Remember their sacrifice

Published: 14 May, 2010

• HAVING read the comments by those opposing the wonderful Bomber Command Memorial project, I would point out that France and Belgium not only honour their dead, but ours too, on memorials all over their countries.
Many of their green spaces some right in, or next to, villages where children play, grow and learn of World War I and II battles are given up to honour all those who perished, including the enemy.
The selfish attitude of those who have never visited a battlefield or witnessed row upon row of graves, is quite staggering and petty.
At Ypres every day of the year, without fail, a service is held to honour the war dead, our dead, everyone’s dead.
Yet we argue over a monument to honour those who gave their lives for our freedom, some of those airmen, hardly in their 20s and knowing full well the chances of coming through more than a handful of missions were very remote.
The shame is not that this monument would take up some precious ground that people want to sit in quietly, more that it has taken 65 years to acknowledge the sacrifice they made.
In comparison ours is no sacrifice whatsoever.
We have Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, St James’s Park all with areas in which to sit quietly if this is what is required.
JENNIFER SHANNON, Marylebone