On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:16:19 +0000, Cotty wrote: > On Sunday I went with a reporter to film a bloke who flew in the PR unit > (Photo Recon. unit) in a Spitfire during WWII for a piece about the up > and coming online pics mentioned above. > > He's fairing well for 84 and recounted some great air tales to us over > mugs of tea. Bill, you'll love some of this stuff outside PDML central > with the beer flowing ;-)
When my dad and I went to Normandy back in June we had a similar experience. One of the fellows on the trip (not staff) was a Brit paratrooper who'd made every ETO jump of the war. He must have been a similar age, having joined up at 16 in '40 or '41, IIRC, but he sure didn't seem it. I would've pegged him at late sixties or early seventies. If I get the time and money to go on a MARKET-GARDEN (Arnhem) trip, and he's still able to go, I'll offer him his tour costs in return for telling the stories at "the scene of the crime", so to speak, and getting photos of him there. He was one of the most interesting people I've ever met, but I'm a junkie for WWII weapons/battle type stuff. There were some other veterans on the trip, too. There was a Canadian couple and the fellow was a tail and belly turret gunner in RCAF Liberators (B-24s), from '43 to '45, I think. Very scary stories from him. :-) Another chap was an LCVP (small infantry landing craft) "driver" who landed a bunch of troops that morning. In fact, there's a famous clip of a squad or so of Tommies debarking onto the beach that was shot from his boat. He didn't even know it until after the war (ETO and PTO, demobbed in SW Pacific, train across the US, ship from NYC to Liverpool) when he saw some documentary film. It's tough to describe the scene. It's a shot from the middle of the boat out the ramp to the beach. It's smoky and hazy, of course, and all you can really see is a couple of "tin pan" helmeted infantrymen, a little strip of water, a larger strip of beach, and a wide swath of cloudy sky pierced by the hazy outlines of a couple of buildings just behind the beach. A lot of you have probably seen it even if you don't recognize it from my description. TTYL, DougF KG4LMZ
