Dambusters Commemoration – Plus 1

There was a couple of excellent programmes on the BBC last night, paying tribute to the Dambusters raid of 617 Squadron seventy years ago. There were two surviving crew members present at the sunset ceremony at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire which was broadcast live.

There was a flypast by two Spitfires (Griffon engined) painted sky blue, in the colours of the photo-recon units that preceded the raids and then delivered the damage reports over the following days. They landed, taxied and parked in front of the gathered guests. Two Tornados from the current 617 Sqdn made a typical, low entrance on reheat, climbed out and slotted into a circuit then landed and parked behind the Spits. The finale was a grand entrance of our last Lancaster, “The City of Lincoln” which, after several graceful fly-by’s, landed and slowly taxied to a halt, inch-perfect and centre stage, shutting down her engines as the band played the Dambusters March. It was timed to absolute perfection and was emotional enough watching on TV, so how the gathered guests felt, stood behind former bomb aimer Sgt `Johnny` Johnson and former Kiwi pilot Sqdn Leader Les Munro (both in their nineties) I can only imagine.

I wanted to let you know something else about this outwardly `very British` ceremony. As the proceedings opened, the RAF Band marched on playing a specially chosen tune for the occasion, “Eagle Squadron”. This was in honour of those American airmen who came here, as volunteers, to fly with the RAF before America joined the war. I reiterate, this was the tune that opened the ceremony.  Furthermore, I wanted to mention that among the Dambusters was American pilot Joe McCarthy who joined 617 Squadron after having just completed a tour of thirty operations and who was included in one of the tribute programmes shown on television later that evening.  As you know I do love my co-incidences – and here’s another. Joe McCarthy’s son,  former US jet pilot and Vietnam Veteran Joe McCarthy jnr,  is married to Shere Fraser, whose father was Flight Sgt John Fraser, RCAF, and a bomb aimer on the raid. Read his remarkable story here.

It was a wonderful little ceremony honouring the remarkable feat of 617 Squadron, honouring the two remarkable 617 survivors present, honouring the airmen who didn’t return that night and of those souls caught up in the terrible aftermath of the raid and, last but not least, honoring the Americans who came to fly with us several years before this raid and were part of what, arguably, still remains the RAF’s finest hour.

I know that not everyone in the current White House administration is much bothered by `Little Britain` these days and some State Department official said a few years ago that `there’s nothing special about Britain`, but those aforementioned little touches in last nights moving ceremony are a small part of the whole that makes up this Nation of mine, are part of what I believe we still stand for and testament that we don’t forget our friends.

This day, 1943

Their finest hour

(h/t to The Dambusters)

English Electric Lightning

An old film, just discovered on YouTube, for those aviation lovers who love to peek into the past. This is a `terribly British` documentary that I found thoroughly enjoyable. Hope some of my Lexican mates do too.

See it here

Just a co-incidence

OK, here’s my co-incidence story from my son’s wedding weekend in London, a few days ago:

It was a lovely civil ceremony followed by drinks in Searcey’s Champagne Bar at St. Pancras Station, which worth a visit just to look at the architecture of the old building.

We had dinner in Otto’s restaurant in the Grays Inn Road and a great time was had by the twenty friends and family gathered. On Saturday we awoke to a bright and sunny morning, albeit a chilly one. Come on spring.

 My mobile phone buzzes and it’s my daughter-in-law of less than 18 hours, asking if we were “up and at `em” as they wanted breakfast – NOW!

 We were up, washed and brushed in no time and waiting in our hotel lobby for them to appear from the direction of their hotel, just around the corner from The British Museum a mere 300 yards away. I decided to check out our hotel breakfast room as an option. As I came back up the stairs to the lobby lounge, I spied a couple who I took to be in their mid-seventies, sitting down with their suitcases.  I noticed that the man had a cap embroidered with a crest and the initials U.S.A.F. As I approached we made eye contact and I said, “Nice cap you’ve got there”. He stood up, ramrod straight, and said, “Why thank you”. We shook hands and struck up a conversation. It transpired that he and his wife had just spent a few weeks `doing the entire UK by coach`. I told him that I was actually a Londoner and that this was quite a rarity in this part of town! He was amused by that. He then told me that he had been here with the USAF in the late fifties at RAF Ruislip (that’s pronounced Ryeslip). I replied, “Ah, a headquarters man”? He told me he was with Intel and that his main task was as a target assessor and plotter and how he had enjoyed his UK posting.

