Oh what a lovely thread. Back in the '80s I had to conduct some business with a gentleman in Australia. He met us at the airport and as he drove us to his office we got into a rather too detailed conversation about the aircraft we had flown in on. "During my flying days..." became as regular a start to each of his sentences as Uncle Albert's "Durin' the war...". He was clearly busting to be asked the question, so we fell for it: "Oh what did you fly?".
Turned out to be fighters, Shooting Stars, USAF, Korean War. "What was an Aussie doing in the USAF?" - "On attachment, military advisor - but I saw plenty of combat...".
"How did you do?". "More kills than most". "Oh - well done - how many". "Errr - about six". Yeah, right.... The subject was not raised again, and no - we didn't do a deal in the end.
Funny how the real guys are often so reluctant to talk at all. There was a great WW2 agent-dropping pilot who ended up behind barbed wire, never cared to reminisce, but postwar became a works team racing driver for Aston Martin. In one practice session he bent his car and when he got back to the pits he was given a right bollocking by the team manager. He listened in silence until the storm had blown over, and then said gently "Bloody hell, when I crashed my Stirling they gave me the ******* DFC!".
Last edited by iwalkedaway; 23rd Dec 2008 at 21:31.