Gremlins….

Brilliant. Keep it coming guys. Any warbird owners care to divulge secrets of their own little people appearing ?

Gremlins are still alive and active in the Key Publishing’servers

There is an excellent story of how Gremlins attacked a Sunderland on a night flight here at this month’s “Short Bursts” – the magazine of the Ex-Air Gunners Association. It is quite a good true story. It includes some natty pictures of the Filthy Wee Folk too.
http://www.airmuseum.ca/mag/

609’s reaction?

WILLIAM HICKEY

FILTHY WEEFOLK

MY blasphemous criticism of the gremlin cult produced some strong letters for and against.

H.G. McNeill, Chorley, Lancs : “…wars have been lost because of the credulity of superstitious though otherwise able soldiers….”

Mrs Hubert Broad, London, EC2 : “… Quite intelligent people like their pixies – such a pity there are only goblins in Fleet St ! “

F/O J—, Isle of Man : “…your article…singularly narrow – minded and rather ‘wet’…a little mild foolery helps to offset the ugly side of this war…Anyway these Gremlin beasties are very real indeed, they chatter angrily at you from outside the Perspex…they drink up all the petrol when you leave the throttle too wide open…they even rub your name off the authorisation book…Oh yes, they exist alright…”

LA/C H —, Oxon : “All this whimsy and ballyhooing makes me feel an awful fool when quite elderly and sane people discuss them with me…No airman believes in gremlins…[they] are only a bit of nonsense…A ‘daily’ today has given up about three columns of valuable space to gremlins. Not even the British gremlins but the American idea of them…It makes me furious to read such rubbish printed on the back of the Russian victories. Please use your influence to get these gremlins back in the RAF before we become the laughing-stock of the world. The mighty British nation discussing fairies in the middle of a life-&-death struggle…!”

THIS week the BBC Brains Trust is to discuss gremlinism.

I am shocked to hear that the BBC has been “flooded” with letters on the subject.

Let me repeat: I don’t want to seem priggish, but this is the kind of escapist fantasy that could be dangerous (I don’t say it is, yet), that can be used to distract attention from serious issues. Anyway, it is surely sickeningly Barriesquely infantile.

I hope the Brains Trusters tear them up.

Daily Express

Gremlin Command

January 7th, 1942.

Dear Mr. Hickey,

Your two hysterical articles referring to ‘filthy wee folk’ have now received the attention of the A.G.C., who has ordered me to write a few general words to disabuse the public concerning the part we gremlins are playing in the present struggle. Details are, of course, secret.

Gremlin Command was instituted as the Final Testing Department of the R.A.F. Our highly specialised personnel test every aircraft and machine during every moment of flight (and very often on the ground). Any pilot who relaxes, however briefly, receives a warning through the window. If he persists, he receives the Extinguished Flying Cross. Similarly any bolt that might otherwise be good for another 100 hours flight, shows its inherent weakness by coming undone at once. (We do not rub pilot’s names from the authorisation book exdept in cases of extreme smugness.)

So far from being the ‘laughing stock of the world’ (as one of your correspondents suggests), it is obvious that in Gremlin Command Britain has something that the Axis cannot hope to emulate except through the loose and misguided talk that you yourself are encouraging. The Americans, with their usual business acumen, have already invited our representatives to their airfields.

Perhaps you will now appreciate that an organisation of our comprehensiveness can hardly be referred to as ‘wee’. As for being ‘filthy’, do you, Mr. Hickey, always work in a top hat and spats? We do. And after the war we are remustering to newspaper offices. Then try not believing in us!

(Signed) A. Gremlin

Flight Lieutenant

For Air Gremlin Commanding

Didn’t William Shatner see one on his wingtip before he joined Star fleet. 😀
Phil.

There just has to be joke about Klingons there somewhere. Hey, who knows, maybe the Klingons have ’em as well !.

Are there any at Hendon / Duxford ? ……gremlins not Klingons !

Didn’t William Shatner see one on his wingtip before he joined Star fleet. 😀
Phil.

Good to see a thread on Gremlins.
In 1976 I manged to save some from 22OTU Wellesbourne Mountford, the day before the building they were in was demolished. They now reside at Hendon.
Fed and watered twice a week they seem quite happy. Once the photo attachment situation is sorted I will post a photo of them.
The real fascination was the detective work in tracing the artist.

I don’t know who it was in the RAF that discovered Gremlins but it was Roald Dahl who popularised them in his first book which he wrote whilst a pilot in the RAF. Shortly afterwards Walt Disney made a film of the book, and the characters in this Maurice Conly cover for Contact are supposedly based on the film. Has abyobe seen this 1943 film?

According to RNZAF Contact, there are several varieties: This is from my website:

Gremlins – An Air Force expression, now in common usage, to describe the mischievous spirit blamed for any unexplainable mishaps that occur mechanically on an aircraft. Gremlins take the form of a small impish type of character. Also see Fifinellas, Widgets, Flibberty- Gibbets and Woffledigets. A Gremlin is the fully- grown male variety
Fifinella – A female Gremlin
Flibberty-Gibbet – A young Fifinella
Widget – A young Gremlin
Wofflediget – An aged Gremlin that is said to feed upon Widgets

Again before Spielberg Gremlins were made famous in The Twilight Zone when William Shatner saw one on the wing of his passenger plane ripping the engine apart. Remade later with John Lithgow in the role, and lampooned by both later in an episode of Third Rock From the Sun. Also that Twilight Zone episode was spoofed in the Simpsons.

Gremlins are cool.