Unless you are deaf and blind you’ll have noticed that today the British ruling class is commemorating the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the RAF’s finest hour. The actor who played Churchill on TV a while ago will be reading out the famous speech.

It seems like a good occasion to refresh our memories about the bits of RAF history that the BBC mentions slightly less frequently. Maybe Robert Hardy can read this bit out:

“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.”

Winston Churchill: departmental minute (Churchill papers: 16/16) 12 May 1919 War Office

With political backing like this the next step was obvious.

“The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five  minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.” Wing-Commander Gale of 30 Squadron put it slightly more jovially than Arthur Harris’ statement:

“If the Kurds  hadn’t learned by our example to behave themselves in a civilised way then we had to spank their bottoms.” Jolly good, old chap!

Of course this was a prelude to Arthur “Bomber” Harris’ campaign which killed 600 000 German civilians, something which doesn’t feature quite so often in all the gung ho accounts of the RAF’s role in World War Two.

Of course the modern RAF is no longer in the business of killing civilians. In fact they’ve even released a video showing how “RAF Pilot’s skill saves innocent Afghan villagers from air strike”. The knight of the air had been about to drop a 1000 pound bomb on a car but changed his mind when he saw it was about to drive into a village. That certainly did deserve a press release. Reinforcing this happy story is news from Afghanistan Rights Monitor that 1,074 civilians were killed between January and June 2010 – a slight increase compared with the same period in 2009 but, and it’s a big but, “the number of people killed in NATO air strikes in the same period has halved”.

Gin and tonics all round.