Honest History’s criticism of a Children’s Book Council award to the book Audacity was reported on the ABC today. Honest History secretary and editor, David Stephens, described the book as sanitised, distorted and bizarre war history. He gave the example of Flight Lieutenant Peter Isaacson, who was a Bomber Command pilot during World War II flying dangerous missions over Germany.
“Apparently the pilots used to play a game to see who could get closest to the target on the ground and take a photograph,” Dr Stephens said.
“And the exercise in the book asks how do you think they would have felt doing this? And what does it say about their attitude to war?”
“But what it doesn’t say in the book is that the bombing which they were taking photographs of, in this devil-may-care attitude, led to the deaths one night of 42,000 people.”
The article includes a response from the Australian War Memorial (release in full). The Honest History media release has more evidence about the book and the decision-making by the Children’s Book Council.
24 August 2015