Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about history will be aware of the pilots of Fighter Command who held the line against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. They were referred to as "The Few" by Churchill, and "my fighter boys" by Hugh Dowding, the commander of Fighter Command during that period.

However there was also Bomber Command, under Arthur Harris. Dowding had his Fighter Boys, Harris had his Bomber Boys. It was responsible for bringing RAF bomber raids to occupied Europe. Because of the extreme casualty counts during missions, the RAF switched early on to night time area raids while the US 8th Air Force persisted with daylight "precision" raids... which actually weren't that precise given the technology of the time, later analysis showed.

At the end of the war Churchill heaped effusive praise on the Fighter Boys but, as described in Patrick Bishop's most excellent book Bomber Boys (which I read many years ago), he said nothing about Bomber Command.

Why?

Mostly because of attacks like Dresden. It was felt - by some - that Harris' pursuit of "total war" was too much like what the Luftwaffe had done against places like London and Croydon in the early part of the war. The Americans were not subject to the same criticism because their bombing was allegedly "precision" whereas the RAFs was, necessarily, more wide area given that they were doing it at night.

The net effect is that the British government of the time felt that Bomber Command gave them a potential "image problem"... so let's just forget that it ever happened. And let's also forget the 47,268 men who lost their lives on operations (which they undertook knowing the odds that were stacked against them), the 8,305 who were killed in flying accidents, and the 1,570 ground crew and WAAFS killed in the war.

This memorial to RAF Bomber Command was therefore a long time coming. Memorials to Fighter Command had existed since the 40's, but this one was opened in only 2012, rather too late for those who had died in the preceding 67 years to see it. Apparently very little if any of the money for the memorial was forthcoming from a government which will of course be eternally grateful for their service and sacrifice. Hmm.

Part of the roof was constructed from aluminium recovered from a Halifax bomber which had crashed in Belgium in 1944.