The Civilian Cost

Heroes Remember

The Civilian Cost

Transcript

You were too preoccupied really with completing your bombing duties to dwell too much on what happened elsewhere. We knew that those factories were in the center of a city and damage to the civilians was severe, not only that but generally employed slave labor from countries that they had invaded and taken population from those countries as laborers and their barracks, they purposely put their barracks around those factories so we knew there were casualties, civilian casualties they couldn't help that but that was... part of the war is you try and destroy the target. It was difficult but there again, we knew that we had to continue because, if not, the consequences of not winning the war was too horrible to even contemplate.

Description

Mr. Kondra acknowledges that civilians were the victims of 'collateral damage' on many bombing runs, often because Germany housed its slave labor adjacent to its factories.

William Kondra

On January 14, 1922, William Kondra was born in Prudhomme, Saskatchewan. He finished Grade 8 at his local school, and, with difficulty, finished high school through correspondence. He was working on local farms for a pittance, so he decided to enlist in the Air Force, where he trained as a bomb aimer/front gunner. Mr. Kondra's tour of duty was completed with his original crew members aboard a Lancaster Bomber, and primarily consisted of air strikes on industrial Germany. Mr. Kondra offers many insights into the technology, strategy and stresses of flying in a bomber.

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