Salute

[pete376403]

Thanks Jim for that post. My dad was Army (Engineers) in North Africa and Italy. My uncle was a navigator in a Wellington bomber. I appreciate what they did, glad others do too.

[riffer]

Thanks for the reminder Jim.

It's been three years and a month since my uncle Gerry Gotlieb (936-38) passed. He flew Spitfires in the European theatre of World War II.

I miss him still.

[rainman]

Most of all, I miss them.

Well said, James. My old man was in WWII, radio op on planes all over the southern end of Europe. Lied about his age to get in. Our lives have been so different in many ways. I'd love to talk to him about that time (not sure he would) but he's been dead for years.

[ManDownUnder]

J2... good sir... fucking awesome thread.

I enjoyed the perspective on those that IMHO do deserve recognition and the gratitude of their country. Lots to say - but I don't have the words. It'd only be a re-write of what you said already I expect.

Yet another reminder of those we do actually owe something to. Something real, tangible. I'm bloody glad I'm not/I wasn't the one that's up there risking it all.

[gijoe1313]

I was down at Waioru Army Museum this weekend past, always visit it when I can and reading the histories, looking at the displays always has me ruminating on those times ... lest we forget.

The new display of WWI items to commemorate those times are quite amazing, even had the poem by Wilfred Own "In Flander's Fields" prominent. I love reading about the history of times gone by, but forever shudder at the implications and colossal waste of life from them.

[oldrider]

Nice thread James, I have just been talking (by phone) to my last (maternal) living uncle and he was a pilot in England during WW2.

He is 87 now and at the time was considered too young for operations flying and was used to ferry all manner of aircraft back and forth to the front lines for replacement etc. (spitfires among them)

My Aunt, (his wife) was in the control centre, where all those little model aeroplanes got shunted around the table during operations etc.

They met because he recognised her voice somewhere as the voice who had talked him back to safety after his plane (unarmed) was damaged by the enemy on a return flight from Germany or some place in Europe and they got chatting!

I was borne at the start of WW2 and have clear memories of the latter stages of those times.

My uncle became a school teacher on his return and while a highly respected and successful as a teacher, he was asked to leave, when the PC anti discipline brigade began to aspire to the principal roles in our schools.

Well, we all now know how successful that program has been!

The odd thing about that was that the only kid he ever disciplined with a strap was me and the reason for that was I had made it and presented it to him when he became a teacher!

Little did I know that he would be returning to teach at our school!

I should have gone into the strap building business because it worked perfectly!

The men and women of WW2 vintage are passing away very quickly now, soon it will be almost a forgotten era!

How fortunate I have been to have lived the life that they all fought and dreamed of preserving.

[yungatart]

Nice post JD!
If I'd been in your office, I would have joined you.

One of hXc's most memorable moments in Belgium was laying the NZ wreath at Ypres on Anzac day and then wandering around the war cemeteries....looking at the grave markers of kids his own age who had gone off to war and never made it home again.
How different his trip to Europe was! (For which I am truly grateful)

[vifferman]

Yeah, it's easy to forget the war - it was so long ago, and so many people who lived through it are either gone, or in their twilight years.
There's no-one in my family who served in WWI, and not many in WWII, but listening to (or reading of) the experiences of those who did is rather sobering. My mother's cousin was at the Somme, saw a man and a horse blown up next to him, and suffered mental illness throughout the rest of his life, before committing suicide during his retirement years, when he had too much time to just sit and remember.

My parents befriended a couple on a ship in the early '50s, who were emigrating to NZ. Alec served in the Cameron Highlanders, and was at Dunkerque. Their children (all four of them) were killed when a bomb destroyed the upstairs of their house, where the kids were sleeping. They never really recovered from this, but thought moving to another country would help. Alec was a sweet and gentle man (apart from shooting hundreds of mynahs and the odd cat, to protect the starling chicks in the boxes on his shed and garage). He ended up drinking himself to death, when his wife unexpectedly died before him, and he couldn't handle being left alone with his memories.

