RE: Another meet up ? See some ‘planes and have a chat / pie / pint etc

Happened to Johnny Wiseman. Valentines day 1943. Killed by (Probably) Egon Mayer.

Ah yes, you’re not yet married – hmm, mustn’t be so unfeeling on Valentines weekend…..

Send her to Oxford street man!

1st and 2nd March? Or should we all send Damien a postcard…..

RE: Addition to an archived thread on aviation poetry.

I’m afraid I din’t Kev. Yet. Details MAY turn up – I get constantly more and more stuff through. Heres something else for you, from a contemporary press cutting:

I WAS with them every day in that great Battle for Britain twelve months ago, those fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force. Saw them going up against overwhelming odds.
I was in a position to watch their progress, see the fight, hear the voice come over the R.T. and hear the grand “Tally Ho”
I had breakfast with them and found empty places at lunch.
Laughed with the boys at lunch and found my companions missing at the tea table. Again, at dinner, there was a vacant chair.
And underneath the chaff and banter my heart was tearing to pieces, for my son was a fighter too.
Then during the early hours of the winter mornings, when the clouds were down to 1,000ft. or perhaps 500ft., we would see some maimed “bird” trying to get home from a perilous trip over the other side.
No One knew what was in my heart as I helped in the “homing.” It might be my boy.
A few months ago word came that the Group Captain had lost his own son. I saw his brave struggle to keep his “chin up” day after day until he was ordered away for a rest – away from the drome and the everlasting reminder. My heart felt for him, and I wrote the lines set out in verse below. They were written in tribute to another mans son. I did not know how prophetic they would be.
“Keep Your Chin Up, Duggie”
RECENTLY my son’s squadron has been stationed much nearer to me and has come within my “vision”. When on duty I knew when they took off on their journeys over the North of France; watched them going over; knew when they met the enemy. Whilst I have carried on I have been saying:
“There goes my son. Keep your chin up, Duggie. God guard and bring you back safely to a happy landing.”
As they have wandered back and landed there was the counting up and the final tally. Then the waiting to know if my boy was safe.
So it has been day after day. And day after day I have been silently holding on to him, willing his safe return.
When he visited me a few weeks ago we were having a drink in the mess, the padre and his son, my son and I. A very cheerful wing – commander came in. I saw the sudden light of hero worship in the eyes of my twenty – two – year – old son when I said, “This is Wing – Commander Bader.”
I knew that that same light was in my eyes whenever I looked at my son, there for all to see.
A few weeks later I had thirty – six hours leave. I wanted my boy to meet me somewhere in the country. So at ten o’ clock at night, when I believed he would have been off duty and returned from a couple of hours with his pals, I tried to get through.
The delay in connecting was irritating, and when eventually I got through the line was bad and I could not understand why various people answered but not my son.
I could usually visualise his grin and the way he would rush to the ‘phone before he yelled “hello Dad.”
It was different this time, frighteningly different.
When at last a voice replied that I thought would be his, I shouted “Duggie! Is that Duggie?”
A voice faintly said “Mr Cropper is missing.”
Those dreadful words….
After a time I asked when it happened.
“Earlier this evening” came the reply.
“These Are His Wings”
I SAW his Squadron Leader and Adjutant. Of that interview in which they were so kind I remember little.
They showed me a copy of the letter they had already posted to me. An official sort of affair: “Pilot Officer Cropper….Missing, believed killed.”
They also told me:-
“It was his third trip over France that day. He had been shot up on the first trip and was, as all pilots are, given the chance of standing down. Douglas would not hear of it. He was a grand pilot and had all the ‘guts’ in the world.”
“These are your sons wings,” said his Squadron Leader.
My son’s wings.
Wings which he carried gloriously. Wings which are sewn inside my tunic and which will go with me until that day when we say again “Hello, Duggie,” and “Hello, Dad.”
And the verses which I wrote for another man are now for myself as well.
I am still praying for those words to come which overjoyed me when I overheard them of Bader. “Safe, but a prisoner.”
Those to whom these boys are beloved, those for whom they brave the great Unknown and lay down their lives, what can we do for them?
Show them that we, too, have “All the guts in the world.” Help them to finish this ghastly thing and to make it certain that there shall be no more wars. So that the boys of twenty – two shall live for the world, not die for it.
God bless, boys. Happy landings.
Bernard D. Cropper, 2nd Lt., R.A.

A Tribute
TO MY WINGED SON
We played together, you and I, my son,
From early morn till day was done.
What boundless love was ours, what joy, what fun;
Together, you and I, my son.

It seems but only yesterday that I
Bought you an aeroplane to fly.
You were eleven. I still see your eyes
So bright as your craft flew the skies.

You did not flinch when called to do or die,
(So proud was I at your reply);
But took your wings to battle in the sky.
I only wish ‘twere you and I.

I too, must fight, and pray to God that we
May be united when ‘tis done.
I also humbly pray that He make me
As great a man as you, my son.

Bernard D. Cropper, 2nd Lt., R.A.

His son was:

60762 Pilot Officer DOUGLAS LINDSAY CROPPER
609 (West Riding) Squadron
Killed in Action, Saturday 16 August 1941
Buried at PIHEN-LES-GUINES COMMUNAL CEMETERY, Pas de Calais, France

I don’t (as yet) appear to have a photo.

(I wonder who the Group Captain was?)