John Hardie's Crew
Hi Steve,
Thankyou for going to the trouble to ask Eric about Dad.
Always a good gag the NewZealand one! And we Hardie's are a memorable lot even after 65 years!
Dad returned to the UK in 1947 so there is every possibility that he would have gone to the reunion that Eric mentioned. He did love a party.
One story he did tell me about his second mission was when they were flying very low the B/A yelled at him to "Pull up Andy" rather urgently, he said he pulled up and just cleared the church spire which he had not seen. Said he had nightmares about that one for years, also another one when he found himself below sea level on the altimeter when over water and never knowing how close he was. He said he pulled up very gently just incase he put the tail in the water!
Its amazing any of them survived really, he said the German flack barges were incredibly accurate and a very good thing to avoid, something about them being very angry when you were dropping bombs on them and straffing.
Give Eric my regards, it's amazing the internet I even found photo's of dad when he was in 601 my family had never seen.
Cheers,
John.