A group representing war veterans says it doesn't want to be accused of trying to rewrite history after the Canadian War Museum agreed to change the wording on a controversial Second World War display.

Following an 18-month fight, air-force vets will now be consulted on revisions to a small display panel -- part of a larger Second World War exhibit about Bomber Command -- which they claim paints them as war criminals.

"We don't want to be accused of changing history," Cliff Chadderton, chairman of the national council of veteran's associations, told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.

"As some historians have said, if we look at the panel as it is right now, it could be considered as one-sided, we want to remove it so that it is telling the whole story."

The panel currently reads:

"The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war."

Accompanying photographs show dead German corpses in rubble-strewn streets.

After refusing to budge, the Canadian War Museum has done an about-face and agreed to rephrase the wording of the display after consulting with the veterans.

Christina Selin, the museum's communications manager, told CTV.ca the wording will be revised in the coming weeks and the final text should be completed by October.

"It will be written by the professional museological staff. Right now we're consulting with veterans' organizations, including the Legion and the Mayday Committee -- one of the initial groups that raised their concerns over the wording," said Selin.

Ongoing debate

Since January 2006, the museum has held meetings with veterans over the issue, but discussions reached an impasse and the museum said earlier this summer that it would stick with its current display.

A Senate subcommittee weighed in on the issue. After holding a series of hearings on the exhibit controversy in the spring, the committee in June urged the museum to find a way to rephrase the 60-word panel and put and end to the "unfortunate public dispute."

Museum officials maintained the display is only a small part of a much larger exhibit on the bombing campaign, and that the exhibit also pays tribute to the 10,000 Canadian airmen who died.

Chadderton said the bombing campaign was all part of the strategy to "bring Germany to her knees," and that the information needs to be balanced out.

"They say they will write it (the new display) but they will certainly consult with the veterans before they do," said Chadderton. "I think that consultation will be very productive and very revealing."

Museum historians and experts, meanwhile, have defended the existing text. Jack Granatstein, respected historian and former head of the war museum, has said museum displays shouldn't be dictated by aggrieved groups or political pressure.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command was formed in 1936. During the Second World War, it conducted devastating air raids on Germany and occupied Europe. The Royal Canadian Air Force made up the RAF's No. 6 Group, representing about one-sixth of Bomber Command's strength.

The bombing campaign lasted almost six years, and led to about two million tonnes of bombs dropped over Europe.

While Germany continued to produce weapons during the offensive, they still had to devote hundreds of thousands of troops to battle the planes. In the final days of the war, Allied bombers focused on cutting off the German fuel system.

The bombing destroyed several German cities. The writer Kurt Vonnegut was a U.S. prisoner of war in Germany who survived the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. His 1969 novel "Slaughterhouse Five" was based in part on that experience.

With a report by CTV parliamentary correspondent Graham Richardson in Ottawa and files from The Canadian Press