RAF Bomber Command Memorial

At last, the sacrifice of the aircrews of wartime Bomber Command has been recognized with a maginificent memorial in the centre of London.
Over 55,000 airmen died serving with Bomber Command, and their memory was honoured yesterday as the Queen unveiled the new memorial...



.... afterwards there was a flypast of the sole airworthy Lancaster, dropping thousands of Poppies...



"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them"

Long over due. Great memorial.

Given the emotion and pride that the men present showed on the tv it saddens me to think that by leaving this for so long that there will be brave men who have passed away having never been honoured for said bravery. On the positive side the memorial looks great and they got the queen. I like seeing the old soldiers they have a dignity about them that we should all aspire to.

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These guys were amazing...

Quote :

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I.

Of the RAF Bomber Command personnel killed during the war, 72% were British, 18% were Canadian, 7% were Australian and 3% were New Zealanders.

Taking an example of 100 airmen:

• 55 killed on operations or died as result of wounds
  
• 3 injured (in varying levels of severity) on operations or active service
  
• 12 taken prisoner of war (some injured)
  
• 2 shot down and evaded capture
  
• 27 survived a tour of operations

In total 364,514 operational sorties were flown, 1,030,500 tons of bombs were dropped and 8,325 aircraft lost in action.