Since I issued my "cri-de-coeur" (#11242),
Chugalug (#11244 and #11261); Brian 48nav (#11245); roving (#11250) - (btw, is that Garland any relation of the F/O Garland who, with his Nav, Sgt Gray, won the RAF's first two VCs of the war in 1940 ?) Geriaviator (#11251), and Warmtoast (#11260) Lovely pics !
Yes, you are right, Chugalug, in saying:..."I have always felt that its true CofG lies, as per the OP, in those desperate and dangerous years 1939-45"... But the old boys of those days are all dead now, or so nearly dead that no more can be expected of them. Now it's down to their "heirs 'n successors", and that well is running dry, too. roving is doing a sterling job (take a bow, roving!), keeping the old flame burning, but it cannot last for ever.
Another possible solution: lay "Pilot's Brevet in WWII" to rest, and someone (NOT a greybeard !) open "Gaining a R.A.F. Pilot's Brevet Post-War" new Thread? ....... Who'll open the bowling" ? Chugalug - you flew Hastings into Gatow in the Airlift, there must be "Funny things that happened on your way to the Theatre". Think on, revered old Mentor of mine !
Also, ..."So I join with you in encouraging roving to tell us everything he can of those years and in particular of the very hazardous job of low level photo recce"... Can't think of the name, but a
PR pilot was one of the most highly decorated RAF pilots of the war (Alec Guinness played the part in "Malta Story"). Disappeared on a LL trip to S. Germany in the end, they only found him and dug him up a year or two since.
And, long ago on this Thread (?) a US Colonel Baynes - Baines (?) wrote a gripping account of spending half-an-hour in broad daylight with a
PR Spitfire over Berlin at 40,000 ft in 1944, to make sure he got all the photos they needed. (earned him an American DFC). Among other things, he said: "Every pilot should have the chance to fly a Spitfire once in his life" (or words to that effect). So say I.
Remembering my Middlesbrough lasses (some large and formidable), Fighter Plotters and Radar Operators (we had 70 of them on the Auxiliary FCU where I was Adj), the thought of them coming after me with hockey sticks would induce abject terror !
..."My two-penneth is that it should be aviation related and principally centred on WWII"..... Mmmn, not sure for reasons stated above. I think we've squeezed the pips out of the WWII lemon, and the youngsters just don't want to know. Too Long Ago amd Far Away, now . I suppose it was inevitable. When I was 20, the American Civil War was being fought 77 years earlier. To a young man of 20 today, the Battle of Britain was fought 77 years ago.... Time flies !
Danny.