 ”So, where do you live”? sez I. “San Diego” sez he. I chuckled and said, “Oh, I have some internet `pen-pals` who were there only last month, remembering a lost compadre at an informal gathering in Shakespeare’s Bar”.   He knew it and was amazed that this Londoner he’d just met did too. I briefly explained the connection. He told me he had seen the TV news bulletin of the service and missing man fly past over Fort Rosencrans. I shook his hand again and that of his charming English wife (whom he stole from England’s shores during his Cold War posting – `a typical American serviceman’s stunt` I told him!). My son arrived and so I just said, `this is my boy, he’s hungry so we’ve got to go`. I bade them a safe onward journey back to warmer climes. They were a really lovely couple.

 That is my `very low odds` co-incidence story.  Some of you may recall a similar thing happened to me last year, in a Suffolk town I’d never visited before, in the wake of Lex’s passing, . Things like this happen to me a lot and have done so all my life and I have no idea why.

http://hogday-afternoon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/moving-mysteriously-on.html

Need to know

Watching Fox news on satellite this morning. They are outside the hospital housing the detained `innocent until proven guilty` and the reporter noted that two FBI agents left the scene but wouldn’t answer their questions. Its frustrating, when the vast majority of a nation is outraged and has its blood up.

When my tac firearms team were deployed on  counter terrorist operations, we were frequently given scant information on specifics, yet the details of the operation suggested much intel. Our protestations were usually always in vain. Teams have been deployed on  tasks to arrest a suspected IRA `active service unit` (their grandiose name for themselves) where they were given good background information, but then had vital stuff witheld. The answer to this outward lapse became clear as time progressed. The intel information came from so few sources, maybe one or two key informants, that if we looked too good it would become obvious to their masters, resulting in one more  corpse, having been tortured during the final hours that it possessed a soul, dumped on a street corner and one less channel of vital-tit-bits. Ultimately it boiled down to our personal safety being sacrificed for the `greater good` of a flow of information in an otherwise intel-barren environment.  They wanted to `drain the swamp` – we were mere `alligator fighters`. That, my friends, is some quandary.

And one more thing. We took great care with our own security so that on final briefings, all telephone comms would be blocked ie no outgoing calls from the station, cellphones etc. We trusted very, very few people with critical information – even our own police `family`.

Boston…

A colleague and I were among the first on the scene of this bomb attack, way back in 1974. We could not stay beyond the arrival of ambulances, along with police officers from other stations, as we had diplomatic protection responsibilities elsewhere but being among the first police officers through the door, what memories that never left me were of the intense heat generated by the blast, akin to a huge oven, baking hot. The acrid smell of the explosive. The ceiling still falling down around us as we ushered people outside. Men walking round in a total daze, bleeding profusely yet babbling irrationally about needing to get a cab.

The blast wounds that we treated, with clean, freshly laundered crisp cotton table napkins. watching my friend fashion a tourniquet with such a napkin and his truncheon threaded through the loop and tightening the grip until the bleeding from an artery stopped. He never got his truncheon back, we think the hospital kept it as a trophy. This was the third bomb attack we had attended in a matter of a few weeks. It was estimated that the bomb was probably about 3-5lbs of explosive and was thrown into the club like a hand grenade, through a window. 3-5lbs caused one hell of a lot of damage. The IRA did this. They also planted car/truck bombs, containing 200+lbs of `home made` explosive (homex). One such device exploded at The Baltic Exchange building, St Mary Axe, in the City of London. Another in Manchester city centre. The amount of damage they caused was kept secret because it was so vast, but the Manchester bomb is suspected of causing £1 billion of damage. Both areas were demolished and rebuilt and the now famous glass “Gherkin” ( zucchini to you guys) building in London dominates the area.  That’s why you’ll never hear me comment about `funny` pastries and cakes called “IRA Car Bomb”, bandied about on St Patrick’s Day. When you’ve been there, it just isn’t funny.

I still maintain that the Boston bomb was homex. My thoughts and sympathies go out to the dead and injured and to Bostonians. Keep calm. Be smart. Get the bastards.

Sword beaten into ploughshare

Don’t know if any of the more matured Lexican `Cold War Fly Boys` will recognise this place?  They would have only overflown it as they took off from their nearby bases or awaited landing clearance. I took the photograph this afternoon when out for a ride in Suffolk, (UK) on “Conan the Bavarian”  who seems to have sneaked into the frame yet again.

