Pete TrumanI forgot that at first Flypast only came out every two months, I’ve still got every copy from day one, except one, it was an edition from about 15 years ago featuring the Sandringham on the cover, it must have contained an article about Halifax’s as I gave it to my ex wifes uncle who was a flight engineer on them and is still involved with Elvington. By coincidence this months edition features an article about the B-17 jammers in which he flew quite a few missions.
Now if anyone still has that particular edition that I’m missing……………. and is about to put it in the recycle bag…………..well I would be interested.
Pete TrumanBigverne
I didn’t realise that Mike Rondot’s ‘Guardian Reader’ was still about in it’s Gulf colours, though it looked a bit glossy.
What is to happen to this a/c when the base completely closes.
Incidentally, I used to be a Guardian reader at the time of the first Gulf War, but they kept publishing such pathetic ‘facts’ and ridiculous comments that I thought could upset the families back home. So I wrote them a nasty letter that wasn’t published and haven’t bought a copy since.
Pete TrumanOnly looked in the Radio Times just before it started, thought it was really well filmed and well produced, brought a tear to the eye, some lovely shots of the Jags and their loving pilots, sorry for you chaps not in this region.
I liked the bit when they went out to do air combat with the Typhoons, expecting to lose and I was thinking, yeah, cream them, but they didn’t, pity we didn’t see some of that as they had cameras in the cockpits, bloody classified I suppose.
Thought the drill sargeant was a an evil b###### though.
Pete TrumanThe last time I was at Cafe Gondree in 1994 the original Mdme Gondree, having just googled, I’m not so sure whether it was the daughter, was outside talking to the original Major Howard and Richard Todd, I couldn’t get through the door though as it was so packed inside.
I was amazed that with the 50th anniversary of D-Day coming up at that time, that the French authorities decided to replace the original bridge that year and leave the old one dumped in a pile next to it, cest la vie, I suppose.
Pete TrumanBy the look of some of those invasion stripes ,I’d say that they were applied in the dark! A poignant moment for me as well, as my father was on the beach in the Canadian section; alas he didn’t keep a diary, and what I can remember from 25 years ago is blurring, year on year.
I think you were right, 12 years ago I built a load of Airfix and Revell kits and hung them from my sons ceiling, Daks, B-26’s, fighters et al. After spending hours carefully painting on invasion stripes, I was mortified to look in some D-Day literature and see how slapdash the original results were.
I’ve just been trying to find some of this literature as one book gives a time sequence of events this day 1944, but of course, I can’t find it, only my pocket history that I took to Normandy in 1994.
I presume, that by this time, 18:00 hrs, the Yanks had pretty much secured the beach at Omaha, but hadn’t linked up the other lot at Utah, I know that when my old man landed at Arromanches the next day, their original orders were to go for Bayeux, on the way over things were changed and they were ordered to fight their way over to Omaha to link up with the American left flank.
On landing things were changed again as it was considered that the situation had improved considerably, so off he went to Bayeux where his first night of action in France consisted of guarding the officers brothel there.
During the parade through Bayeux in 1994, my old man put his arm round an old US Ranger vet who had been on Dog beach, the Ranger asked my old man whether he had had a tough time fighting through the streets of Bayeux, when the old boy explained about the brothel, and yes, he could still point out where it had been, all the US vets were just crying with laughing, it was a magic moment.
I know that the Grace Spitfire supposedly shot down the first German a/c over the beaches, FW190? anyone know what time that would have been, and how many German a/c were lost in combat in that area that day, and were any Allied a/c lost to other than ground fire.
I read that ME-109’s attempted to strafe Pegasus bridge but were driven off by a massive incoming force of Tempest and Typhoons, who weren’t particularly interested in that sort of trade anyway.
No, I’m not going to watch Saving Ryans Privates tonight, well, maybe the first bit, just to make me think, Band of Brothers may be more appropriate, it has British people in it as well.
