Filed under: POWs, Veterans, WWII | Tags: Berlin, Bomber, Closure, France, RAF
Since my wife and I have an abiding love for France, I read a number of blogs about France. Sometimes, it’s just an entry or two in a blog about something else entirely, but mostly, it’s blogs by Americans or Brits who’ve transplanted themselves to France.
Among the blogs I follow is pépère the cat. It’s written by a young English woman with French boyfriend who spent some time living in Paris and also visited Normandy (ding, ding, that’s what brought me to her blog!) It’s mostly slice-of-life things, with some nice photos while she was in France. However, she posted the most interesting thing the other day, about her grandfather, who fought in WWII in the RAF.
On 21 January 1944, during a bombing raid on Berlin, his plane was hit and he was forced to bail out. Not all of the crew did so, and after spending a year in a German prisoner of war camp, not knowing what happened to his friends haunted him. I’d heartily recommend you go read her piece as it is well-written and contains details which we have only sampled here.
You might also check the story of the funeral, with video, on the RAF website or the one from The Daily Mail, which has some outstanding photos. Neither is as well written as his granddaughter’s, but they do help round out the story.
Filed under: Homefront, Veterans, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Japanese Internment, Korean War, RAF, Veterans
This weekend, the Jets and Steelers face off for the AFC championship, while the Packers and Bears have an old-school matchup for the NFC championship. Hopefully, nothing gets in the way of your chicken wings, ribs, burgers, cold beers and NFL watching. As always, I will be checking what Terry and Howie have to say, but first, here’s the most interesting stuff I’ve found this week….
- New Zealand provided pilots to the RAF and one of their daughters posted up photos from her Dad’s service in 127 Squadron. Hopefully, she’ll post some of his journal entries.
- Three veterans in New Jersey shared some stories with the Wyckoff Historical Society. There are several inaccuracies in the article, as it puts Saigon in Korea (it was probably a town that sounded the same instead of the capital of South Viet Nam) and vaguely refers to the Korean War starting “less than 10 years after World War II” instead of 5 years, but provides interesting little tidbits nonetheless. With World War II veterans dimishing in numbers every day, their stories drift away with them. Hopefully, we can record as many as possible, while also putting them in context with slightly more accurate historical knowledge….
- One of the darkest chapters of American history is the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. A blogger writes about their own mother’s inability to talk about her internment and has an interview with one of the women was interned on video. If it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, you must be made of stone….
We're not lost, Sergeant, We're in ... France 