Not a pilot in both wars but worth a mention is Sydney Carlin.He won a MC and lost his leg in the First,before joining the RFC.He claimed 4 German aircraft and 5 balloons before being shot down and made prisoner.In the Second he joined the RAF as an Air Gunner. While with 151 squadron on Defiants, the airfield was attacked by German aircraft.While running to man his turret, Carlin was killed.

42598 George Ernest Goodman, born in Haifa under the British mandate. At the time he would been called a Palestinian, but the meaning of the word has since changed to mean Palestinian-Arab, which he was not. Palestinian-Jew doesn’t mean a great deal either, Israeli seems to have been the easy way out, even if chronologically incorrect.

Many Battle of Britain pilots were born abroad, of British parents, and are themselves British. Goodmans parents were British and George Goodman is now recognised on the new memorial as British.

Looks like the runway is still under construction? When did AW build the runway at Baginton?

The runway opened in the autumn of 1960

Phantom, the P-40 will never get the publicity that the P-51 and the Spitfire attract for obvious reasons,but I agree no way was it a ‘dog’ and it deserves a lot more credit than it gets.To me it looks like the archetypal WW2 fighter, aggressive and purposeful.In the Desert,with a good pilot it was a match for the Me109f at low level.Stephen Grey of the Fighter collection said he was surprised at how good the aircraft was when he bought one.Hope this thead keeps going a while longer.

What must the veterans think when they see cr@p like this,day after day,week in week out.Many of them must have gone to their graves thinking it wasn’t worth it.We are fast getting to the point of no return in this country.

They won’t be around to chat to for that much longer. 🙁

Moggy

Great post Moggy.A couple of years ago I was working in an old chaps house and I noticed a Squadron plaque on the wall.As I always do,I asked if he was in the RAF.Turns out he was a Wireless Op. in Bomber Command and he had not long finished writing up his experiences. He had printed out 3 copies and put them in folders for his family.He let me take one away and the detail was amazing, with pictures and even a copy of the telegram telling his family that he was a POW.When I gave it back I said it should be published but he wasn’t interested in that.A few months ago his name was in the deaths notices of the local paper 🙁

It probably happened, though. A lot of guys lost their nerve, but showed it other ways. In the movie Dark Blue World, one of the pilots, Mrtvy, turns back several times.

In real-life Johnny Houlton, NZ Spitfire pilot and wartime ML407 jockey, got something called ‘the twitch’. Attacking a road convoy one day, he “got the insane urge to rip open the canopy and jump out, in mid-air”. (From “A Perfect Lady”)

I’ve yet to read of this happening to an Allied pilot, but I’ve read several times of Luftwaffe pilots with a P-51 on their tail bailing out before a shot was fired, and who could blame them?

How about a follow up,provisionally called ‘Another slice of cake’ 😀

Seriously, how about a film concentrating on the first Circuses and Sweeps, culminating with the Biggest day of all over Dieppe.Be a good way to get some Fw190s on screen even if they are CGI, and show how the Spit Vs had a hard time with them.