IIRC That station commander was Wing Commander Victor Beamish who was assigned to RAF North Weald on 7th June 1940, I'm certain I read it in and RAF pilot's autobiography a few years ago.
The truth is stranger than fiction: WW2 facts that you would call BS if seen on a movie...
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IIRC That station commander was Wing Commander Victor Beamish who was assigned to RAF North Weald on 7th June 1940, I'm certain I read it in and RAF pilot's autobiography a few years ago.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Yes, I believe it's mentioned in "Gun button to fire", by Tom Neil.
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
I believe I read of the incident in "Eagle Day." That's a really good book, by the way. While it does not give you the grand board picture of the BoB like the book by the two Dereks, or the detailed description of one day such as Dr Price's books, it is just chock full of personal accounts.
That's pretty much it. The Brits had vast experience accumulated during the Great War, but following the loss of the rigid R.38 (built for the US Navy as ZR-2) in 1921 they decided that all british military operations with airships should cease. This wasn't strictly what happened as a few rigids hung around for trials of different things, such as copatibility as aircraft carriers, but non-rigids were scrapped and all that experience vanished.
The US Navy were sensible in their retaining of them, but it had a monopoly on the production of helium following the Helium Act of 1925 and was the only country in the world using it for that purpose at that time. The US also was the only country that had the infrastructure to do so following Britain's decision to not employ them in 1921. Germany had limited facilities that Zeppelin developed at places like Staaken, and, as impressive as their between the wars achievements were with passenger rigids, supporting military operations of patrol vessels required a lot more than an empty field and some ground handlers.
One day, on a sweep near Ostend, 'Wally' Conrad and Shouldice, his No.2, were chasing a 109 down from 25,000 feet. Shouldice, in his eagerness to get a shot in, collided with Conrad. Wally had just announced quite coolly that he would have to bail out, when Danny Brown's voice came on the R/T:
Before he jumped, Wally just had time to say:
Watching from 25,000 feet, to our horror it appeared Wally's parachute did not open but candled. Shouldice, the man to whom I owed my life, reported that his Spitfire was still flyable and that he was going to try and make it back. He was never heard from again.
Several months later we were in the bar at Kenley with Brown and Zary holding forth as usual, when a strangely familiar voice said:
Everybody spun around and looked into the smiling face of Walter Conrad.
Walter's escape could only be described as miraculous. He had landed in the centre of a Belgian two-storey haystack, the only one within a radius of five square miles. He was knocked senseless by the impact, but suffered no broken bones. When darkness fell, members of the underground dug him out. He was housed in the tiny dwelling of the local commander of the underground, a former Belgian Army officer who had lost both his legs. The maquis leader allowed nothing to interfere with his operational objectives. On the night before he dispatched Walter on the train for the Spanish frontier, he insisted that Walter sleep in the only double bed in the house with his wife, an exceptionally beautiful French woman. Walter recounted that he did not rest well.
He traveled on the train with a French-speaking companion and within plain view of the Spanish frontier the train was stopped and all passengers checked by the Gestapo. He had been ordered not to say a word to anyone. The companion producing forged identity papers, stating that Walter was deaf and dumb. He was placed in the hands of a Basque guide who made his living conducting escapees over the Pyrenees. Walter's physical stamina was stretched to the limit by this first-ever mountain climbing expedition. At the point of exhaustion, he plodded on against the howling winds in bitter, penetrating cold. One of the other escapees was unable to go any further. He was left by the guides without a qualm to freeze to death. Across the Spanish frontier, he was captured by the Guardia Civil, who threw him into jail. He experienced some very rough treatment from his captors. Finally, the British High Commissioner negotiated his release, and he was taken back to Gibraltar and flown back to England.
"I bags his typewriter!'
Before he jumped, Wally just had time to say:
"Like hell you do Brown, I'm coming back!'
Watching from 25,000 feet, to our horror it appeared Wally's parachute did not open but candled. Shouldice, the man to whom I owed my life, reported that his Spitfire was still flyable and that he was going to try and make it back. He was never heard from again.
Several months later we were in the bar at Kenley with Brown and Zary holding forth as usual, when a strangely familiar voice said:
"Okay, Brown, give me my typewriter."
Everybody spun around and looked into the smiling face of Walter Conrad.
Walter's escape could only be described as miraculous. He had landed in the centre of a Belgian two-storey haystack, the only one within a radius of five square miles. He was knocked senseless by the impact, but suffered no broken bones. When darkness fell, members of the underground dug him out. He was housed in the tiny dwelling of the local commander of the underground, a former Belgian Army officer who had lost both his legs. The maquis leader allowed nothing to interfere with his operational objectives. On the night before he dispatched Walter on the train for the Spanish frontier, he insisted that Walter sleep in the only double bed in the house with his wife, an exceptionally beautiful French woman. Walter recounted that he did not rest well.
