Green Granite
Thanks for the nice words. I think that there were a few reasons why people did'nt put down their post-war careers and experiences. For probably the majority the post war was a complete anti-climax and to many a vast disappointment. A lot of them had escaped from a mundane existence and found the war an exciting and wonderful change. I know that my Father, who was 39 when the war broke out and was commissioned as an RAF Signals Officer ,spent most of his career overseas and had the best time of his life. The other side of it was the terrible trauma experienced by those less fortunate who had been taken prisoner by ruthless enemies and subjected to inhuman treatment. The disfigured, the terribly wounded and the people who were simply traumatised by what was happening to them . None of these could be expected to put their thoughts on paper. Richard Hillary's "The Last Enemy" is a difficult to read but outstanding exception. As an example of what must have been going on on the minds of thousands was the response to one simple advertisement in "The Aeroplane" or "Flight" magazines by Sabena in the early part of 1952. They wanted 30 pilots and did not reqiure Civil licences . The response was overwhelming and numbered well over 1,200. Of the thirty that were taken on, I was the only one to have a current 'B' Licence as it was called then. Virtually all the others were ex-RAF pilots back in peace time jobs and seeking to get back to a more exciting life. The lack of the need to have the outstanding ticket to a civil airline career was too tempting to many of them "stuck" in soul destroying jobs. Another reason , I think, was the difficulty in getting any sort of memoir published as the demand to read about other peoples' experiences was low. The demand was to have to wait for about twenty years by which time another generation had grown and wanted to know what their Fathers had been doing. Now it is the Grandchildrens' turn and this has brought the further demand of the post-war experiences but the survivors are all around my age ,88 in two months time and, possibly the main reason : very few of us are interested or well enough to get down to putting it into words by this medium.
I thank God every day for my good luck in being able to do most of these things and pay homage to all those far worse off and those who are no longer here but did so much to make it possible. Regle