About Eyes

to the Skies

References to Royal Air Force Papers and Royal Flying Corps Papers are chosen by the author. This does not mean that these papers have been approved by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (M.O.D. Air).

Eyes to the Skies gives me the opportunity to showcase those parts of the History of Aviation that have enthralled, overpowered, inspired me, and above all, guaranteed my life in freedom and democracy.

In the last decade of the 19th Century, the Cavalry was still the major player on the battlefield. When the Wright Brothers made their epic manned flight the Great War was still eleven years away, and the carnage of trench warfare that would wipe out an entire generation of young men and many women. The Dogfights at varying heights over the Western Front at heights as great as 18,000 feet (5,486 meters) were simply unimagineable.

EIGHTY YEARS ON from the end of the Second World War, and fast approaching the third year of the War in Ukraine, it is often difficult to enable even middle-aged television presenters to understand fully the horror of aerial warfare between 1939-1945.

And this persists, despite the present horror of the Israel HAMAS War.

Occasionally, I’m reminded Oh, no … that’s just what happens in Hollywood films. I give a silent nod to relatives who paid the price for me to be here… and I think of those family archive letters in which, in his own hand, one of my uncles, to his Dad, has listed all the cities, towns, railway junctions, ports and synthetic oil plants that he and thousands of fellow airmen were required to deliver devastating ordnance on the hapless people below.

And all because of one man… Partly, yes, largely, no.

Sound familiar?

That initial observation is brought into blunt, terrifying focus by the Israel-HAMAS War now in its sixth week.

Before denouncing, let us remember that the Allied Air Forces did exactly the same to Germany. The country was a wasteland when the War in Europe ended with unconditional surrender on 9 May 1945.

Let us remember what we, the Allies, did to Caen, in 1944. The Allies had to break the enemy’s hold on that ancient city, and to not do so would have juddered the Normandy Invasion to a halt and given the Nazis a foothold. The price paid for the relentless allied bombing and shelling was killed 20,000 French civilians killed as well raising to the ground, Caen. Why? Because the enemy made it a fortified position and hid behind the civilian population.

I’m moved to include here my German friend’s comment and advice regarding this website because she is absolutely correct, and I am, indeed, grateful to her.

Ken, I'm glad you had a good Zoom with A. B. yesterday, 20 December.

The Aviation website can certainly be further developed. It is like a precious history book full of lively, knowledgeable, and historic events. The most emotional photo for me is the one with the children in the ditch. That touched me deeply. We can only imagine what those little souls have been through. Fears leave their marks. I wish that these experiences continue to serve as a lesson for today. It should never be forgotten.

Ken, that's why this website is so important!

Thank you, Rita. I hear you, as too does Armin Braunsberger of Braunsberger Media.

1 January 2024.

Webb of Liverpool