During the Falklands War in 1982, in the aftermath of the sinking of the Argentinian ship the Belgrano, and the resulting death of 323 of its crew, the BBC’s Director of News and Current Affairs, Dick Francis, expressed his sympathy for the family of the dead.
He said that “the widow of Portsmouth is no different from the widow of Buenos Aires”.
A good Christian sentiment, you might feel.
Some in Mrs Thatcher’s entourage thought differently and indeed expressed their outrage. What was the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation doing? It should be ing “our boys” and not giving solace to the enemy.
Mrs Thatcher commented that, “The case for our British forces is not being put over fully and effectively. I understand there are times when it would seem that we and the Argentines are almost being treated as equal”.
It was around this time that the Newsnight presenter, Peter Snow, was called a “traitor” by the Sun newspaper - and some Tories - for saying that “We cannot demonstrate that the British have lied to us but the Argentinians clearly have”.
It is always difficult to see wars in the round and not primarily through one’s own national perspective.
Certainly when I was at school I was taught little or nothing about the Soviets role in World War 2, and their appalling losses. (They lost over 13 and a half million in total, including famine and forced labour; we lost 449, 700 including civilians).
Few issues, however, remain as controversial as the Allied bombing of German cities, and in particular the firestorm which consumed Dresden in 1945, a few months before the end of the war.
Families and friends of those who served in Bomber Command had to campaign for decades to get its contribution to the war against the Nazis properly recognised. They argued that for much of the war bombing was the only way we could significantly damage the German war effort, and they pointed to the appalling loss of life that resulted for those aircrews. A staggering 44% (55,573) of them died in the conflict. The average age of crewmen was 22.
Critics of the campaign against cities and Dresden in particular, use like “war crime” and at a recent commemorative ceremony in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a relative of Viscount Portal who devised the bombing strategy, expressed his “profound feeling of regret and deep sorrow” and said the bombing “diminished all our humanity”.
The Today programme discussed the issue and was accused by some listeners of not providing sufficient context.
In this week I talked to the Editor of Today, Jamie Angus, and to Dr Peter Bush, a German who is Senior Lecturer in War and Media at Kings College London.
You can hear this week's programme here.
In another item this week I talked to the BBC’s deputy news editor ing shocking audio of the shootings in Copenhagen. Do let me know what you think about that and anything else of course.
Roger Bolton
Roger Bolton is the presenter of
