if you have the chance, watch this. It's worth it, in my opinion.
Essentially a documentary about the Spitfire.
www.imdb.com/title/tt5913184/
And on a related subject;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-xjUqiqVq0&t=535s
In that film you will see a lady called Margot Duhalde. A lady I was privileged to know personally, and who died earlier this year, about a week after I last spoke to her and just before she was to speak at a lunch for me. The daughter of wealthy parents when WWII broke out she told her parents she was going up to Canada to holiday at a flying club belong to the family of a friend of hers.
Instead she travelled across the sea, from Chile to Europe where she was initially arrested as a spy. After week or so she was released and having been informed that the French Free Forces would not allow women to fly she joined the ATA and spent her time delivering unarmed Spitfires and other single engined planes to forward combat posts. When finally the British conceded that female flyers could wear trousers, she then began to also deliver bombers. Both British and American.
After the war she joined the French Air Force as their first female combat fighter pilot. On her return to Chile the Chilean Airline LAN refused to allow a woman to fly for them.
She worked for various businesses and ran her own flying school.
An impressive lady possessed of strong will right to the end. Determined, would be a good word.
Through my work as part of the Royal British Legion, I get to meet some truly impressive older people.
This year is the 100th Anniversary of the end of WWI and of course this year is also the 100th birthday of the RAF.
|
>>if you have the chance, watch this. It's worth it, in my opinion.
>>www.imdb.com/title/tt5913184/
I saw it on its only once off showing in the UK. I too enjoyed it
DVD was released on 10 Sep in the UK.
Now there is Hurricane
The Polish contribution to the squadrons.
www.imdb.com/title/tt7515456/videoplayer/vi1867954201?ref_=tt_ov_vi
|
|
Thanks for that Mark. I've still to watch the stuff you link directly too but the You Tube side bar gave me a fascinating de-bunk of Douglas Bader. One of my childhood heroes but a man with clay feet.....
|
>> the You Tube side bar gave me a fascinating de-bunk of Douglas Bader. One of
>> my childhood heroes but a man with clay feet.....
And an unpleasant man.
|
>> my childhood heroes but a man with clay feet.....
Ho Ho.
|
>> Ho Ho.
Why Ho Ho?
The post war accounts of his life, particularly Paul Brickhill's 'Reach for the Sky' and the film of the same name starring Kenneth More described him in glowing terms. Although he's mentioned in other immediate post war books few do more than contain broad hints about his character.
Until well into the seventies it was almost impossible to challenge the official accounts of the Battle of Britain. Historians who did so like Len Deighton in 'Fighter' were roundly condemned for their audacity in questioning, for example, the number of German aircraft downed in the battle. As late as 1988 the LWT drama 'Piece of Cake' which portrayed an imaginary 'Hornet Squadron' warts and all with the bully Cattermole and the domineering Squadron Leader Rex was panned for suggesting such things might have happened. The historical inaccuracy of the squadron, fighting in France with the BEF, being equipped with Spitfires gave the critics a good hook. Problem was there were not enough airworthy examples of the Hurricane to fill the cast.
Some veterans though did break cover and say their squadron had a Cattermole too.
|
>> >> Ho Ho.
>>
>> Why Ho Ho?
I don't know, but perhaps it's a jocular reference to his feet - of which he didn't have any.
|
>> I don't know, but perhaps it's a jocular reference to his feet - of which
>> he didn't have any.
Ahh, whoosh, in that case. I suspected MM of some form of pedantry.
|
I don't know, but perhaps it's a jocular reference to his feet - of which
>> he didn't have any.
Not the only one. Never heard of the saying 'feet of clay' before.
|
It comes from the Old Testament an is referent to an idol made of gold and brass but with feet of clay which made it vulnerable
I guess you didn’t go to Sunday school.
|
> I guess you didn’t go to Sunday school.
>>
'Fraid not no.
|
>> I guess you didn't go to Sunday school.
