I suppose really I don’t have a favourite aircraft to be honest. When I was younger I would have said Spitfire without hesitation. And if you ask me know for the best looking aircraft I would probably say the Miles Falcon. But the Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster have developed meaning and understanding.
I have been fortunate to meet a number of Veterans and been priveleged enough to be able to share their laughter and, on occasions, their tears. I have even listened to their expressions of guilt and self doubt brought on by revisionism. But the closeness of these five, six, seven or eight men remains a tangible expression of their (and hopefully our) humanity. A pilot staying aboard a doomed aircraft to offer his crew at least the chance of escape. The actions of crew members fighting flames with their hands to retrieve a colleague. The humility of a Navigator who told me he ‘got’ (they never say earned or deserved) his DFC for managing not to get lost too often. I suspect the real story is a little more engaging than that.
It’s the individual stories too. Sometimes I want answers I will never find, such as why a quiet theologian from Scotland fought in the Spanish Civil War, returned to the UK to train as a Doctor and halfway through that training volunteered to be an Air Bomber and met his end in the blazing wreck of a 61 Squadron Lancaster over Denmark. Or how and why a Wellington found it’s way into the Birmingham Balloon Barrage with three managing to escape and three perishing as the aircraft crashed into the canal side. Why a hung up thousand pounder aboard a Halifax wasn’t jettisoned correctly, only leaving the rack on landing and destroying the aircraft and six of the seven crew.
So, for me, perhaps favourite is the wrong word.
regards,
kev35
Sign In
