Buchenwald and Beyond

"This is a historic milestone and represents closure.  They are finally getting the recognition they deserve.  They exhibited great bravery and performed unbelievable deeds.  They set a standard of professionalism we aspire to today."  Lt.-Gen.Andre Deschamps RCAF commander

"After what I saw at Buchenwald, I felt good about what we did.  Those Germans showed no humanity whatsoever.  Irrespective of what others might say, thank God we did what we did.  Every Remembrance Day I not only think of those in Bomber Command who died, but all the others who were killed in Buchenwald."  Former flyer with Bomber Command, Ed Carter-Edwards

Buchenwald concentration camp was notorious for the brutality meted out to its inmates, most of whom were Jews.  And some 56,000 civilians were murdered there.  Mr. Carter-Edwards was taken as a prisoner of war after being shot down while flying his 22nd mission over Nazi-occupied Europe.  He was one of 168 Allied POWs at Buchenwald.

Where he was beaten by the SS and the Gestapo, threatened with execution, listened to the screams of those being tortured and experienced what it felt like to be crammed into a cattle car with one hundred other prisoners as they were transported east by rail.  He has no fond memories of the Germans as a result of his involvement in the Second World War.

And he feels he has no reason whatever to regret the part he played within Bomber Command.  Of the fifty-five thousand Canadian airmen who were part of Bomber command, 42 elderly men are all that remain.  Almost half of the 120,000 airmen, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealanders were killed.  Over 3,000 Bomber Command airmen disappeared over the English Channel, the North Sea or the continent.

"Sixty-nine years ago today I was on a troop ship - the Louis Pasteur - bound from Canada for Liverpool to fight the war.  It is high time we were recognized.  What we are experiencing here this week should have happened when the war ended, but I say better later than never.  For our progeny this will be here forever", said Malcolm MacConnell of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia who flew Lancaster bombers, attached to the Royal Air Force's 97th Pathfinder Squadron.

"Our squadron was always told we were going after shipping and industrial targets.  Our first mission was over Gelsenkirchen.  No doubt there were people who lived there but this was war and it didn't bother me.  The Germans had bombed cities in Poland, Holland and Britain before we bombed Germany.  what we did hastened the end of the war."

Eight days after the Germans has surrendered unconditionally, Mr. MacConnell flew a Lancaster for the last time, on May 15, 1945.  "I squeezed in as many ground crew as I could fit and flew all over Germany for six and a half hours to show them what we had done.  I have never been up in a Lancaster since."

And finally, Bomber Command flyers were formally recognized with the unveiling of a memorial by Queen Elizabeth, across from Buckingham Palace.