pacifists/conscienti ous objectors/Jeremy Corbyn

My mother was in the WAAF from 1939 to 1941 when she married. My Granny was a leading light in the Red Cross, Granfather, Home Guard, and younger Uncle,still at school till 1945, was a Postboy.

My Father, a skilled electrical engineer, volunteered, was signed up and waiting for a travel warrant for his posting as an officer in the Royal Marines, when he got an essential war worker designation served on him and spent the rest of the war just outside London on 'secret' work as a civilian. I suppose it is OK now to say that he was developing tiny engines to operate ejector seats in RAF planes. The general public and the 'enemy' were not aware that our aircrew had such things.

His elder brother remained in a reserved occupation in the engineering works where all 3 brothers were working (all same job) at the start of the war.

Youngest brother however, was conscripted as soon as he turned 18 and sent from our coalmining area to Tyneside to replace miners who had joined up (He survived but many of these amateur miners died down the mines.)

Meanwhile a former colleague of mine in the Bank was conscripted and became a gunner in the far east. He informally swopped duties with his unit's Pay Clerk - an innumerate, former miner from South Shields!!!!

The reality during both WWs was that POLICY & PRACTICE were poles apart, the War Office just muddled through and censorship kept the public in the dark.

Not being unkind Wilma, I hope soon realises this .

Merlotgran, women wouldn't work in the steelworks at that time.

Possibly Ana

Ah I was thinking steel because of the Rosie the Riveter poster but I see, Wiki, it's an American recruitment poster.
Not unkind just very nosy.

mcem I had no idea women were conscripted. I just thought all the women who moved to the jobs that needed to be done, did so to do their bit and earn good money.

As I understand it, everyone during WW2 had to do something to help the war effort, I was very interested to read about about your father's part in the development of ejector seats Granny23, I suppose for obvious reasons!

Wilma I believe it was quite common for young unmarried women to be conscripted into essential war work - think Landgirls.
Why they moved Mgt all that way I don't understand when she could have moved a short distance to rural Aberdeenshire to work on a farm. However it was a huge adventure for a shy young woman who until then had never left Scotland.

It's the conscription bit I hadn't realised about, I just thought everybody was doing their bit to help the war effort.

I googled this and found that it applied to single women between 20 and 30 which she was. My mum was married in 1941 but volunteered for admin work in NAAFI and to go wherever she was needed. She worked in Edinburgh and Inverness while dad was away.

When in1947 mum announced she was expecting (me) granny said she thought they weren't going to bother having kids. Mum pointed out that she thought it was a good idea to put off having a family until Dad returned home!

A family friend was a conscientious objector and worked first as a fireman then as a medical aid where he was in every bit as much danger as my my father in the army.
He did not come in for criticism.

I suspect as long as the person was also in harm's way or doing a horrible job, they would not have been stigmatised as a coward. From what I've read being a pacifist and/or a conscientious objector was not an easy road to take.

But even if the family were in some sort of reserved occupation the war must have made their lives different. My grandad was a factory worker but also a firewatcher, my gran managed a shop but was warden in the communal air raid shelter (for which she received a special disinfectant allowance!). My mum was a bus conductor until she married, one of her sisters was a land girl, the other one (much younger) was evacuated. Even farmers found their lives changed as children and young women arrived from the towns. Wherever soon's family where and whatever they were doing the war must have changed their lives.

Anniebach, I thought we were talking about men in reserved occupations.

No Merlotgran, soon said her parents and grandparents , no one has two fathers , well not then

Going right back to the op.

As far as I can tell now, cos are a bit different to pacifists aka what rosesarered posted right at the beginning. cos will do self defence in some circumstances.

pacifists and Jeremy Corbyn, as regarding his statement re police not shooting terrorists that are right in front of them. will not.
They are neither going to defend anyone, including themselves and family members nor anyone on earth.
That then comes down to the phrase that someone posts, all it takes is for good men to do nothing, or something like that.

Jeremy Corbyn said he was not happy about a shoot to kill policy, not don't shoot at all.

That's about it Soontb it's what it boils down to.

I read something yesterday that explained JC's pacifism thus: he doesn't think "The West" is worth defending.

I read the title of this thread as about J Clarkson and wondered what the hell he had to do with pacifism! <leaves thread hastily>

Thinking of Jean Charles De Menezes and the number of other people shot dead in the last ten years, think about thirty, I too have concerns about shoot to kill . Depends on the situation at the time

I think about Jean Charles De Menezes frequently. So sad.

I partly think about him also because of a side issue.
My kids were in their early teens at the time. It came out that someone said to someone "we think it is the man" or words to that effect [ie the terrorist], but the person hearing it heard it as "it is the man", and therefore he was shot dead.
Ever since then, I drummed it into my kids to try and get their words accurate. Because in this sad case, it literally meant the difference between life and death.

* I too have concerns about shoot to kill . Depends on the situation at the time&

But in a lot of cases, there wont be time will there, to have big long talks about individual circumstances.

That first bit should have been highlighted as a quote from Ab. Not my words!

Sadly, that poor man looked like the description they had of the terrorist, and because he was staying in Britain after his visa had expired he saw the police and made a run for it. It was a combination of things that led to his death.

If you read the full case of DeMenez, the lack of passing of information by special branch, police being given wrong directions or directions which were not passed down the line plus the witness statements from people on the tube it is obvious it was a total failure by the police and special branch. One cannot run far on a tube . An innocent man was shot and killed , that's it.

The biggest one of those being the fact that he was shot- and this was without a "shoot to kill" policy.
I too would be uncomfortable with an all encompassing "shoot to kill" policy that doesn't mean I don't think force should ever be used, or that it is wrong to defend someone or something, just that the response should be proportionate.
If we have to put it in the terms of the post if I am to defend someone I need to make damn sure the person I am targeting is the person they need protecting from and not some innocent passer-by.

As roses said he was here illegally and would not have run otherwise. I am not saying that it was right that he was killed, far from it. I am just saying that he was not just an ordinary, innocent with nothing to hide he was obviously afraid that they were looking for him for being here illegally.