I took it because it was a little example of a part of the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. There is so much bile and anti Thatcher rhetoric in the media in the wake of her death and some loose lefty affiliation is even trying to get the `Ding Dong` song from Wizard of Oz to the top of the so called `music` charts. I tend not to discuss or voice my views on religion or politics and there were things she did that wrankled with me, hell I even got a little tired of her style towards the end of her reign,  but this puerile `Ding-Dong- the-witch-is-dead-song protest` has got my goat, particularly as many of these dancing, pierced through the nose celebrants of her passing weren’t even born when she was in power. Sometimes all I can say is, `freedom of speech my arse` -  people had to fight hard for that privilege, so why don’t you f`ing well respect it and mind your damn manners.

That view in the photograph is of a former USAAF base. Not RAF Bentwaters or Woodbridge, but another legacy of Uncle Sam in this region. But twenty years ago Bentwaters and Woodbridge, a few miles from where I took this picture, would have been loaded with A10′s and probably tactical nuclear bombers and fighter aircraft. Today only the tower remains and is a museum run by volunteers. The land has returned to agriculture and industrial units as has the land where once stood Bentwaters and Woodbridge.That process was in part, and no small part at that, because of the stance and the backbone of Lady Thatcher.

`And that`, as Forrest Gump would say, `is all I have to say about that`.

What was then and what is now

I took this picture a couple of days ago. The east wind had shifted and it no longer felt like the Arctic, so I went out on the bike for a quick clearing of the plugs and dropped in here for a mug of hot chocolate, a few biscuits and to buy a copy of RAF News.

There is an article inside by one of our Tornado crews from the Gulf War in `93.  John Nichol was navigator/weapons system man and his pilot was John Peters. They were on a very low level mission to destroy/disrupt Iraqi airfields and were tramping along, 50 feet above the ground at 600 mph when a SAM slammed into them, followed by several hits from radar guided `triple A`. They managed to bang out in the second or two that their Tornado had left, as a functioning aircraft. They were captured, tortured and paraded on Iraqi TV, images that still burn in my memory.  Nichol has since made a career as an author and broadcaster and I can highly recommend his books which include a fine study of the life as aircrew of Lancaster bombers in WW2, “Tail End Charlies”.

The RAF News article was written by John Nichol after returning to a frontline Tornado squadron for the first time since his own harrowing ordeal. What I read had some relevance to the Friday post I’ve just enjoyed by Old AFsarge, featuring his beloved F.4 Phantom, in that although the shape might be the same, what happens to an aircraft’s avionics can leave even highly trained former crew out of their depth. The following is an extract from the article:

“To say that the aircraft has changed is a massive understatement. It is basically the same shape but that is where it ends” – He was talking about the latest generation Tornado GR4 currently providing air support and surveillance coverage for ISAF and Afghan forces.  Armed with Paveway and Brimstone high-precision weapons, sophisticated surveillance and a high tech suite of defensive aids, the current Tornado variant is an evolution that would test Darwin’s credulity.

“The aircraft is completely beyond my skill set. I wouldn’t know where to start. The weapons, the defences and the surveillance capability are just light years away from what we had. During the first Gulf War if we wanted to work out where the enemy was we looked out of the window to see if we could spot an old T.12 Soviet tank. The images that the GR4′s Raptor pod produce and the other sensors that they have are astonishing”.

And the former RAF man can’t help wondering how his war would have turned out if the Tornado GR1 he flew on that fateful mission had been fitted with some of the defenses the current aircraft packs. “We were doing 600mph about 50 feet above the ground when a heat seeking missile slammed into us. It was like being hit by an express train”.

I’m sure Lexicans who fly and have flown will find this of little consequence, but as a supportive outsider I thought it would be of passing interest and wanted to share. What I found particularly interesting was what John Nichol had to say about the latest generation of aircrew.

“The young men and women who have replaced me in the ranks are a totally different breed. They are so confident, well trained, determined and brave. I am not saying we weren’t, but they are so much better prepared for war than I was. The preparedness of the modern RAF is extraordinary, ready to go anywhere in the world at any time”.

With a shrinking air force, cut to the bone by budget reductions, it’s just as well they are.

The United States navy, circa 1812

There I was sat up in bed this morning, reading my current bedtime read of Patrick O’Brian, when I came upon a passage that I thought I must share with my Lexican pals, for t’was they – well the Navy guys anyway -  it made me think of and smile when I read it:

Picture the time, it is 1812 during the reluctant Britain/America `war that should never have happened` and a British warship under the command of the legendary Captain Jack Aubery (aka “Lucky Jack”) is on the trail of an American warship that has been raiding whalers in the South Atlantic. A sail is spotted on the horizon and crafty Captain Jack reduces sail to remain just below the horizon, plotting a course to intercept the next day.

