“Strike Sure, Strike Hard” is one of those wartime mottoes that sounds blunt, confident and entirely uninterested in moral hesitation. Indeed, this is something that the museum does confront, the sheer damage caused by the British bombers. The promise that violence, properly directed, could produce victory and scare the German population into surrender.
I think it’s fair to say that being a member of aircrew during the Second World War was not going to be a quiet back office job. Of those on a tour of 30 operations, over half were killed and a quarter became prisoners of war, with just 16% surviving unhurt.
Although it is now controversial, the bombings of German cities was seen as essential at the time in regaining the upper hand. Arthur Harris (1892-1984), later known as Bomber Harris, became the most famous advocate of that thinking, and Cologne was central to it. The city was the target of the first thousand bomber raid in May 1942, a deliberate and highly symbolic demonstration of overwhelming force. And this was particularly relevant to me as I had spent three days in Cologne a few days before visiting this museum.
The “Strike Sure, Strike Hard” was also the name of this whole exhibition about the Second World War. I thought it was all quite balanced, not focusing entirely on military might and destruction, but also on the more complex and nuanced matters of war in general. But the museum was very sure to mention the bravery of those involved and quite rightly so.