pulse1:-
I particularly want to record his story as a record of how ordinary people...trained and operated as aircrew
With respect they were not ordinary people, they were and are very special people (sorry, Danny, I know that you will disagree with me) from an extraordinary generation. The tenacity and grit to confront a monstrous tyranny, as theirs was faced with, cannot be taken for granted. Others have been so challenged and crumbled before the onslaught. We all of us wonder how we would have conducted ourselves under such ever present mortal danger.
Reg Levy's awesome hijack story as linked by ion_berkley links in turn to his obituary:-
Reginald Levy obituary | World news | The Guardian
the word humbling comes to mind...
John Eacott, thank you for the lovely pics of you sharing your dad's reuniting with his old steed. What a shame he couldn't take his rightful place in it, but like all such equipment it was designed for the job in hand, and not for 21C accessibility requirements. Well done though for getting him inside! As Danny says, now is the time for his generation to speak out, not on their own behalf but on behalf of the entire generation. For it is not only their own story that is important, but the very culture that drove it, of duty and obligation. We rubbish such concepts at our peril, for they are the difference between resistance and capitulation. They have much to teach us and there is much that we need to learn from them.