NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/military/12737

Text File | 1993-01-23 | 1.7 KB | 35 lines

Newsgroups: sci.military
Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrhub2!ciss!law7!military
From: Tony Buckland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 50 Years Ago, January 20, 1993
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Sci.Military Login)
Organization: NCR Corporation -- Law Department
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:37:32 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]
Lines: 23


From Tony Buckland <[e-mail]>

 It's great to see 50YA back with us.  Concerning the bombing of
 London, specifically the bombing of "The Lewisham school":  this
 sounds suspiciously like the bombing of an elementary school
 just off Burnt Ash Road between Lee and Catford, not that far
 from the Lewisham shopping area.  I recall this because only a
 day-long intestinal problem kept me from being one of the casualties.
 My second-floor classroom ended up as empty space 5 m above a pile
 of bricks and bodies.  The situation resonates oddly with recent
 events in Baghdad, or at least speculations about those events;
 in the Burnt Ash Road case, the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) had the
 bad judgement to use the convenient space in the schoolyard next
 to the middle of the school to build their post for some area or other.
 Such posts were obvious targets, to reduce the ability to deal with
 air raids and their consequences in an organized fashion.  Considering
 the technology of the time, the Luftwaffe's aim in this incident was
 remarkably accurate.  10, 20 m the other way, and all that would have
 happened to the school would have been caving in the wall and blowing
 all the windows across the classrooms.  Somewhat fewer dead, more
 wounded.