He traveled on the train with a French-speaking companion and within plain view of the Spanish frontier the train was stopped and all passengers checked by the Gestapo. He had been ordered not to say a word to anyone. The companion producing forged identity papers, stating that Walter was deaf and dumb. He was placed in the hands of a Basque guide who made his living conducting escapees over the Pyrenees. Walter's physical stamina was stretched to the limit by this first-ever mountain climbing expedition. At the point of exhaustion, he plodded on against the howling winds in bitter, penetrating cold. One of the other escapees was unable to go any further. He was left by the guides without a qualm to freeze to death. Across the Spanish frontier, he was captured by the Guardia Civil, who threw him into jail. He experienced some very rough treatment from his captors. Finally, the British High Commissioner negotiated his release, and he was taken back to Gibraltar and flown back to England.
Benjdragon
Airman
- 13
- Sep 18, 2015
How about a B-17 that was blown in two. The rear part (with the tail gunner in it) glided down from 20,000+ feet and landed in a field. The tail gunner walked out of it without a scratch.
The Hiroshima man who survived the A-bomb blast only to travel to Nagasaki just in time for its A-bomb debut and managed to survive that also. Only known person to have been A-bombed twice and to have lived to tell the tale.
Or my wife's uncle, captured on Corregidor, after surviving march and camps, luckily escaped being torpedoed by USN subs while transported by unmarked ship to Japan to work in coal mines deemed too dangerous for Japanese miners in hills above Nagasaki. His status changed from a slave condemned by the emperor to be murdered at the first hint of an invasion to someone his former guards bowed to after the atomic bomb set him and his fellow POW slave laborers free.
Admiral Beez
Captain
That the future and serving British PM would have overseen both the disasters of Gallipoli and Singapore.
An auxiliary cruiser sank a faster, more heavily armed warship, whilst being sunk herself... Kormoran versus HMAS Sydney.
A big ocean going submarine was destroyed by a small minesweeper half the submarine's length and less than a third its displacement in a surface engagement... HMNZS Moa versus Japanese submarine I-1
A big ocean going submarine was destroyed by a small minesweeper half the submarine's length and less than a third its displacement in a surface engagement... HMNZS Moa versus Japanese submarine I-1
The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
Not true
The Sydney and Kormoran were equal in armament.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 3,956
- Jun 25, 2013
In one of the USNI's podcasts, an author stated that the RN's reaction to "Winnie's back!" wasn't cheers and glee but "oh, crap."
Admiral Beez
Captain
Yep. Starting in Sept 1939, Churchill's neglecting Malayan defence as First Sea Lord and PM and then sending constituting and sending an unbalanced Force Z against the advice of the Admiralty was demonstrative of his lack of preparation followed by knee jerk reaction. Churchill's worst act though must be the Bengal famine, killing millions and irreparably sending India towards independence.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
When I was 7(?), I read a DC comic with the severed tail section of a B-17, the tail gunner blasting away at the Luftwaffe as it descended, on the cover. Of course I acquired this important documentation of Army Air Force history. I haven't thought about it for decades. I'm very surprised it might have some basis in fact. Or they just thought it up without knowing it sorta kinda happened.
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
The best kind of nonsense is "utter".
Utter nonsense, if "The Bengal famine" did anything it hastened the formation of Bangladesh as a separate nation to India, all discussion of "The Bengal famine" ignores the fact that the Japanese were just a few miles away, that India had the food and Churchill was in England. Many regions of India didn't and don't like each other as we can see today, but you can find some activist who will prove Churchill was responsible for that too.
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Sorry, wrong post, should have been to Admiral Beez.
Any evidence of this anywhere?
There are many such tales (see what I did there). Could be
Erwin KoszyczarekIn
Erwin KoszyczarekIn was the tail gunner on a B-17 bomber. In February of 1945, over Graz, Austria, two B-17 bombers crashed into one another. S/Sgt. Erwin Koszyczarekln was still in the gunnery section of the tail that fell 28,000 feet. He emerged from the tail section wreckage unhurt and was taken prisoner for the duration of the war.
The heroism of Andrew Mynarski VC. whom the Mynarski Lancaster is named after is only known because the rear gunner Pat Brophy who he was trying to save survived in the rear turret when the plane crashed and the bomb load exploded.
WWII Wreckage Riders - Surviving the crash
Andrew Mynarski - Wikipedia
