A rash of memorials

29/06/2012

Much has been made of the delay in providing a memorial for Bomber Command on the occasion of the unveiling of the "Albert Speer" monument yesterday in Green Park. However, without in any way disparaging the bravery of bomber aircrews – living and dead – there are many who have distinct reservations about the proliferation of World War II memorials, and wish that government had stuck to its original policy.

That the government once had a policy may come as a surprise but it did, having confronted the issue in the 1960s when the question of a Battle of Britain memorial arose.

It was discussed in Cabinet on 9 September 1960, when George Ward, then Secretary of State for Air, observed that the Battle of Britain was still regarded by the general public as a major victory and deliverance, a fight against the odds in our own skies. It had, he said, averted invasion and was the first decisive reverse to German Arms.

Ward thus asked his Cabinet colleagues to consider whether the twentieth anniversary might not be marked by a decision to erect a permanent memorial.

The Cabinet looked at the matter on 15 September, noting that there had been no national memorials to victories in the Second World War. Mindful of the need to avoid any controversy about the "respective achievements of the three Services in the war", the Cabinet recommended "further consideration" in relation to "the general question whether there should be memorials commemorating other victories in the Second World War".

The following year, on 11 April 1961, Harold Watkinson, then Defence Secretary, reported back, only to conclude that it was doubtful whether there would be much, if any, support, either for a single memorial to victory in the Second World War, or for a series of memorials to particular victories.

Nevertheless, he observed in his two-page report, "It may well be that the Battle of Britain occupies a special place in the minds of people". But he told the Cabinet that, if the battle was to be commemorated, "it would be right for the memorial to be dedicated, not only to the Royal Air Force, but also to all who helped to make the victory possible".

With Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the chair, the Cabinet considered the report on 25 April. The discussion:

… showed that the Cabinet were doubtful whether there was any appreciable demand for a Battle of Britain memorial and whether it would be fitting to select that particular victory as the one most appropriate for commemoration by a national memorial.

It then agreed that "it was undesirable in general to provide national memorials to victories in the Second World War", although it was suggested that if the University of Kent, then under consideration, was established, there might be some suitable commemoration of the Battle of Britain within it.

After other attempts to revitalise the issue, it was not until 1993 that an ultimately successful campaign to erect a memorial was launched, this time by the Battle of Britain Historical Society. That culminated in the unveiling by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall on the 18 September 2005 of a monument on the Embankment, at a cost of £1.65 million, paid for by public subscription.

The reservations of the Macmillan Cabinet, and the good sense of his time, had by then already been disregarded. And once the dam had been breached, so to speak, there was no stopping a proliferation of memorials in London, at ever-increasing cost.

The Battle of Britain memorial had cost £1.65 million, but to commemorate Bomber Command cost £6.5 million. And if Bomber Command deserves such a memorial, what about a London memorial for Coastal Command, with the 5,866 aircrew killed in action, and the 2,317 killed in accidents during the war?