Pete TrumanLovely shots, I’m kicking myself for not being there, just one question, are the ‘invasion’ stripes applied to the Sea Fury typical of FAA aircraft involved in the Korean conflict and did they apply to other a/c, naval or otherwise, involved in the air war, I know that the DX F-86 has stripes, but how many types did, from pictures I have seen, it didn’t appear to be the norm.
Pete TrumanO.k I need to come clean on this , “into guns and knives” was a bit provocative, and whilst I have a few guns , the only knives I have are in the kitchen draw, and I don’t put camo paint on my face to watch reruns of “The World at War” !! Nice story about the Zulu knife; it would be nice to think it was true, but if it wasn’t, its still a Zulu knife, that they didn’t give away (like swapping shirts at the end of a game of footie!!) Incidently whilst talking of political correctness, and Zulus, an American company pruduces .577 cartridges, and like many cartridge manufacturers they put a picture on the box of the intended quarry, i.e pheasant, duck, pigeon, Zulu warrior!! (I kid you not)
Oh dear, are we fighting political correctness over the current fear and loathing over the so called obsession with knife ownership.
Up and till a few years ago I was a local Scout leader, the directive came out from head office that non of the kids were allowed knives, what, how can a Scout function without his Swiss Army penknife, with great difficulty, it proved, so we ignored the ruling, but then these weren’t nasty inner city kids and that should have been considered.
When I was a youth, I would never go anywhere without my WW2 Australian bush knife, it was so usefull for making dens and stuff, we never had any thoughts of it as a weapon.
Interestingly enough, last year my son lived with a Massai tribe for a month and they did do a swap, trainers, tee shirts and jeans for a warriors cloak, beads and sword, mind you, he was made an honourary warrior, Heathrow never battered an eyelid when he brought that through customs, beautiful piece of kit as well.
I understand what you say about owning aviation artifacts that caused a death rather than being just part of the whole sad story, I do have a Spitfire gunsite with a chunk out of the rubber protector, it’s made me think, but I guess it’s more down to age and missuse than anything else, all my other bits and pieces are probably just silent witnesses.
Pete TrumanStrangely enough I didn’t see much over here, I saw the P-51 come over low and fast heading south on Saturday, the best one was the Storch, late yesterday afternoon, he came right over the back garden so low and slow that even the dogs sat and watched him go by, didn’t manage to get the camera out though, which is a b####r considering I spent the whole weekend doing the garden with camera at ready but not at that time.
Am now suffering quite bad sunstroke as a consequence, never happened to me in my life, feeling pretty grim this morning, can’t wait for madam to come home and apply the cream.
Pete TrumanDuring the 60’s ITV used to do live broadcasts from the various BoB shows that nearly every RAF station used to do in those days, though I never actually saw any because I was always at them myself. From what friends told me, they used to flit in and out of the saturday afternoon sports events, like wrestling and snooker. I was actually seen by one of my brothers mates sticking my tongue out at the camera at Cottesmore as Douglas Bader landed and greeted Johnnie Johnstone.
Whether any of this footage was recorded and saved I don’t know, they had a tendency to re-use video tape and so many historic programmes have been lost forever, like most of the Telegoons, however, things have been found in strange places around the world.
It would be amazing if any of this footage has survived, I don’t know for how long or where airshows were filmed at this time, the Cottesmore example is the only one I can remember being covered by TV crews, before that it was just Pathe News at Farnborough every year.
Pete TrumanNice one Stuart, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that you used the Martini Henry on the Pikies, well, not publicly anyway.
You may be interested to know that my great, great, great Uncle George was at Rorkes Drift, and survived. A priceless family artifact that I have is a Zulu knife and sheath that he ‘liberated’ during the battle. The story goes that he was out on recce and while drinking from a stream outside the camp, he saw the reflection of a warrior in the water, sneaking up behind him with raised knife, he then turned round and shot him, possibly with your rifle.
My late uncle used to have his assegai and shield as well, but it all dissapeared.
