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It was to be their last Bomb Group (384th BG, Grafton Underwood, Northants), reunion, as their numbers are dwindling now. It made me quite emotional to think that this was the last time these boys would be coming back to see the soil from which they took off in 1943-44-45.
Whilst milling around looking at the vintage planes at the Duxford Show in Cambridgeshire (UK), I met an elderely couple who were admiring the B-17 bomber (Sally B) from the far side of the rope railings. They had little official badges on them with their names and an 8th Air Force symbol. That was enough for me to feel I could go up to them and start chatting, if they felt comfortable talking to me.
Ted (a retired NYC Police detective) and his wife Margaret were at the rope railings around the aircraft, gazing at the four engined Fortress. Ted, in his base-ball cap and light-weight golfer's jacket looked as though he was in his own world, just gazing that the aircraft. My opening words, "hello sir, my name's Paddy..." seemed to snap him out of his trance & broke the spell that had probably taken him back momentarily 60 years.
I ventured: "Are you familar with this aircraft at all..?" were words that just seemed to slip out of my mouth without my realising.
He answered.."Oh yes. See that cone at the front? well that's where I lived in that very aircraft (type), for 35 missions over Europe. I was a bombardier." We shook hands, and he introduced me to his wife, who sat in her wheelchair beside Ted. Ted told me that there were 40 of them over for this last visit to English soil. Their numbers had dwindled from about 600 members to 60. There weren't enough of them left now to warrant another visit. I could tell there was an underlying sadness to that last remark. "Yes, this is another chapter that's closing with this visit," said Ted.
He showed me his card that said he was a 'friend' of the Sally B organisation that kept the UK's last B-17 flying. He hoped that when he and his colleagues passed onto Cloud Nine, then their families would keep the Bomb Group memory going.
As we talked about those days in 1943-44 (when he did his tour) he told me what an eye-opener it was for a young lad who had never been out of his home town to start going around the states training and then go to another country overseas. A country that had already been at war by then for four dark years, a big difference to an America that was still running pretty well as normal.
He continued: "Our govt. were pretty clever sending us young ones over to fight a war. At that age we never thought we'd be the ones to get killed. If I had been older, I might have thought twice about getting into that aircraft day after day!"
I asked him about good friendships he made during those days flying out of Grafton Underwood.."To tell you the truth Paddy, I didn't get too close to anyone. I suppose it was my way of coping. How could you get close to people, and then find when you got back from Ops that their bed had been changed and their locker emptied as if they had never existed? How many friends do you reckon a human being can put up with losing? No. It wasn't healthy to get too attached to people. On one operation, out of the squadron, our aircraft was the only one to come back...
The govt were very clever the way they got everthing cleared up before we got back to billets."
On asking Ted how he managed to get himself going up on ops time-after-time...
He answered: "You've got to be able to switch your mind. Every opportunity I had I got off the base and into the local village pub. Some folk never left the base, and that wasn't a healthy place to be. I saw fellas that just went to pieces, it got too much for them."
He continued: "I knew that if I went to the pub, then I was away for a while from military life. I knew there was a consistency about the place and the people there. The barmaid would still be there, the old fella playing darts (they used to play me for money! They would lose a few on purpose to make me do it for money, then they played for proper and I lost a lot of money, they were good. Then I bought my own dartboard, practised a lot and when I went to the pub, I started winning some money back!!, he laughs). These people would still be there for me, but boys in the squadron wouldn't always be there again, ever."
Ted mentioned about the Norden bombsight. I mentioned the boast by the USAAF at the time that they could pop a bomb into a pickle jar from 20,000 ft. Ted replied: "That's a fine boast when you are flying in perfect weather conditions, over the blue skies of Texas or California. It's a different story when there is so much flak you cannot see, your plane is all over the place and folk down below are trying to kill you!"
Ted also told me about going into London for R&R and getting off with a pretty young WAAF, who, unbeknown to him, was AWOL. He had his pleasures with her (this was war torn London, and these guys didn't know if they'd be alive the next week) and as they were strolling to the underground, plain clothes police checked their ID's. She was lifted for being AWOL (Absent without leave).
He also mentioned when he went to a FLAK HAPPY FARM (a place for a week's rest for crews) near London. "Even then, they were sort of training us for war, as we drove around in the country with machine guns out the window shooting at things!" he laughs.
Dick, a former B24 co-pilot, comes up and shakes my hand. He tells me he is over for the ride. His squadron doesn't have a place like this for a reunion, as he was based in the jungle, somewhere in the Pacific. I'm looking up at Dick and his tall frame (over 6ft). He laughs and says: "You know, when they sent us out to the Pacific, they didn't tell us half the things we needed to know. When I was going to the toilet, one of the boys warned me to check for snakes! and then what did I see? a black viper sliding past me. Boy! you'd find out pretty quickly who your friends were, especially if that thing had bitten me on the end of my weenie!!"
These guys to me are heroes, one and all. This was by far the highlight to my Duxford visit under those grey English skies.
