75th anniversary of the D Day invasion 2019
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75th anniversary of the D Day invasion 2019
Considering the lack lustre celebrations that the RAF managed to put together for their 100th Anniversary, a bunch of like minded individuals appear to be pulling a miracle out of the bag for the 75th anniversary of the DDay landings.....
38 Dakotas so far are coming to Duxford and
https://www.daksovernormandy.com/
Daks Over Normandy Group Has 37 Aircraft Lined Up For Massive 2019 D-Day Commemoration ? But They Need Your Help! ? AirshowStuff
Awesome stuff and hats off to the organisers, can see a Duxford road trip next year.
38 Dakotas so far are coming to Duxford and
On 5 June 2019 we will follow into the footsteps of the Greatest Generation! About 250 men and women will board the aircraft in the United Kingdom to, exactly like 75 years before, fly across the English Channel and to jump into the historic drop zones of Normandy. They will be wearing WWII style Allied uniforms and will jump military round parachutes. It will be an event which has no equal. History in the making. Again! Just like in 1944.
Daks Over Normandy Group Has 37 Aircraft Lined Up For Massive 2019 D-Day Commemoration ? But They Need Your Help! ? AirshowStuff
Awesome stuff and hats off to the organisers, can see a Duxford road trip next year.
Brexit in March. Hope their passports are in order. Didn't have to worry about that in 1944.
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I do hope the person or persons tasked with the weather forecast for the drop will have adequate insurance ......... stressful enough looking after young fit soldiers using modern gear jumping from modern aircraft. I do not plan to come out of retirement and offer my services.
I would, however , love to watch, and I wish the project well.
I would, however , love to watch, and I wish the project well.
LB:-
Gp Capt J Stagg seemed to manage well enough, and without all the modern day gizmos. Now that was a tough call! Eisenhower carried a speech around in his pocket in case D-Day failed and we were turned back. If the forecast had been pants and many men had needlessly died as a result, I wonder what he carried around with him? A service revolver with one chambered?
I do hope the person or persons tasked with the weather forecast for the drop will have adequate insurance
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I remember doing the Para drop for the 60th. We were pathfinders ahead of the main package and the French Air Traffic wouldn't let us in as there was reserved airspace for a para drop!!
After a bit of arguing I think it went a bit like "you are broken and unreadable, understand clear to proceed!" ............. on time on tgt and the boys did a good job setting up the DZ for the main package.
Doesn't seem like nearly 15 years ago! time flies. Good luck to all next year.
After a bit of arguing I think it went a bit like "you are broken and unreadable, understand clear to proceed!" ............. on time on tgt and the boys did a good job setting up the DZ for the main package.
Doesn't seem like nearly 15 years ago! time flies. Good luck to all next year.
LB:-
Gp Capt J Stagg seemed to manage well enough, and without all the modern day gizmos. Now that was a tough call! Eisenhower carried a speech around in his pocket in case D-Day failed and we were turned back. If the forecast had been pants and many men had needlessly died as a result, I wonder what he carried around with him? A service revolver with one chambered?
Gp Capt J Stagg seemed to manage well enough, and without all the modern day gizmos. Now that was a tough call! Eisenhower carried a speech around in his pocket in case D-Day failed and we were turned back. If the forecast had been pants and many men had needlessly died as a result, I wonder what he carried around with him? A service revolver with one chambered?
Most certainly the buck would have stopped with him, and he deserves his fame and status for his judgement and moral courage.
Footnote. I served as a very young man at Dunstable while CKM Douglas was still in service. He was revered as a forecaster's forecaster. The D Day forecast and all forecasts at that time were made difficult not so much by lack of gizzmos, as lack of understanding of the physics and hydrodynamics of the major weather processes.
LB:-
As late as the mid 60s we were still being taught meteorology by the local wind effects; the Bora Bora (which evidently once caused the Grand Fleet to drag its anchors in Valetta Harbour), the Mistral etc, and the day's met brief in far off places was based on the winds and weather reports handed in the previous day, if even by the same crew! All that changed rather dramatically for me when we handed in the usual post flight AIRMET report with my own artistic efforts of the various cloud formations, extent and estimated heights, W/Vs, OATs etc, for our route into Gan. The met man politely accepted it and laid it aside without the usual Q&A session. "You've already had a previous crew in from Singapore?", we queried. "Better than that, we've got these!", and he laid out photographs of the wx (incl the ITCZ) along our route. The first satellite pics I had ever seen. Some Gizmo!
As you say though, any gizmo is only as good as its operators and users, and the met men of old may not have had much of a grip on world wide weather processes but they knew their own back yard. The Colerne met man would forecast the onset of fog from the Batheastern valley to within half an hour if you were returning that night. That was until he was instructed to stick to the Dunstable script. He clammed up after that...
I don't doubt that Stagg had teams of professional meteorologists advising him, but it was he who had to brief SHAEF, who made the decision to go as a result. The weather outside was so bad that Rommel had taken the opportunity to go home to Germany with a present for his wife of a pair of new Parisian shoes. What cost those shoes?
lack of understanding of the physics and hydrodynamics of the major weather processes.
As you say though, any gizmo is only as good as its operators and users, and the met men of old may not have had much of a grip on world wide weather processes but they knew their own back yard. The Colerne met man would forecast the onset of fog from the Batheastern valley to within half an hour if you were returning that night. That was until he was instructed to stick to the Dunstable script. He clammed up after that...
