'Ginger' Lacey honoured.

[Airframes]

Last Sunday, 23rd July, the wartime RAF 'ace' James 'Ginger' Lacey was honoured in Wetherby, the town of his birth, and where he lived for many years, when a 'blue plaque' was unveiled on the site where his parent's house had once stood.
As a Sergeant Pilot in the RAF in France and the Battle of Britain, 'Ginger' Lacey rose to fame as the second highest scoring pilot, and later served in the Far East, rising to the rank of Squadron Leader.
My elder brother lives in Wetherby, and knew Ginger fairly well, as he was, at one time, President of the local Aviation Society, and was also an instructor at the local airfield at Bridlington, where he lived in his later years. I also had the pleasure of sharing a few beers with him on a couple of occasions.
My brother sent me the pic below, taken at the unveiling ceremony, when the BBMF Lancaster did a couple of fly pasts (the Hurricane and Spitfire where stuck at Newcastle Airport). The site of 'Ginger's' parent's house used to be next to a Vauxhall car dealership, but the block has now been re-developed, and the plaque is now on the wall of the new Aldi supermarket built on the site.
I wonder what 'ginger' would have thought about 'his' plaque being on the wall of a German company !

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[Gnomey]

 

[stona]

the block has now been re-developed, and the plaque is now on the wall of the new Aldi supermarket built on the site.
I wonder what 'ginger' would have thought about 'his' plaque being on the wall of a German company !

From a a BBC report

"Dad would have enjoyed the irony," said his daughter Min Lacey.

I hope that he would have, times change.

Cheers

Steve

 

[vikingBerserker]

 

[Crimea_River]

Good info and thanks for posting Terry.

 

[mikewint]

Indeed they do...Mortal Enemies become best Buds! My Uncle Jim was in the Navy and survived...barely...several kamikaze attacks he hated anything Japanese til the day he died. His brother Andy was killed on Iwo Jima and another Uncle, Bud on Okinawa.

 

[Robert Porter]

War has both a cost and a price, often many of them, I am thankful for his service and sad that it was necessary.

 

[MiTasol]

Indeed they do...Mortal Enemies become best Buds! My Uncle Jim was in the Navy and survived...barely...several kamikaze attacks he hated anything Japanese til the day he died. His brother Andy was killed on Iwo Jima and another Uncle, Bud on Okinawa.

My dad also disliked the Japanese right to the end even though he said he knew it was from the "conditioning" they got during training.

This despite the fact he was in hospital with malaria at Guadalcanal during the Japanese attack.

He often talked about that attack (though seldom spoke of the rest of the war) and said that during the worst of it the Japanese overran the hospital but, apart from cutting holes in the tops of the tents and checking that there were no armed persons inside, just walked away.

We thought he must have been hallucinating from the malaria until National Geographic did a doco on the battle using Japanese film footage taken during the attack. That included footage of the Japanese soldiers slashing the tent tops, looking inside then walking away.

 

[Robert Porter]

I had a step grandfather that served as a Marine pilot from 1943 to 1945 in the Pacific. He operated off a carrier for part and was land based for part. He despised the Japanese until he died and was not shy about talking about it. Said they were animals in the field and made sport of killing everything from children to old folks civilian and military. He witnessed some of the aftermath first hand and in his view he thought the Japanese as a people were the most racist of all. According to him their excuse was that they were the only real people the rest of us were barbarians. Therefor not worthy of human treatment.

While I do not share his beliefs or hatred, and have met many Japanese people that were admirable, I have to say there is still a cultural bias. When I served in Japan I met a guy my age who with no hesitation explained the Japanese concept of gaijin which literally means outside person. But as he patiently explained while I was a nice guy I was not Japanese so therefor I could not fully understand the concept as he could. He said it was an accident of birth that I was a barbarian and not my fault. He honestly believed that only the Japanese people were truly civilized. He truly meant no offense and would be horrified if he felt he had caused offense. It just was.