On Sunday morning of the 11th Sept (how appropriate), I went to the 'wee' 12th Century church at Grafton Underwood to pay my respects to those brave men as the few survivors gathered once again under English skies so silently reflect in prayer.
Whilst milling around looking at the vintage planes at the Duxford Show in Cambridgeshire (UK), I met an elderely couple who were admiring the B-17 bomber (Sally B) from the far side of the rope railings. They had little official badges on them with their names and an 8th Air Force symbol. That was enough for me to feel I could go up to them and start chatting, if they felt comfortable talking to me.
Ted (a retired NYC Police detective) and his wife Margaret were at the rope railings around the aircraft, gazing at the four engined Fortress. Ted, in his base-ball cap and light-weight golfer's jacket looked as though he was in his own world, just gazing that the aircraft. My opening words, "hello sir, my name's Paddy..." seemed to snap him out of his trance & broke the spell that had probably taken him back momentarily 60 years.
I ventured: "Are you familar with this aircraft at all..?" were words that just seemed to slip out of my mouth without my realising.
He answered.."Oh yes. See that cone at the front? well that's where I lived in that very aircraft (type), for 35 missions over Europe. I was a bombardier." We shook hands, and he introduced me to his wife, who sat in her wheelchair beside Ted. Ted told me that there were 40 of them over for this last visit to English soil. Their numbers had dwindled from about 600 members to 60. There weren't enough of them left now to warrant another visit. I could tell there was an underlying sadness to that last remark. "Yes, this is another chapter that's closing with this visit," said Ted.
He showed me his card that said he was a 'friend' of the Sally B organisation that kept the UK's last B-17 flying. He hoped that when he and his colleagues passed onto Cloud Nine, then their families would keep the Bomb Group memory going.
As we talked about those days in 1943-44 (when he did his tour) he told me what an eye-opener it was for a young lad who had never been out of his home town to start going around the states training and then go to another country overseas. A country that had already been at war by then for four dark years, a big difference to an America that was still running pretty well as normal.
He continued: "Our govt. were pretty clever sending us young ones over to fight a war. At that age we never thought we'd be the ones to get killed. If I had been older, I might have thought twice about getting into that aircraft day after day!"
I asked him about good friendships he made during those days flying out of Grafton Underwood.."To tell you the truth Paddy, I didn't get too close to anyone. I suppose it was my way of coping. How could you get close to people, and then find when you got back from Ops that their bed had been changed and their locker emptied as if they had never existed? How many friends do you reckon a human being can put up with losing? No. It wasn't healthy to get too attached to people. On one operation, out of the squadron, our aircraft was the only one to come back...
The govt were very clever the way they got everthing cleared up before we got back to billets."
On asking Ted how he managed to get himself going up on ops time-after-time...
He answered: "You've got to be able to switch your mind. Every opportunity I had I got off the base and into the local village pub. Some folk never left the base, and that wasn't a healthy place to be. I saw fellas that just went to pieces, it got too much for them."
He continued: "I knew that if I went to the pub, then I was away for a while from military life. I knew there was a consistency about the place and the people there. The barmaid would still be there, the old fella playing darts (they used to play me for money! They would lose a few on purpose to make me do it for money, then they played for proper and I lost a lot of money, they were good. Then I bought my own dartboard, practised a lot and when I went to the pub, I started winning some money back!!, he laughs). These people would still be there for me, but boys in the squadron wouldn't always be there again, ever."
Ted mentioned about the Norden bombsight. I mentioned the boast by the USAAF at the time that they could pop a bomb into a pickle jar from 20,000 ft. Ted replied: "That's a fine boast when you are flying in perfect weather conditions, over the blue skies of Texas or California. It's a different story when there is so much flak you cannot see, your plane is all over the place and folk down below are trying to kill you!"
Ted also told me about going into London for R&R and getting off with a pretty young WAAF, who, unbeknown to him, was AWOL. He had his pleasures with her (this was war torn London, and these guys didn't know if they'd be alive the next week) and as they were strolling to the underground, plain clothes police checked their ID's. She was lifted for being AWOL (Absent without leave).
He also mentioned when he went to a FLAK HAPPY FARM (a place for a week's rest for crews) near London. "Even then, they were sort of training us for war, as we drove around in the country with machine guns out the window shooting at things!" he laughs.
Dick, a former B24 co-pilot, comes up and shakes my hand. He tells me he is over for the ride. His squadron doesn't have a place like this for a reunion, as he was based in the jungle, somewhere in the Pacific. I'm looking up at Dick and his tall frame (over 6ft). He laughs and says: "You know, when they sent us out to the Pacific, they didn't tell us half the things we needed to know. When I was going to the toilet, one of the boys warned me to check for snakes! and then what did I see? a black viper sliding past me. Boy! you'd find out pretty quickly who your friends were, especially if that thing had bitten me on the end of my weenie!!"
These guys to me are heroes, one and all. This was by far the highlight to my Duxford visit under those grey English skies.
On Sunday morning of the 11th Sept (how appropriate), I went to the 'wee' 12th Century church at Grafton Underwood to pay my respects to those brave men as the few survivors gathered once again under English skies so silently reflect in prayer.