The sheath has a large brown stain on the cloth which has always been suggested to have been the blood of the warrior, perhaps a DNA test wouldn’t go amiss.
I agree with you about the reluctance to show Nazi images, I think that the lack of swastika on the tail of the German Me 262 makes it unauthentic somehow, the small, modern German flag under the tail wings just looks stupid.
I know that the swastika is banned in Germany, but have any a/c from here flown over there, I’m thinking of the markings on Hans Dittes hybrid Bf 109 from a few years ago after it spent some time in this country.
I was interested to notice somewhere else on this forum, the pictures of the Yaks at the Berlin airshow, all marked up in Soviet fighting colours, Hitler must be turning in his Moscow filing cabinet at the thought of that.
Pete TrumanTexantomcat
I know what you mean about SS stuff, I went up to see my mother a few weeks ago and she insisted that I took back a few of my late fathers momento’s including the SS helmet that he removed from the dead SS commander of forces in Brussells during a snatch raid to get hold of Gestapo files in the city in 1944.
I used to play with this thing when I was a kid, but having brought it home, it gives me the creeps. At the moment it’s in my sons room sitting on top of his telly, when he did a visit from Uni 2 weeks ago, he stared at it and said ‘what the f### is this thing doing here’, good comment from a hip and cool student.
My 12 year old stepson merely relates it to Fawlty Towers and thinks it’s cool, on the other hand, he’s only picked it up once, I think it has bad Kharma, but it is a family heirloom of historical significance, my old man had a tough battle to end up with this, I can’t get rid of it for his sake, anyway, I like to think of the previous owner struggling to comprehend programmes like ‘ Big Brother’ when the TV is on, and the helmet is sitting up there, would you have allowed this sort of thing, SS scum, probably would have loved it, it would have appealed to their sense of devious psychological human torture.
My other object of great fear and loathing is a WW1 Lee Enfield and bayonet. The bayonet, I suspect, has never been used, but the rifle is so battered it’s obviously seen a lot of action.
Some of my friends won’t touch it, I have a particular friend who is in to Psycic Healing and she is quite convinced that it has killed a lot of people and won’t go near it.
I do have a few aircraft bits that I have picked up from fatal crash sites, particularly from the Peak District and across the field from here.
Is the ownership of these artifacts the reason why I have had such terrible bad luck over the past few years, it makes me wonder, who knows, depends on your point of view, I was hoping my old man would sort them out when he went upstairs, he was that sort of bloke.
Pete TrumanMadam did make the tea last night, she thought that R J Mitchell was the chief planning officer for Uttlesford District Council, bless.
Pete TrumanWhich is now known as Nottingham East Midlands Airport, despite the fact it’s in Leicestershire!
Well, Nottm is bigger than Leicester and Derby and has a bigger crime rate too, so my former city deserves all the attention it requires.
Pete TrumanYeah, Mark 12, I am a proud resident of Gotham City!
Were you aware that Gotham City was named by the author of Batman after a village in Nottinghamshire that created several fables about the local inhabitants, ie ‘The 3 Wise Men of Gotham that went to sea in a sieve’ and several other tales. He used the name in order to subtly take the p### out of the local dignitaries, ie the Police chief and mayor, as well as most of the other characters in the story/films, including Batman himself.
In Notts, Gotham is pronounced ‘goatam’ and is the centre of plasterboard production in the UK, the gypsum is/was mined in the village, they used to have a fantastic little steam engine that was shedded next to the navigable River Soar and used to pull the gypsum trains out of the deep mines.
Just to keep this as an aviation thread, the place is now under the flightpath to Castle Donnington, sorry, East Midlands Airport.
Pete TrumanSorry to appear a bit thick, I do know a bit about this story, but what exactly was an He 100, was it the Heinkel equivalent of the Me 108 or just a failed fighter design, I can’t find my 1940’s edition of Janes aircraft that I know has info about this and I’ve forgotten, my memory has gone after a hard day.
Not a bad looking a/c though.
Sign In
