That’ll be because at one point in the film you see the gates of Heaven where huge crowds of the war dead of every nation and branch of service are streaming in.

The flick was photographed by Jack Cardiff, scripted by Emeric Pressburger, directed by Michael Powell, and produced by Alexander Korda…and heaven looks suspiciously like the Royal Festival Hall crossed with St Clement Danes..

I haven’t seen the film, but the the morality of bombing is discussed in the play’s climactic part. I’ve also been told by a friend that works at the National that there were two endings used during previews; the ending chosen depended on the audience’s reaction to the arguments at the trial. They apparently killed off the lead a couple of times, but they may have stopped this for the main run.

Now all I need to do is rent a copy of the original.

Was it this thread that you were thinking of, Gavin? In it I mention Appointment in London (1952), starring Dirk Bogarde, which I’ve still yet to see. It sounds like it’s a fairly accurate portrayal of Bomber Command missions. Though even there the target for the climactic raid is not a city but a secret weapons complex — but it’s not precision bombing either.

And the bombing in Battle of Britain isn’t Harris-style area bombing either. But it’s interesting that in BoB the Luftwaffe are shown mostly bombing military targets in Britain, and it’s the RAF who bomb a city first, provoking the reprisals on London. We don’t actually get to see the British bombers or the impact of the bombs so we don’t know what they’re bombing - it could be military/industrial targets.