"Position"? What you on about? He is in exactly the position the article says he is, namely that his whole life was blighted by the killing of his fiancee. Clearly he was so traumatised by it that he has never been able to move on from the hate he must have felt when it happened, and hasn't been able to rationalise and process it like most. Before you patronisingly judge him for his irrational mindset, let's have someone do it to you and see whether your mental processes cope better.

It's a shame he has never moved on from that, but he obviously has long standing mental issues caused by the trauma, and frankly referring to the poor old man's plight as "moaning" or referring to his "position" is as crass as it is irrelevant.

Also I doubt very much he'd be surprised if survivors of his raids felt just the same about the Allies, the fact that seemingly most have found ways to move on and put it in the past doesn't alter that. Personally I find it a shame that, at his age, the press should publish this stuff, even if he wanted it widely known. They should have left an old man with his private grief and irreconcilable bitterness.

Could Patrick Moore face trial like the student did for writing "all soldiers should die and go to hell"? www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... k-comments The police said it was a "racially aggravated public order offence". Does "the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut" pass under this? What about if a celebrity was rambling "the only good Jew is a dead Jew"...?

Could Patrick Moore face trial like the student did for writing "all soldiers should die and go to hell"? www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... k-comments The police said it was a "racially aggravated public order offence". Does "the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut" pass under this? What about if a celebrity was rambling "the only good Jew is a dead Jew"...?

People of that generation, who were directly affected by the events of the war will have a different opinion to us who were born long after it. We didn't experience it, we don't know what it was like. We don't live in the East End of London and other places hearing a V1's engine noise stop and hope it isn't going to land on or near us. We don't live in the massive continuing levels of stress and anxiety that brings. Nor how it affected people mentally.

If he hates krauts, then fine. He has a personal reason to. People don't have to like something to at least understand it.

Out there are Jewish people who hate Germans, Armenians and Greeks who hate Turks. French who hate Germans etc. etc. The list is endless. People being at the receiving end of inhumane acts and trauma will often be affected and opinons formed.

Being in Singapore in the 80s, I still saw a massive hatred of all things Japanese. Are the older SIngaporeans bigoted båstards? Hateful, racist scum? And then is that just the Chinese ones, The Malay ones or the Indian ones? Or just the colonial white ones? Or hadn't they all forgotten what they personally experienced at the hands of the Japanese forces.

Accept that some people are more forgiving than others. And accept that some people's trauma had a strong effect on them.

I thought he was supposed to have been an Intelligence Officer in the RAF not aircrew.

He probably feels justified in his seemingly hypocritical stance because Germany under Hitler were the aggressors. Had we started the war he couldn't very well blame the Germans for retaliating but we didn't and so I am sure he sees our bombing of Germany as the inevitable consequence of German aggression and bombing of the UK. In other words it was the German's fault his fiancé got killed and it was the Germans fault they got the crap bombed out of them.

Oh I understand it. I just find it pathetic. As someone else pointed out, it's the exact same mentality that fuels terrorism. Oddly there's less sympathy around for terrorists and their sympathisers.