I stood up from my desk at 11:45am and announced to a room full of people with their bored heads in their boring work that I was heading out into the brilliant sunshine to wave goodbye to an old warrior and watch a Mk IX Spitfire fly over the city in tribute to both Sqn Ldr John Pattison, who died yesterday, and "our" Spitfire squadron of WWII, 485 Sqn.
A couple of heads went up at the mention of the word "Spitfire", however the pall of apathy and disbelief took me aback.
I remember when the WWI vets started hitting that decade in age between 80 and 90, where the misadventures of a life well lived tend to catch up with otherwise healthy men. Discussing war with men of this generation was strictly forbidden. Talking about first wives killed by an influenza epidemic that resonates so strongly through history that the world's medical professionals jump at any hint of an influenza mutation, prepared to treat 100s of millions and bury 10s of millions is also not just forbidden it was usually silenced with a good clip around the ear.
The WWII vets have hit the same wall, a wall that for all its wispy substance exists for everyone. We look back at them and wonder at the things these men were forced to do and some women chose to do and think of those people as somehow bigger than us, more special, their shadow diminishing all who stand in it, but I can tell you that not one of those men I have been privileged to speak with would go through that again, would chose to throw themselves into that particular crucible so willingly.
They were changed and few would say it was for the better. My Grandfather was a Commando, a little man, not 5'5" in height, but tough as old boots, and he was happiest in NZ, living in Tauranga, wrestling with the local council about the things that get OAPs excited, and trying to force an equitable arrangement from the NZ Government in regard to making them pay the UK 's Military pension directly to those who were due it rather than simply keeping it to offset the cost of relocating so many of the UK's servicemen to NZ nearly 50 years ago. They paid tax in NZ until they retired, and the service pensions were earned putting their lives on the line, not working for the Gas company in NZ.
My wife's favourite Great Uncle died recently. He was someone I could call a mate. He was a laugh, and he was what we called a "Conchy" in WWII, a conscientious objector who worked as a Medic at a prison camp for Japanese PoWs at a place called Featherston, not far from Wellington where I live now. He was there when the Japanese prisoners rioted after a guard panicked and shot and killed a PoW. He ran into the ensuing gunfire and pulled Japanese PoWs out of the line of fire and treated them while under fire from his own colleagues. It took me 12 years to get that paragraph out of him.
So I watched this Spitfire Mk IX, this indescribably beautiful war machine inscribe its graceful imprint on my skies, more than 60 years after it ceased to operate in its prime role. I thought about 485 Sqn trying to deliver ordinance on V-Weapon sites prior to D-Day and how horribly inappropriate it is think so one dimensionally about these people who were doing what they were taught was right, without question, principle before personal safety. 485 Sqn participated in operations in Northern Europe like D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and lost 11 Spitfires on the ground during Bodenplatte whilst stationed in Belgium.
John Pattison took a 20mm cannon shell in the thigh from a 109 after three weeks of operating out of Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain. By war's end he was back in the thick of the action after a period as an instructor. It's easy for us to look at his air to air tally of 2 and think, "He wasn't even an ace".
I like to imagine that like my Grandfather and my Wife's Great Uncle he was probably more comfortable being regarded as a human being, or perhaps a farmer, than a warrior.
Gen Y may not care, and the children of those volunteers and conscripts, who had to deal with these damaged citizen warriors as they healed their mental wounds, sometimes over decades, may have tired of them, but I forgive them their strangeness, I'm privileged that some of them felt comfortable telling me about losing their hair overnight, or soiling themselves while someone tried to shoot their aircraft down, or having to take being spat at by "friends" for defending unarmed prisoners. But they taught me that I don't have to stand in their shadow because they fought for me to have an ordinary life, with plenty of food, a long life filled with love and happiness, and the chance to enjoy the small things without sometimes having to deal with the uninvited guest of imminent death at the hand of your fellow man.
Most of all, I miss them.
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Originally Posted by PrincessBandit
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