| This suddenly made me feel old on 08:26 - Nov 12 with 312 views | Churchman |
| This suddenly made me feel old on 21:14 - Nov 11 by Swansea_Blue |
Mine flew on the Lancasters. He was a similar gentle soul, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and never had a bad word to say about anyone. He told everyone he was a navigator, but only after he died about 8 yrs ago and we looked into his records did we find out he was a bomb aimer. He couldn’t live with what he’d had to do so buried it. He had lots of stories, but only of training and mess life with his squadron. He never talked about missions. Not once, and he’d spend hours and hours talking to my dad.
He donated his uniform to kids for their bonfire Guy when he got back after the end of the war. I’ve only got his medals because my gran hid them from him for nearly 70 yrs. It annoys me so much when little sh*ts exploit their sacrifice and suffering to make political points (same with poppy fascists too - anyone who knows someone who served knows the feelings are deeply personal and don’t *have* to be shared publicly). |
Your grandfather was an astonishingly brave man. Bomb aimers had a key role, of course. Basically, they had to recognise the target/which flares (the Germans called them Christmas trees) to bomb on and in real terms had control of the aircraft over the target. The pilot would do as instructed, which usually meant adjustments to straight and level flying. Not exactly a safe part of the sortie.
They also doubled on Lancasters as front air gunner, when not doing their main job. The only exception I know of was the dams raid, where the mid upper turret was deleted and a gunner placed in the front primarily to occupy the flak gunners on the dam.
Bomb aimers often trained as navigators as well. Doubling upon roles was something a lot of crews did for obvious reasons of back up. Their position at the front of the aeroplane was cold, uncomfortable and dangerous with nothing between them and 1000s of feet but a thin layer of plexiglas. His service along with his comrades undoubtably shortened the war, albeit at huge cost. Bomber Command suffered about 50% casualties,
Thinking of gentle souls, I never met a kinder milder man than my parents neighbour. His name was Edward Stanley and it turned out he’d commanded a submarine in the Mediterranean. He wrote a short book on his exploits at the behest of his children. I could never equate that smiling, kind little man with his terrifying exploits in WW2 |  | |  |
| This suddenly made me feel old on 08:43 - Nov 12 with 290 views | Churchman |
| This suddenly made me feel old on 21:43 - Nov 11 by solemio |
Churchill said that the men on the Arctic convoys were 'the bravest of the brave'.
My father-in-law was one of those men. We still have his Arctic Star medal. |
They were astonishingly brave and were disgracefully only recognised with the Arctic Star in 2012.
If you’ve not seen it Jeremy Clarkson’s documentary on PQ17, a convoy stupidly ordered to scatter and largely destroyed, is well worth a watch. It graphically illustrates just how dreadful serving on the Arctic convoys was.
As a postscript, without these convoys Russia might well have been defeated. A large % of Russian kit used to defend Moscow then Stalingrad came via those convoys. It was critical, even if the Russians have deleted that from their history. | | | |
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