Posted on 06/28/2005 12:31:35 PM PDT by scotslad
Wow, Sounds like this Hero got a 65 year bonus life.
That is the type of thing a REAL hero does - quite unlike the foolish trivial everyday items so often touted presently as making "charlie soandso is a true hero".
"Never were so many indebted to so few," as Churchill said.
Anybody else here watch the British produced TV series about the RAF, "Piece of Cake"?
I loved that program but oddly my in-laws, who lived through WWII, didn't like it.
Equally heroic, IMHO. Most of those planes were unarmed. The great French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery died on one such mission.
I saw a documentary about this not long ago on the History Channel. A historian actually closed down the London streets and dug up the plane Sgt. Holmes was flying. They dug right under a busy intersection and found parts of the plane and engine. Sgt. Holmes was there for a ceremony when they found the pieces. It was very interesting.
Rest in Peace, Sgt. Holmes.
Very good show but the book is better. Derek Robinson, I think it was. He also continued the story, telling the tale of the British aerial fighting against the Italians and Germans in WW2.
I had relatives of that vintage who read them and none were lukewarm. Either loved it or hated it. No middle ground...
I wonder why? I couldn't figure it out with my in-laws. Maybe they just didn't like anything they could characterize as "glorifying the military" -- they ARE leftists after all.
But even leftists supposedly wanted to see Hitler defeated ( or did they? Come to think of it, they didn't mind Hitler so much when he was aligned with Stalin...)
From the recent video documentary:
Ray Holmes is reunited with his Hawker Hurricane's control yoke, which he last held in his hands some 64 years ago.
Pretty neat archaeological dig - they used ground-penetrating radar gear to locate the remains of the aircraft (based on pictures which showed the original crash site). Too bad there was so little remaining of that Rolls-Royce Merlin.
So the pilot from 504 Squadron used his Hurricane to slice through the tail of the intruder.
He then parachuted to safety, while his plane crashed into Buckingham Palace Road and the German bomber plunged into part of Victoria station.
Wow!! That's just ******* amazing! God rest this man's soul.
I remember seeing part of it on TV and thought it was pretty good.
Just found the book at Amazon and it's now on its way to me.
Personally, I thought that was why the books worked - it showed normal folk rising to a challenge, making mistakes and overcoming them as they proved themselves. Even the Axis characters were treated fairly too (I hate books like Tom Clancy novels where the characters from the enmy side are almost always caricatures and stereotypes)...
Anyway, I'd better do some work. Cheers!
WOW! Just WOW!
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