Friday 2 November 2018

The 'Softening' of the Armed Forces

Are all RAF pilots like her, Daddy?
The 100th anniversary of the RAF has seen a newly re-vamped exhibition put on at the RAF Museum at Hendon.  I'd been meaning to go for a while, and took an opportunity yesterday.  The major changes are really only one new hangar's worth of general intro to the RAF, plus the retrograde step they've taken of closing my favourite exhibit, the Short Sunderland (which can only be viewed from the outside now: you used to be able to wander through it).

Well, it's all very shiny.  I'd been warned there is much dumbing-down in evidence, but I can't really agree with that; and the hardware is all there (check out that Vulcan bomb bay, lads); and the archive is as fine and professional as ever.

But there is certainly, how shall we put it, a lot of 'profiling' going on.  In this new intro hall, illustrating the 100 years of the service there are many individual stories told on the back of life-size cardboard photos of RAF personnel, like the rather fetching one on the right. 

Are you getting the picture?  Yes: of the 51 RAF people whose photos appear in this hall, 21 are of women, almost 42%.

Now: what % of today's RAF, do you imagine, are women?  Answer: 17%.  And what was the figure at the height of WW2?  16%.  And what % of the 109,484 members of the Service who gave their lives on active service ..?  They don't mention that.

But are we surprised? - when soi-dissant *historian* Dan Snow can lie to his children that women flew Spitfires in combat?  By contrast with shameful behaviour like that, the exhibition is as pure as the driven, errrr, snow.

Still, I am pleased to note the Museum still describes the prominent twin Aden cannon-bulges on the Hawker Hunter as 'Sabrinas'.  Until some passing thought-policeperson notices ...

ND

18 comments:

E-K said...

We've gone mad and we've had it.

Films and dramas will increasingly show such distortions until it becomes truth.

"Well it's for the greater good, so it doesn't matter."

While this happens they can continue to portray white men as evil and stupid.

Standards will be cut for special forces, Paras and Royal Marines despite them telling us they won't.

The Russians and the Chinese know that the West is fucked.

Similarly professional journals and recruitment campaigns are now openly discriminating against white boys.

CityUnslicker said...

I had not seen that Dan Snow article. Wow is he thick, I mean really, really thick..it was news to me he was that stupid, but there we are. Never underestimate the stupidity of lefties. Great fund to read though!

Bill Quango MP said...

I remember Tristram Hunt being asked about world war one. It was 2014- so big on WW1.It was some kind of chat show. He made some very interesting, accurate observations and completely avoided the emotional cliches to give a good picture of the causes and context of the outbreak of the war. Pretty good, considering he only had a few minutes. It may even have been on Top Gear. Something like that.

The host said "You really should do a documentary." And Hunt said , "I did pitch one to the BBC. Where we look at some of the untold stores. Lesser known conflicts. The dramatic Goeben / Falklands naval events. What was Churchill's real role in the Dardanelles. And tactics and strategies. Not just "Here's a letter from Tommy Atkins to his mum. He was killed the next day, sort of thing. Something a bit different."

"Wow. That sounds good. did they commission it."

"Erm..No. They said we already have one lined up. For Dan Snow."

"But YOU ARE a historian?"

"I Know!"

K said...

I noticed that Ada Lovelace is in the running for the £50 note.

Pity that the current mythos around her is 50% fake and gets further from the truth every year. Even in the fake story do they seriously believe that Babbage couldn't "program" his own machine? If they keep bigging up Lovelace they'll have to remove Babbage from the story at some point.

Thud said...

Linda Lovelace would be a better choice.

Charlie said...

It's a shame that the most successful and influential lady of the 20th century is so hated by leftie types that she'll never make it onto a banknote.

Anonymous said...

It's always fun to compare the current UK armed forces recruitment videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1vCe3BAnws

With the current Chinese Red Army one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Jd50j91_E

I wonder if Capita are responsible for this crap, I think they ran recruitment the last time I looked.

Anonymous said...

ND - fortunately the dimwits won't have a clue who Sabrina was (or what a belt-fed Wombat was).

Anonymous said...

Anon(10.32) You are right, but I clicked on the link! (Phwoar)

I'm not THAT dim.

Where's your link to the wombat then?

E-K said...

Anon at 10.22

I am utterly aghast at both of those links. I think we're really stuffed.

Anonymous said...

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=belt%20fed%20wombat

The Wombat wasn't actually belt fed AFAIK, but if it had been ...

Tony Harrison said...

Extraordinary, and saddening: it's certainly the case that the women who flew replacement aircraft to squadrons performed sterling service and are rightly celebrated; but the sort of mendacity described, exaggerating female numbers in the same way that Royal Mail's leaflets imply 40% or so of the population is black or brown, is little short of criminal. I hadn't known about that Dan Snow thing (I don't watch TV) but as bad as his lying is the Guardian piece linked to here! "Dan Snow was doing his best for his daughter by lying about women and the war...full horror of the patriarchy.." etc, by yet another terminally daft Guardianista. I mean, to suggest that such blatant, deliberate lying to one's children could ever be commendable is not just stupid, it's wicked.
Re that Sunderland, although it's a few years ago I recall a fine example in that little (but excellent) aviation museum at Southampton, lovely place. My son and I could go inside, sit in the cockpit. They also have a Spit F24, last of the marque.

DJK said...

Re banknotes (Charlie, 9:55). The sad thing is that the identity politics assumption --- that a person's worth is only defined by the racial/sexual/gender group that they belong to --- already seems to be taken as a given. Thus the picture on the £50 banknote must be a woman scientist because we haven't had one yet, just as Dr. Who, James Bond, the presenters on the Today programme, etc. must be women because...

dustybloke said...

I would like to believe that the Gruaniad is toying with click-bait here.

Surely we can't believe that either the writer or Snow were telling the truth. Can it be true that even a Gaun feminist would express remorse that no women were slaughtered or disfigured in the war? Can a real historian have the view "rampaging around having a great time, being heroic and climbing mountains, shooting things, being soldiers"?

Or perhaps is the Grnedien indulging in Brigstockeian levels of humour here? This has a negative value, so it fits the bill.

But in the end, the real question is, who gives a monkey's?

Anonymous said...

So Remainer Hawkings will dip out on his place on the fifty pound bank note despite fitting one minority characteristic and being of such significance interred between Darwin and Newton.

E-K said...

John Miller - If you have a white son you should give a monkey's.

It is now lawful to discriminate against him.

E-K said...

The male vs female remembrance scroll looks a little out of kilter and needs a couple of centuries of evening up.

E-K said...

A British Foreign Legion looks like the Govt's answer. Seeing as IS has more success recruiting soldiers than we do.