Coventry: Hoorah for Our Side
 

Coventry, England's Dresden, is one of the most blah cities in Europe for the casual tourist as tragically most of the town centre was blitzed to smithereens by Germans in WWII - because of its industrial nature

And unfortunately unlike German cities similarly turned to dust it was hastily rebuilt it seems in the 60's infatuous in England with modern boring cement structures - making the city centre rather a shopping mall than city centre

Whilst i have not been there in several years except for the equally blah train station and the city centre, like many English cities, may have been delightfully redeveloped since then it still must be said that the town's tourist fame solely rests on Lady Godiva's bare-back ride on a horse thru the town centre - in the buff as well
And a statue in the town centre commemorates this ride, which allegedly gave rise to the sports term not in use in America:

HOORAY FOR OUR SIDE
which supposedly dates from the fact that Lady Godiva rode her steed staddled sideways on it and the folks facing her front side were said to should HOORAY FOR OUR SIDE and the rest is history

Those unfortunates on the back side were left to mutter perhaps WELL THIS IS WHAT BEING A SPURS FAN IS LIKE

You are a deeply sad man with too much time on your hands

My first impression was that the paint is now finished, and somebody has started on the thinners :-)

You are a deeply sad man with too much time on your hands

Bilbo - no but i'm out of paint

can we have Bono or some one organize a Paint Benefit?

For something a little more informative about Coventry, try:

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/20...74038949972585

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/20...12062038515779

Patrick - thanks a bunch really

Canal walks like that are a passion of mine - and the graffiti art as well

I'll be heading back to Coventry asap

thanks for the links

Funny post - anything that adds levity to this dreary work day (we are on day 5 of a full out blizzard here in Western Canada), is welcome.

insert happy face...here. I don't know how people do that.

Naxos

Peeping Tom - snopes.com
Oct 10, 2007 ... thats also where the phrase "Hooray for our side" came from. .... (I'm surprised that Coventry existed that long ago; ...
message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=15821

Coventry's age is a crucial part of the air raid's importance in British views of the war.

Although there was a great deal of precision engineering in the town, central Coventry was (apparently) a place of considerable medieval charm. Coventry's industry was just disrupted by the November 14 bombing: the raid concentrated on the historic centre, where there were small workshops to spread fire, but the big factories were outside. By the standards of the time, casualties were slight (a "mere" 570 killed on the night) since most people lived in the suburbs, and production resumed pretty quickly.

The raid destroyed the medieval centre - including the cathedral -utterly. What went up afterwards was undoubtedly charm-free, and contrasts dismally with, for example, the reconstruction of Warsaw's Old Town. But that was a later scandal - and unlike much of the Continent, Britain came out of the war with more than enough undamaged old cities. Actually, Coventry's rebuilding - though it now strikes us as horrible - was widely seen as a visionary break with our past in the late 50s and early 60s.

The emotional issue in Britain in 1940 was that the more murderous bombing of the ports seemed - well, almost legitimate: everyone understood the ports' importance, understood what total war meant and everyone I know believes we'd have done the same thing. Coventry, to many, seemed like an act of simple vandalism, intended to destroy an ancient town for no "justifiable" strategic benefit.

As a result, Coventry is now a kind of centre of peace-making. It's twinned with more European cities than almost anywhere else in Britain, and is regularly thge venue for all kinds of reconciliation events. In spite of its blah-ness

Flanner's description of Coventry being pummeled in the town center shamelessly was it is said why the British, in retribution for the Coventry bombings, did the same and much much more to Dresden

Dresden i hope is Coventry's Twinned City - the British guy in charge, now called by some "mad bomber" whatever, rained down fire on Dresden, turning it to dust and on fire even though the city had bascially no military importance and was known to be full of refugees and war prisoners like Kurt Vonnegut who famously wrote about the slaughter in Slaughterhouse Five.

Where several hundred were killed in Coventry many thousands died here - many consider this really a war crime.

Coventry is twinned with Dresden and the former Stalingrad, plus another 24 towns/cities around the world.

Oh and among the other 24 are Arnhem and Kiel. They are twinned with cities that suffered a similar fate I believe.
http://tinyurl.com/69xtem

It's simply not true that "Dresden had no military importance". It was in the way of the Soviet advance, and there's no evidence its destruction was at all linked to Coventry. It had been agreed as a target with the Russians without discussion of previous German activity. Harris had a list of places the Russians wanted destroying, and he just worked his way through them.

By Feb 1945, when Dresden was bombed) Britain had almost forgotten Coventry: the few hundred killed in its bombing paled compared to the hundreds of thousands of British civilians killed in subseqent air-raids (and, in Feb 1945, still being killed). The Coventry memorialisation really started as the town started to get rebuilt in the 50s, culminating in the opening of its cathedral in the mid-60s

In retrospect, the whole carpet bombing strategy (of both sides) was, to put it mildly, morally debatable - and of limited strategic use. If you want to use the word "war crime", apply it to the whole strategy - not just one example of it.

But the term's inappropriate. However repellent, carpet bombing's not a war crime. Perhaps it ought to be so classed - but it won't be as long as the world's most powerful nations remain committed to being able to do it.

many consider this [Dresden] really a war crime.>>>>

Not by anyone with a brain in their head and acces to a history book.

Flanneur makes the case well.

It was a legitimate target - if you accept that cities are legitimate targets (which is what the whole of US/UK defence is based on).

Let's see two months before the war is over and most knew it would end soon a city full of refugees is carpet bombed

You present the U.K. view but there are different views of this as largely a retribution action - at least the carpet bombing of the whole town even though it was a crucial rail juction - tracks by that time had been destroyed.

Wikipedia seems to give cover to both sides but more to rather it being way too strident an attack considering the war was over practically - but read and take your choice. Note Churchill tried to distance himself after the fact - speaks volumes of the controversial attack IMO

Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
5.2.1 Allegations that it was a war crime. 5.2.1.1 Far-right in Germany ..... Churchill tried to distance himself from the Dresden bombing after the fact. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II - 249k - Cached - Similar pages
Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Churchill tried to distance himself from the Dresden bombing after the fact. ..... [108] "War crime" proponents say that Dresden did not have a military ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden -

I seem to remember that "bomber Harris" was not knighted - seen as a snub when most people of equivalent rank and importance where honoured after the war.

If Dresden was a warcrime (And I echo Flanners sentiments on this) then the USAF was equally culpable given raids on Germany, and particularly Tokoyo in 1945.


My family's home city of Portsmouth, a large military port, was much bombed in WWII. My Grandparents claimed that the bombing greatly improved the city because it destroyed so many slums.

all I can say is that as it is fairly grim now, it must have been truely awful before.

There are more than enough war crimes to go around and all parties in such a war could be accused of them

I was just comparing Coventry and Dresden in the popular assumption outside of England at least that it - Dresden's really overkill - was perhaps done as retribution for Coventry's needless pummeling

You seem to be thinking that Coventry ranks high on our list of wartime things we might want to take revenge for.

it's not in the top ten.

The Blitz and associated raids on most major cities were all much worse and went on for years - indded my Dad's house (well it was my Grandad's house but my dad lived there) was blown to smithereens only a few months before VE day by a V2.

My mum can remember standing and watching Glasgow burn.

These things are what we remember. Coventry only really assumed it's current role as a symbol of bombing well after the shooting had stopped.

you want a war crime - try Nagasaki.

Hiroshima as well - to me the world's biggest ever war crime - again the war was nearly over - could have set that bomb off in depopulated part to show

and have one left

but only one left

and the theory that saved lots of Allied lives in that invasion of Japan not necessary

but certainly i agree Nagasaki was in no way justified