CONCLUSION: THE NEW HERO IN ACTION, 1940–2006 195
recommendation were not obtained until well after the end of the war;
Cairns was not gazetted until 20 May 1949, the last of the Second World
War’s awards.^31
The quick vetting of some of the recommendations cannot be attributed
to some force of fate or enemy action. Speeding the wheels of bureaucratic
entropy required pressure from above. Thirteen Crosses were gazetted in
under 30 days. For some reason these awards were hurried through an
adjudication process that was normally slow and deliberate.
Seven of those 13 went for air operations; six of those seven were gener-
ated by Bomber Command. Five of those six went to missions against
high-profile targets. Flight Lieutenant Roderick A. B. Learoyd bombed the
Dortmund-Ems Canal, one of the highest- priority targets mentioned in
Harris’s memoirs, and in the process demonstrated Bomber Command’s
proficiency in precision bombing.^32 Nettleton’s raid on Augsburg was the
trial by fire for unescorted bombers. Likewise was the daring daylight raid
on the port of Bremen, led by Wing Commander Hughie I. Edwards on 4
July 1941.^33
Wing Commander Guy Gibson got a Cross for dam-busting. The large
dams at Mohne, Sorpe and Eder were tempting targets. As ‘Mutt and Jeff’
[Captain ‘Mutt’ Summers and ‘Jeff’ – Barnes Wallis, the creator of the dam-
buster bomb] explained in Gibson’s initial briefing, these dams supplied
water for drinking and industrial uses and generated electrical power for
a large portion of the heavily industrialized Ruhr River Valley. Not only
would their destruction reduce the Reich’s power production and industrial
output, but the flood damage resulting from their sudden rupture had the
potential to do ‘more damage to everything than has ever happened in this
war.’^34 Massive destruction of enemy production, power generation, and
civilian workforce from a single air strike would vindicate Harris’s position
on the effectiveness of strategic bombing
Bomber Command’s salvation of England in destroying the invasion
barges won a VC for Sergeant John Hannah, whose efforts to extinguish a
fire aboard his aircraft allowed the pilot to bring the crippled aircraft to a
safe landing. Harris saw these barges as a distinct threat to British security,
but ‘the War Office seems to have lacked appreciation of how they could be
used to put troops across the Channel or of the enormous number of them
available.’^35 The gun is not smoking, but the barrel is warm and there is a
scent of cordite in the air. It appears the RAF was using the VC to validate
the high command’s doctrine.
This having been said, it is necessary to point out that the political steering
of the types of heroism granted official recognition does not detract from
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