I read the book when I was a youngster - it amazed me the bravery of these men flying through flak determined to hit the target.
They were real heroes.
We owe them enormous gratitude for our freedoms today.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”
got a DFM ( medal) lower than a cross
and then latterly MBE
saw a Burma Vet with a military MBE - and I said - "god you have to kill a helluva lot of them to get one of those"
and the gnarled old vet said: yes you do
One of my father's best friends, Jimmy Price, whom I knew very well was one of them. Dad was in the RAF but not one of that gang.
Jimmy, the story went, spent the day of his 21st birthday bombing the Eder Dam.
I once had the honour of working with a man who had been in the RAF and had been a DFC. Another hero and such a modest man I only found out he had been awarded it by accident.
Most of those pilots it seems, were superstitious & carried with then a strange array of good luck objects & paraphernalia. Jimmy, whom I mention above, flew with a pair of his girlfriend's (later to be his wife) nickers round his neck as a sort of cravat !
Well, it seemed to have worked & he survived the war.
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