At first dawn there she lay, placidly holding her course under the low grey sky……. Jack was on deck in his nightshirt……his whole heart and soul had been turned to the chase – he had been engaged in naval war for more than twenty years and he was very much of a sea-predator, perfectly single-minded when there was the near liklihood of violent action – and now in his most natural voice in the world he said, “Good day to you, master gunner. I fear there will be no great chance of expending your stores this morning.”                    The rising sun proved that he was right: It showed a line of figures leaning along the stranger’s rail in easy attitudes, some with moustaches, some smoking cigars. The United States Navy, though easy-going and even at times verging upon the democratic, never went to such extremes as this; and indeed the chase turned out to be the `Estrella Polar`, a Spanish merchantman from Lima  for the River Plate and Spain.

Yes, `easy going verging upon the democratic` is one thing, but leaning along the rail, moustachio’d and smoking cigars?  No, not The United States Navy.

I enjoyed that.

We Few, We happy Few….

I recently posted a comment or two on the last post of OldAFSarge (“Where do we go from here?”) where I made reference to a new acquaintance I made yesterday, Clive Stevens, a local amateur historian with special knowledge of the acclaimed work of the eminent American author, Dr Stephen E Ambrose.

Clive Stevens grew up in Wiltshire, England. As a senior at college, he embarked upon detailed research into the history of the American military who were based in England during World War 2. He started with the American Parachute Infantry Regiments for no better reason than so many people in his community had first hand knowledge of the `friendly occupation` as it was sometimes known. For Clive grew up near the village of Aldbourne, which Lexicans may recall was where the men of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, United Staes Army were based for their advanced tactical training in preparation for the invasion of Normandy on June 6th 1944. Easy Company is now immortalised in the TV mini series, “Band of Brothers”.

I thought it would be interesting to add a little of Clive’s work by posting an extract from a 2004 publication of his entitled `The Gathering of Eagles`

`In June 1991, as a prelude to the publication [of band of Brothers] Dr Ambrose led a trans Atlantic tour made up of three Easy Company veterans and a group of historians from the University of New Orleans; the object of the trip being to trace the path of Easy company from their beginnings in Toccoa, GA, through to their capture of Hitler’s `Eagles Nest` in Berchtesgaden.

Sadly the tour was not scheduled to include Aldbourne, but following a meeting in London between Marlborough amateur historian Neil Stevens [Clive's brother] and the three veterans of Easy Company, a detour was hastily arranged. Therefore, the following day the tour group made a fleeting visit to the village en route from Aldershot to Portsmouth for the cross channel ferry to Normandy. During the brief visit that followed, the group toured the village on foot, visited the last remaining stable block at High Town [a troops billet] and partook in the church fete on the village green. Neil then gave the three VIP veterans, namely Dick Winters, Don Malarkey and Carwood Lipton, a whistlestop tour of their old haunts in a WW2 Willy’s Jeep, before posing for photographs in the jeep in front of the stable block. The date was Saturday June 29th 1991 and for Dick Winters it was his first return to the village since WW2. Upon his return home Dick wrote the following to Neil:

“It was very nice of you, your parents and friends to go to the trouble of making an extra effort to make our visit to Aldbourne a very special and emotional day. I have never seen Aldbourne in such a festive mood. It was wonderful to see all the children having a good time at the puppet show on the village green, the happy faces at the flea market tables and a regular crowd of people in every direction you turned. The jeep ride you gave us to the surrounding hillsides and the view down onto the village, all bringing back good memories. All of these factors are the same reasons why, as we were returning to Aldbourne after the Normandy campaign, we all felt as if we were returning to our home”

By the end of 1991 Ambrose’s book was finished and upon publication in 1992 it sold extensively throughout the world. Despite this international exposure it would be almost 10 years before Stephen Spielberg, captivated by Ambrose’s work, set about creating the most expensive dramatisation ever made for television.`

Of course, what followed Mr Speilberg’s HBO tv series made the aforementioned veterans something approaching Hollywood- style celebrities. It must have been a massive shock after so many years. So, fellow Lexicans and others, I hope you enjoyed this little peep behind, or perhaps that should be ahead of the `Band of Brothers` at a time before the book was published and when comparatively few people had ever heard of them.  It is stories like this that make me passionate about how our history was shaped and the importance of remembrance of those who shaped it.