VJ day anniversary.

It's the anniversary of the end of the war with Japan and i'm watching an extremely moving tv programme. It's called 'VJ Day 75. The Nation Remembers'. It's full of people giving testimonies about their experiences in that horrific war. Most poignant were the testimonies which recalled the disgusting cruelty of the Japanese. There was a bugler playing the last post and a Gurkha ( wonderful soldiers ) Played a tune on the bagpipes. Now 'Prince' Charles is addressing the audience. Altogether a wonderful tribute. The only thing missing was a replica of the bomb that mercifully ended the conflict, but i suppose we can't have it all.

Oh my god! Right at the end they have tv 'historian' Dan Snow commenting. He's the one who boasted that he told his daughter that female pilots actually fought in the Battle of Britain. I'm waiting for him to say that all of those beaten and starved by the Japs in prison camps were actually female soldiers. The guy's a joke!

Hi again, yes I have been watching some of the VJ anniversary events.

Personally, I would not pick out any particular memories as being more poignant than any other. But let us not argue.

I sought information on Mr Dan Snow and his exchange with his daughter. I found that the entire exchange can be seen in a far more nuanced light than in the way in which you present it....

Dan Snow and Daughter

So I think you will be waiting a rather long time to hear Mr Snow saying any such thing about those Japanese prison camps.


Edit:- I do find that the female of our species dud in fact fly spitfires during the war, but not in combat.


Further Edit:- as some might find the article denied them, here is a cut and pasted version:-



Children at an aviation museum in Scotland. ‘My daughter’s going to learn that I lied to her, so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’

When is the right moment to reveal the full horror of the patriarchy to your daughters? According to BBC historian Dan Snow, you don’t. The “grim realities” of gender relations won’t encourage them to follow their dreams, he reasons, and so he fibs. This week, on an episode of the Parent Hood podcast, he said that during a visit to an aviation museum his six-year-old daughter pointed out that all of the photos of Spitfire pilots were of men. Snow told her that women also flew Spitfires in combat in the second world war, which is untrue.



“Having to then explain to her why all the pictures of women are of them in ball gowns or in formal dress looking quite wooden and all the pictures of men are of them rampaging around having a great time, being heroic and climbing mountains, shooting things, being soldiers. That is something I struggle with,” he said. “Now at some stage she’s going to learn that I lied to her and she’s going to find out that women weren’t allowed to do active frontline service so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

This has naturally enraged some, who are already spinning it as disrespect to the war dead and snowflakey leftie liberalism, not to mention saying that Snow is a rubbish historian – which he might be, were he employed to teach history to his children, which as far as we know he is not. What struck me was how challenging it must be to bring up daughters in a world where the odds are stacked against them, without completely terrifying them by lifting up the filthy, unequal carpet in one brutal flourish to reveal the Hieronymus Bosch clutter.

There is something heartbreaking about Snow’s lie. This is an intelligent, educated man, with a better understanding and knowledge of human history than most of us, and he has had a good look around patriarchy, decided it’s a monumental pile of flaming rubbish, and tweaked the truth in order not to crush his child’s ambition. Which seems to me to be an act motivated by kindness and empathy, not an indication of bad parenting.


Perhaps I am wrong, and we should always tell children the truth. But I have never met anyone who does this. There is always some protection from the world offered to us by our parents – the news is switched off, the terrorist attack is explained gently, and with comforting caveats. A therapist told me once that one of the things children desperately need from a parent is for them to keep their child’s anxiety within limits. Not to suppress it – that wouldn’t be healthy – but to be there, when, for instance, the night terrors have struck, to tell them everything will be OK. If you grow up without hearing those words, without feeling that there is someone who can protect you (even if the truth is that they can only protect you so much), problems can arise.

Snow’s daughter is growing up in different world than that in which any aspiring female Spitfire pilots did. It is a world in which books such as Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls attempt to address the gender imbalance in the histories we tell, highlighting brilliant and courageous women from across the world to inspire new generations. So perhaps she doesn’t need the Spitfire lie.

It is not as though Snow is keeping his girls fully cushioned from patriarchy, anyway: they are not being raised in a wilderness, and society will have already ingrained itself in myriad ways, in the “aren’t you pretty?” versus “isn’t he clever?”, in the toys, in the shoes they wear, in the books they read, in the men in suits they see on television. It’s fairly harmless, all in all. Plus, she’ll find out soon enough.

• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

Why am i not surprised that you disagree. As far as i'm concerned he can lie to his daughters in private if he wants to but i strongly disagree with him proudly broadcasting it to gain brownie points from the rabid 'feminists!' Someone told me at the time that he's doing something called virtue signalling!

Hi, I spoke of a more nuanced version of events than your own. I'll stick with that.

I do disagree with your assessment of Dan Snow as "a joke". He is a fine historian.

(Is it not possible for you to make one post without resort to such remarks as "rabid feminists" and such like? No, probably not....... )

You and your nuances! What are you like. And you disagree with me because you think a recognized historian should advertize that he has passed on false history to a little girl? If i was head of the tv channel that hired him to front history programmes then i would sack him on the spot for tainting the discipline of history. The guy is a liabillity. I wont trust anything he says now. Even if he said that Hitler had a dodgy moustache i wouldn't believe him! ... And what's wrong with 'rabid feminists!' I say what i see. At least i will do until you lefties completely stop free speech, round up us dissenters and shoot us in the head over an open trench. Get your teeth round that lot!

I remember another discussion held a while ago when Donald Trump first became President. Someone said that they admired him because he "told it like it was". I said, rather, he "told it as he saw it" which is obviously another thing entirely.

I think knowing the difference, or at least being aware of the difference is the catalyst of personal transformation.

Bringing in Dogen, "we are what we understand."

Hee-Jin Kim on Dogen:-

"The vision of ‘things as they are’ is never of a fixed reality/truth; the power for self-subversion and self-renewal is inherent in the vision itself. Thus ‘things’ seen as they are are transformable. Every practitioner’s task is to change them by seeing through them."



Maybe a bit heavy but there you go......free speech and all.....

From Trump to a clutch of pretentious philosophers ( i assume ). I think all of those philosophers could have done with getting off of their lazy fat a**es and doing a decent days physical labour! Waste of space the lot of them!

The reality is far more nuanced ......


Having read the biographies of various philosophers, many were rather active.

Err, sorry, but is this an episode of Sesame Street ... 'Today Sesame street comes to you courtesy of the word 'nuanced!' ... Tsk!

You see, "now here's the thing" as the Dectective Monk would say.....


You state in a definitive manner that all philosophers should be "getting off of their lazy fat a**es and doing a decent days physical labour! Waste of space the lot of them!"

You are then advised that many of them were in fact active and in fact got up off of their a**es - fat or not - rather often.

But do you respond by acknowledging you were wrong? No. You just plough on.....and on.....and on...

I agree, those fat lazy ba**ards need a day of ploughing!

Women's Air Auxiliary - Female Spitfire Pilots WW2


The Women's Air Auxiliary existed primarily to deliver newly built aircraft from the factory to the front line airfield from which they would carry out operations.

Overall there were 166 female pilots from Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, USA, Holland, Poland, Argentina and Chile. Isn't it amazing what can be achieved when people of different nationalities work together, eh..?

I doubt very much that that there were any calls to send these migrant workers back to where they came from.

These women took incredible risks. They flew combat aircraft, decked out in combat colours and markings, ready to go into battle, but without any ammunition loaded. They were completely defenceless if attacked.

15 of these women lost their lives in this way. The enemy were known to attack aircraft on sight and probably didn't know (or care) that the aircraft were being flown by women. The most notable casualty was flying pioneer Amy Johnson

The Air Transport Auxiliary was formed from pilots of both genders, and included disabled pilots who had applied to join the regular services but were denied due to their condition. These included those with only one arm or one leg and even one eye.

As the war progressed, women flew all kinds of aircraft including the four- engined heavy bombers.

When American aviatrix Jackie Cochrane returned to USA, she persuaded the Pentagon to form the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)

Famously, this was the first time in British history that women were paid the same as their male counterparts. Feminists know this.


As much as Offbeat would like to deny it, women gave good service to their country in both world wars. Without women working in the munitions factories, doing work that they'd been told before they weren't strong enough to do, there would have been no bullets or shells for the guns at the front.

It was this war work that contributed directly to women being given the vote after the First World War ended.

Perhaps Dan Snow knows a bit more than Offbeat thinks he does.

i have no reason to doubt what you said is true. And i am full of admiration and pride for all of the women, from whatever country that ferried planes for the UK. I know women delivered planes to operational ( all male ) squadrons. But telling little girls that women flew combat missions in the battle of Britain is a lie.