The Bomber Command Memorial

The memorial will commemorate the 55,573 crew of Bomber Command, with an average age of 22, who were killed in World War II.

The memorial will contain inscriptions, carvings, and a dedication.  There will also be inscriptions from Winston Churchill, who said in a speech to Parliament in 1940: "The gratitude of every home in our island ... and indeed throughout the world except in the abodes of the guilty goes out to the British airmen who undaunted by odds, un-weakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion."

Despite Bomber Command suffering the highest casualty rate of any unit during the Second World War, with fatalities of almost 50 per cent of all those who flew on operations, the nation’s capital still has no memorial to them.  Veterans believe they have been victims of political correctness, after some historians questioned the tactic of area bombing.  But no-one has ever questioned the courage of the young men from all over the Commonwealth who volunteered to serve in Bomber Command flying over occupied territory night after night to grind down the Nazi war machine, and playing a decisive role in the final Allied victory.

The roof of the 8.5m-tall pavilion, made from Portland Stone, will be open to the sky and the open entrance will be made from melted down aluminium sections of a Halifax bomber shot down during the war and in which all seven of the crew were killed.  The centrepiece will be a bronze sculpture of a heavy bomber’s seven crew members looking up at the sky through an opening in the roof.

The site for the memorial is in Piccadilly opposite the RAF Club, near Hyde Park Corner and on the edge of Green Park.