Before we emigrated from England to the United States in 1962, my family lived for a few years in the small village of Goring-on-Thames. In the village lived a man named Arthur Harris, known to history as Bomber Harris.
He had been responsible for directing the RAF bombing campaign against Nazi Germany during World War II, in which hundreds of thousands of German civilians had been killed: men, women, and children.
He is, to say the least, a controversial figure. He has been called a war criminal many times over.
On the other hand, if the Allies had lost the war and my parents had not survived, I would not be alive today, along with countless, probably millions, of others.
When I read letters such as the one [“I voted today,” Gazette, Sept. 11], I am reminded of Bomber Harris and the complex, tragic, and vicious nature of war.
The war between Hamas and Israel is especially complex, tragic, and vicious. I don’t pretend to know the answer to this war, but I’m fairly certain that it is not as simple as the letter writer maintains.
Andy Tosswill
Florence