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Old 25th June 2022, 20:25   #1
suzublu
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Just watched this, epic 👍 brought a tear to my eye. God bless the brave crews, and not forgetting the poor civilians at the wrong end. Watch it if you can 😎

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Old 26th June 2022, 18:17   #2
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To volunteer for a tour of 30 ops when the losses were around 5% (i.e. you would statistically last 20 flights) was incredible bravery (although I doubt the figures were widely known at the time).

My father was an engine fitter with Bomber Command (and later the Fleet Air Arm), I remember him saying that he soon stopped making friends with air crew as they came and went too quickly.

As an aside, the ground crew also had a pretty poor time, much of the servicing was done out of doors, in all weathers and up a very long ladder (have you seen how high the engines are on a Stirling?) and more ground crew were lost to flu than fighter pilots were lost in the Battle of Britain (have to say I'd rather die of flu than being shot to pieces).

There are many books & films on the subject but for me the stand-out hero has to be Leonard Cheshire VC
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Old 27th June 2022, 07:47   #3
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Originally Posted by suzublu View Post
Just watched this, epic 👍 brought a tear to my eye. God bless the brave crews, and not forgetting the poor civilians at the wrong end. Watch it if you can 😎

Sent from my SM-A326B using Tapatalk

Do you have a Link for this ??
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Old 27th June 2022, 09:00   #4
suzublu
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Do you have a Link for this ??
It's available on Amazon John 👍

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Old 27th June 2022, 09:30   #5
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Originally Posted by SideValve View Post
To volunteer for a tour of 30 ops when the losses were around 5% (i.e. you would statistically last 20 flights) was incredible bravery (although I doubt the figures were widely known at the time).

My father was an engine fitter with Bomber Command (and later the Fleet Air Arm), I remember him saying that he soon stopped making friends with air crew as they came and went too quickly.

As an aside, the ground crew also had a pretty poor time, much of the servicing was done out of doors, in all weathers and up a very long ladder (have you seen how high the engines are on a Stirling?) and more ground crew were lost to flu than fighter pilots were lost in the Battle of Britain (have to say I'd rather die of flu than being shot to pieces).

There are many books & films on the subject but for me the stand-out hero has to be Leonard Cheshire VC
Hear hear. And even for the aircrew who survived, many of them must have been scarred by what they experienced - the sheer misery and fear of being enclosed in a small noisy and cold space, in the dark, for hours on end, trying to find your way around Europe in all weathers knowing that at any moment after crossing the coast you were likely to encounter flak or fighters. I remember reading an account by a tail gunner in a Lancaster whose aircraft was suddenly riddled by cannon fire by an unseen night fighter, which caused significant damage to the aircraft including knocking out the intercom and the power supply to the turrets (meaning that he couldn't escape because it was turned partly to one side). As the bomber pilot threw the aircraft around to shake off the fighter, and the smell of burning from up front reached the tail, he vividly described the abject terror as he sat there unable to help either himself or his colleagues, and only the continuing roar of the four Merlins gave him any hope that they might somehow survive. And through a combination of luck, skill and determination they did escape and return home - but so many others didn't.
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Old 27th June 2022, 12:03   #6
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My father was navigator, air crew on Wellingtons, during the second world war, And luckily for him, he got grounded after being wounded on a mission, and the following night, his entire crew copped it, he recovered , his squadron was re was transferred to Egypt, with replacement crews, served out there then in the med, on Mitchell's finished the war in Italy, he used to say, that afterwards, he never made friends with other air crew, because none of them, knew if they might be the next one to cop it.
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