Story: 'Not Just Another Flying Story.'

[Falls]

This isn't my story. Some times I wish it was but other times I'm glad it wasn't.

 

It was one told to me over 25 years ago, so I'm really scrapping the bottom of my memory.

 

Regards

 

Not just another flying story.

[Mantaspook]

A very poignant tale, you read stories like this and you try to visualise what the aircrew went through and their bravery, and you realise how inadequate your imagination is. When you really think about it, you think “could I have done that?”

 

A friend of mine once wrote to Leonard Cheshire, ex commander of 617 squadron, asking for his autograph, in his letter he wrote that he had just read Cheshire’s biography and very much doubted that today’s youth would have showed the same self sacrifice and bravery that Cheshire’s generation had demonstrated.

 

He received back not only an autograph but also a long handwritten letter stating that he totally disagreed with my friend’s assessment of the modern generation, pointing out that many of them would do braver things today than have would ever have done.

 

This, from a man that was awarded the Victoria Cross for flying 100 missions, who once spiralled a “borrowed” P51 mustang over a haze covered target so that his comrades in the Lancasters above could aim at his wing flashes, a man who set off to mark a target at the mosquito’s maximum range, knowing that he’d have only 5 minutes fuel left if everything went to plan.

 

I’d recommend anyone to read his Biography (“Cheshire” by Richard Morris) and defy anyone to wonder how someone so modest and unassuming could be so brave, he even admitted he was scared of heights but it was “OK as long as I didn’t look over the side.”

 

As you probably gather, I read a lot of books like this, therefore Fall’s story is very familiar to me, and even though his story is told second hand it is as interesting and well written as many other ‘war stories’ that I have read in the past.

[scotty225]

Thanks for shairing the story Folds. Makes me appreciate a little more how lucky I am and how much I owe all those of my grand parents age.

[MWhateley]

Reminds me of when I was a courier many years ago. There was an oldish chap, kept himself to himself, did not join in with the group or go out on night outs. One day one of the young girls started having a go at him. Telling him he had never lived. She asked him what the most exciting thing he had ever done was.

 

He then recounted a tale about his days in the seconf world war when he had been a tail gunner. He told us about a mission he had been on dropping boms on Berlin. How on the way back they had been attacked by me109's. How cannon fire from the me109 had wrecked his guns so that he could not fire back and put holes in the lancasters wings. He told us how he had not believed he would make it home. U cannot remember all the details. But I do remember how quiet it was while he was telling us his tale and I remember how no one looked at him the same way afterwards. I thought it was a good lesson in how NOT to judge someone based on their looks. You don't know what they might have done, or are capable off.

[pattricia]

Thanks Falls for telling a great story.

[coyleys]

Another great piece of work from Falls and well wrote.

Thankfully most of us have never been a character in these stories, and hopefully never will.

We often moan about the youth of today and sometimes rightly so, but I think there’s some truth in the statement…

 

He received back not only an autograph but also a long handwritten letter stating that he totally disagreed with my friend’s assessment of the modern generation, pointing out that many of them would do braver things today than have would ever have done.

 

If ever a conflict were to occur again (God forbid) then I think we would find a lot of our youth discarding their baseball caps to wear the tin helmet, Remember the Falklands conflict 1982 and the queues of young men waiting to sign up.

 

I remember loads of such tales from my dear old Daddy, but they never seemed to reach a conclusion. He was in the Royal Hallamshires (Polar bears).

He never really spoke of the war, unless I got my timing right, which was usually after he’d had a couple of pints.

Then I would badger him.

 

“Tell us about the war dad, go on, tell us, tell us dad”

 

Then he would start his tale, but after about ten minutes his face would become very solemn and his eyes seemed to glaze as he stared into abyss. I don’t know; but it may have been the fact that he lost his brother John in France and his brother Mick (also a Polar Bear) was captured in Africa, but he survived.

As you may be aware, unofficially, the Geneva Convention did not apply to some regiments, and one such regiment was the Polar Bears. So it may have been a blessing in disguise that when he was captured he was wearing the Jerboa insignia and not the Polar Bear.

Uncle Mick went on to escape across Italy, but that’s another story.

[sauerkraut]

Yes, another really interesting story, Falls, thank you for telling it. There must have been a certain amount of satisfaction for the pilot to find out some of the consequences of what happened that night after such a long interval.

 

I had an uncle who flew in bombers as a tail gunner. The courage of those people is unimaginable.

 

My father-in-law also tells an interesting story of a German plane which was shot down over his little brother's school while all the children were out in the playground. Instead of baling out, which apparently he could have done, the pilot stayed in the plane to steer it away from the school so that it crashed in open ground. So the story goes, the Brits gave the German pilot a hero's funeral.