I did. I detested it. I think my parents gave up the unequal battle after about 6 weeks, so goodness knows where I learned it from.
It's always struck me as a pretty common phrase though.
|
>> It's always struck me as a pretty common phrase though.
It's not one of the obscure allusions I might have picked up at work. Remember my Mother using it to describe her brother. Nothing malicious about him just that in reality he wasn't anything like as sorted and organised as he looked. Phrase of my father's too.
|
Daniel,
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
|
>>
>> Daniel,
>>
>> 42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of
>> clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
>>
Does it go on to talk about a knob of butter? :-)
|
This one, Bromp?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGxO31bw_SM
Not sure what I think. A man of the time, I guess.
The one comment that I think really important was that he was not the only one and many more did much more.
But in a war, and the aftermath, I guess one needs heroes, even if they are not very nice people.
|
|
It's now generally considered that Bader was a hindrance and the best thing he did was to get captured by the Germans and sit out the final years of the war
|
"generally accepted"? By whom?
And I think it is not that clear cut. Look at the comments made by people who served with him about his impact on morale, both of people serving with him and the civilian population.
The words about his impact on the German pilot's morale. etc. etc.
Too complex for banalities I think.
|
Look at the comments by the pilots in the front line squadrons who complained about his big wing turning up too late.
At the end of the day he spent a large proportion of the war as a POW
|
|
Edit, and I did say considered, not accepted
|
Yes you did, though I'm not sure that the difference is material.
Bader was a mixed bag.
As you know, I spend time with people who fought (flew, marched and sailed) in the Second World War. None of them are easy people. They are strong minded, determined and not overly ready to listen.
Perhaps Bader was an extreme example, but I think that if you weren't that single minded, then you couldn't do what some of these people did.
Most of the veterans I work with are not easy people. However, given what they did, they can be as bloody minded and difficult as they want to be for all it bothers me.
I was 'told off' by a veteran a couple of months ago. I hadn't handled a particular situation as he thought I should have done. As intimidating in his nineties as anybody else I've met. And aware of the people, the world, it's struggles and issues as anybody I know.
I was probably correct in how I handled it, but that didn't stop him putting me right.
Impressive people.
They deserve our respect. Dead, alive, pleasant, unpleasant, easy, difficult. As they say, everyone gave something, some gave everything.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 5 Sep 19 at 10:09
|
His advocacy of the big wing was probably mistaken. In practice it took too long to assemble and was unwieldy in the air, more so if it mixed Hurricanes and Spits or even differing marques of Spitfire. Even if it could have been called up in time from bases in 12Group pilots would have ended up over London with same range anxiety as the 109s. Trafford Leigh-Mallory though bears much of the blame. Not able to judge Bader's character and consumed in his own battle with Park and Dowding he allowed a headstrong junior officer undue weight.
Bader was also curiously blind to the well documented failings of the Browning machine gun compared to cannon. Even when his own squadron was forced to convert he wangled a personal Mark V fitted with Brownings.
OTOH his leadership of the Canadian 242 squadron, badly shot up with the BEF around Dunkerque, seems to have been inspirational as was his post war work with other people who'd lost legs.
|
|
Bit like Churchill, inspirational figurehead, technically flawed
|
That's fair, I think.
Though incomplete. A complex man.
|
|
Agree about Churchill, had many dark bits to his character and made many big mistakes especially post-war with out nuclear sciences, all of which seems to get glossed over by the majority and is seen as the leader who could do no wrong (even now).
|
|
Sounds not unlike Bomber Harris, a marmite character. Loved by some of his crews, some thought him a butcher, some unable to share a room with him in any reunion.
|
Trafford Leigh-Mallory though bears much of the blame. Not able
>> to judge Bader's character and consumed in his own battle with Park and Dowding he
>> allowed a headstrong junior officer undue weight.
I've always been a little sceptical about how much influence he actually had over TLM. Never rang quite true to me, I think a lot of it was overplayed as part the bader myth.
|
Spitfires.... - henry k