My mother lived in Oxford and was only a child during the war. While her father (a department store window dresser) was away basically playing at being a soldier, her mother got involved with a Canadian soldier, got pregnant, and my grandfather (who'd had several mistresses) kicked her out, had her army stipend cut off (which was illegal) so she was penniless, and split up the family. My mother and one sister were sent to live with some distant relative, my aunt and uncle (who were preschoolers) were sent to an orphanage, and another aunt was adopted out. My mother ended up in Bognor Regis, and saw first-hand a very brave girl, only 19, who set off to France in her little boat to help with the evacuation of soldiers. The beach, so beautiful and tempting during summer, was inaccessible due to barbed wire and tank traps above the high tide mark.

Both my in-laws are Dutch. I didn't realise until fairly recently that my father-in-law was involved in the Dutch underground/resistance during Nazi occupation. As a boy, he was sometimes involved in smuggling food and armaments, usually in a wheelbarrow covered with more innocuous items. He and a cousin were also involved in hiding and smuggling Allied airmen out of the country. His memories of the war were seldom talked about, but he saw his brother get run over by a German tank. They were walking down a narrow street, when the tank came down it. They pressed up against the wall, but the tank driver deliberately edged the tank over and crushed Willy.
When the Allied forces moved into the Netherlands, the first troops into my in-law's town were a Scottish regiment, much to my father-in-law's amusement: "Mum! Soldiers wearing skirts!" Fortuitously, his mother had lived in Scotland for years, and spoke good English, so their lounge became a command centre for the troops, who gave the family food in exchange for translation and information.

My mother-in-law's family emigrated to NZ not long after the war, coming here solely because it was a Dutch-sounding country, and as far away from Europe and the horrors of the war as they could get. My mother-in-law's brother was killed by a hand grenade, and her sister blinded in one eye.

I had the honour and pleasure of staying with my father-in-law's cousin in Nevato at Christmas time. He is a very gentle man, who gained passage to California and was granted citizenship, due to his services to the US armed services. As a teenager during the war, he was involved with arms smuggling, and hiding and smuggling Allied troops (mostly airmen). They would transport them by bicycle at night, and hide them in haystacks and barns. Because he spoke good English (he trained at the seminary), he acted as a translator when the US troops moved into Holland, and was recruited into the 7th Amoured Division, which lead to him being wounded twice (once when the tank he was riding on was blown up by a Panzer, and everyone apart from him was killed - including the dog he was holding). This caused problems, as he didn't have dogtags, and was shipped from field hospital to field hospital, being refused treatment because he was thought to be a German, or because he was Dutch not French. Another time, he was almost shot by a camp guard who was told to shoot anyone who didn't know the password du jour. Jan forgot part of it, and as his accent was suspicious, the guard went to shoot him. Luckily the guard was too hasty, the clip fell out of the "grease gun", and someone who knew Jan came along before he could reload it.

Despite the privations and horrors of war, people still got on with living and having fun. Jan was called "The Chow Hound" by his new comrades. When they were liberating towns occupied by the Nazis, houses that the officers had commandeered were often full of strange German food and beverages, which Jan was called on to test to make sure it was edible. After years of not enough to eat, this was not a role he found at all hard.

Soon the "war generation" will be gone, and so will their memories and stories. Unfortunately, because humans seem to be expert at finding reasons for conflict, there will always be those among us who have first hand experience of how cruel people can be to one another, and how very fragile our peace can be. Even events at home, like the Springbok tour of 1981, can illustrate how quickly violence can erupt in a peaceful country.

[ynot slow]

Well said, Jim.
Pussy snr was too young for service in WWII, but had NO hesitation volunteering and spending 20 months of his young life in Korea.
Up until recently, he told me almost nothing about it. He was "just a retired farmer". It was with great pride for me to see the NZ flag on his coffin, and the RSA pay tribute to him at his funeral.
We all owe that generation of fine young men more than we'll ever know.

BTW... if the Spitfire was the Ohakea based one, it is a Mk IX

Well said re our older ww2 vets,when ww2 was in swing mum had 5 uncles go off and all came back uninjured(physically anyway),not bad for small town Manaia,amazing to read the monuments in small towns,heaps of guys with same surnames who never returned,that is when you realise the cost of war.

