
Plus, it is far too simplistic to claim that it was in this war that large amounts of civilians suffered. It has been the plight of civilians to suffer the atrocities of war ever since mankind devised the concept of having armies, and that goes back several thousand years. The history of armies laying waste to everything in their path with rape and pillage and worse, often on a genocidal level, is a very common story. By comparison the Allied bomber crews who attacked Dresden should surely be viewed as being virtually blameless?
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