Dear Editor, I wonder how many of the thousands of good people who applauded Harry Patch on his way to his final resting place, can be sincere? Sincerity means that when the next war is thrust upon us they will turn their country down and refuse to fight. That demands tremendous courage.

You have to live war with your body to understand what it really is about. Language cannot tell you.

What I admired so very much was Harry Patch’s quiet, controlled, anger. He was so right.

“War is organised murder,” he said, sanctioned and sought by the nation.

“Why should I kill someone I have never seen, never met and never known?” he added.

Precisely. In my closing years the older I get, the more troubled I become about what I did in the last world war – like a lot of ex bomber crews.

I cite an example. We had been briefed to attack a town in the Ruhr area. Two hours later we were summoned back to the briefing room.

“Gentlemen,” announced a smiling intelligence officer. “Secret sources inform us that survivors from the town you attacked last night are fleeing into their neighbouring town.

“So we have changed your target to that neighbouring town.” I laughed with my peers. I laugh no longer!

God knows how many thousands of innocent women and children we burnt to death in our criminal carpet bombing and firestorms in a matter of minutes.

I don’t know how many women and children my bombs killed. What I do know is that not a single bomb solved a single problem.

Like Harry Patch I ask “why was I ordered to slaughter innocent people?”

If only I had Harry Patch’s courage to speak out publically.

Harold Nash, Wythall, Birmingham.