Think I heard it referred as Mk 9(for those unsure of roman numerals)as well on the news.Sadly the impression a lot of us have of the power and grace of the spitfire is from movies,Battle of Britain being one of the best.

[Fatjim]

Good on you mate.

[vifferman]

amazing to read the monuments in small towns,heaps of guys with same surnames who never returned,that is when you realise the cost of war.

I know what you mean - when in Adelaide recentlyish, we went for an early morning stroll, and ended up at the war memorial. It was very moving to see the monuments, the roll of honour, and to think of what the list represented.
I just couldn't imagine my sons going off to war - it'd be absolutely devastating.

[MSTRS:Me]

What a wonderful post, young man. That deserves to be published, perhaps as the Editorial in the DomPost.

[Grubber]

Cheers for that! My Dad did the trench work in Guadacanal fighting the japanese.
He passed on at the ripe old age of 76???? Still fit as when he passed. The heart just gave out. Too much crap in his early life i suggest.
Miss him dearly.

Lest we forget

[James Deuce]

It was the Ohakea IX. The Empennage was the rounded one. Found a picture on page 349, Section C, sub section 42 of the DomPost. Mine eyes are old.

[SPman]

PV270 - Brendan Deeres one, in the wartime markings of his uncle, Alan Deere. Some good pics here http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi...ay&thread=9495

Good on you young James!

What a wonderful post, young man. That deserves to be published, perhaps as the Editorial in the DomPost.

- quite so!

One thing I was going to mention to you was the answer as to why the Uncle did not have “kill” markings on his aircraft – the simple answer was he didn’t think much of the practice.
He saw it as making too much “glory” of what was essentially an unpleasant but necessary task – that is successfully destroying another aircraft/pilot. He had little time for those that followed that practice.

I remember my grandparents generation - those from the first world war, and the effect it had on that generation - in the hallway of my great aunts house, was a photo board, of all the friends, fiances, and relations who went overseas - 37, and only 17 came back! A photo of my grandfather, a Lewis gunner, with 2 of his mates, taken in mid 1917 after a particular battle - they were the only survivors from his company - blown up by a shell in early 1918, he was on an 80% war disability pension until he died at 99 and 9 months old! I still have a lump of shell casing they took out of his leg, with a shred of woollen trouser thread attached! My great uncle, winning the MM at Paschendaele and, as a Lance Corporal, being the highest ranking person to survive in his company!
My parents generation - the WW2 survivors - nearly all gone now. Dad suffering a broken neck after being blown over a cliff, whilst winkling Japanese out of a cave in the islands - he's still around at 92. His brother - a driver for a chaplain in the LRDG in the desert and Italy - who came back totally changed by his experiences. His cousins - one a coastwatcher who worked behind Japanese lines for most of the war and his brother - who refused to fight and spent most of the war hiding from the authorities. Who was his biggest supporter - his brother, the one risking his life every day! Cousin Ed Hillary, serving in the Airforce, whilst his brother Rex spent the war in a camp for conchies because of his beliefs - no one thought any the worse of them for that. Because, that was what is was about - the right to freedom of thoughts and beliefs..
A Polish mate of dads - escaped from Poland to France, then stole a French airforce plane to get to England. Served with the RAF, flying Hurricanes post BOB, then in the Middle East. Told me once of being shot down on a raid on a harbour in Italy. He ended up under a rock wall on the foreshore with an enemy machine gun post on top - he thought he was done for! He managed to wriggle out of that one and ended up with Italian partisans for some months.
Would any of those people talk about their experiences? Not generally - you had to be lucky (and in my case, have a handy recording walkman at the time) and just occasionally they would open up, just a little, but only about the good times, rarely about the bad.
That generation is going now - in another few years they will be all gone, as well - like the WW1 generation. Few of them wanted to go, most of them wanted to forget and none of them wanted the experience repeated on future generations. As I got older, I understood the drinking RSA mentality that, as a rebellious youth, I disdained mightily. It helped perhaps, blot out the memories, amongst those who understood.

Soon, they will all be gone - but - from my perspective, not forgotten!