I don't doubt that Stagg had teams of professional meteorologists advising him, but it was he who had to brief SHAEF, who made the decision to go as a result. The weather outside was so bad that Rommel had taken the opportunity to go home to Germany with a present for his wife of a pair of new Parisian shoes. What cost those shoes?
.
I don't doubt that Stagg had teams of professional meteorologists advising him, but it was he who had to brief SHAEF, who made the decision to go as a result. The weather outside was so bad that Rommel had taken the opportunity to go home to Germany with a present for his wife of a pair of new Parisian shoes. What cost those shoes?
I don't doubt that Stagg had teams of professional meteorologists advising him, but it was he who had to brief SHAEF, who made the decision to go as a result. The weather outside was so bad that Rommel had taken the opportunity to go home to Germany with a present for his wife of a pair of new Parisian shoes. What cost those shoes?
Often it is the tiny little detail that everybody overlooks how someone behaves, is what changes a scenario completely.
Chugalug 2.
I absolutely agree. I was not aware of it at the time but in retrospect I and my 1960s cohort of newly promoted forecasters [ex-observers, all with several science A levels] were beneficiaries of radical new science and new teaching. Thus the very young and junior team at RAF Nicosia airfield Met in 1964 had much greater understanding of theory than the senior and older forecasters at Main Met Cyprus, all of one mile up the road. These old boys had served through the war, and had become expert local weather guessers but were totally behind the drag curve on the larger and longer space and time scales. The best of that generation like Wilf Saunders made huge strides in producing empirical diagrams, graphs, rules of thumb and algorithms for local use but had never been taught the rapidly evolving understanding of "development", which became a cornerstone of computed forecasts.
I dare say that, by the time I came off the bench at 43 years of age I was similarly out of date.
I absolutely agree. I was not aware of it at the time but in retrospect I and my 1960s cohort of newly promoted forecasters [ex-observers, all with several science A levels] were beneficiaries of radical new science and new teaching. Thus the very young and junior team at RAF Nicosia airfield Met in 1964 had much greater understanding of theory than the senior and older forecasters at Main Met Cyprus, all of one mile up the road. These old boys had served through the war, and had become expert local weather guessers but were totally behind the drag curve on the larger and longer space and time scales. The best of that generation like Wilf Saunders made huge strides in producing empirical diagrams, graphs, rules of thumb and algorithms for local use but had never been taught the rapidly evolving understanding of "development", which became a cornerstone of computed forecasts.
I dare say that, by the time I came off the bench at 43 years of age I was similarly out of date.
Ah....to have reliable Hips again....would love to make such a Jump.....France, D-Day Gear, and Goons. (The Aircraft kind!) and at age 70.
Instead I shall just wish all well and happy landings....no matter where they fetch up!
Instead I shall just wish all well and happy landings....no matter where they fetch up!
My father was a pilot on a meteorological reconnaissance squadron in 1944. His log book has a flight annotated as a 'special'. This flight, a Bismuth encompassing the Bay of Biscay and the Western approaches, was the basis for launching the Invasion.
That is quite something. What was the aircraft please? Perhaps a Liberator?
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All this talk about weather reminds me of an occasion at Gan when a visiting 99 Sqn Britannia reported a snag on his weather radar.as below:
No Radar Returns — RAF Gan, Addu Atoll Incident - 1962
As related to me by someone who was on 99 Sqn at the same time as me.
WT
No Radar Returns — RAF Gan, Addu Atoll Incident - 1962
The night is one of those which can only be read about in a Mills and Boone novel - but is real. The warm, gentle, breeze blows off the Indian Ocean and rustles the Coconut Palm tree leaves. In the distance is the soft murmur as the rollers break on the reef. Stars shine down and seem no more than arms length away. The moon shines so brightly as to make it possible to read a newspaper, outside, in the middle of the night, and I can - I tried!
Things could be perfect, or as perfect as they can get on Gan, but the situation has gone horribly “Pear-shaped”.
It’s like this; manpower on the Transit Aircraft Servicing Flight dictates a permanent three-shift system each twelve hours “On” and twenty-four “Off”. No weekends, no Bank Holidays, no leave, nothing but “Time Ex” to relieve the repetition. We have Two/Three Airframe trades, Two/Three Engine, two Electricians, two Instrument and one “Electronics” man, plus a Boss, on each shift. The usual total of thirteen is definitely unlucky for some.
At the moment we have a problem. Due to sickness and family difficulties back in the UK we are down to just one “Electronic” representative, Cliff, among the three shifts. He can’t work 24h/day, so he is not on any one shift, but available at any time. “Available” in Cliff’s language means that you have to search the right watering hole in order to catch him for work when he is required. We need him tonight because we received a “Tech Warning” from a Britannia coming in from Singapore, “No Returns on CCWR (Cloud Collision Warning Radar)”. This means the crew cannot use Radar to see tropical storms ahead. They won’t be happy with a “Turnaround” servicing and Take-off again. Gan has to increase its population from around three hundred to four hundred with all the feeding and shelter for crew and passengers this entails, until the aircraft is fit to fly once more. No-one is happy at the prospect. Cliff must be found!
Everything that can be done is done and we are ready for the arrival. As the aircraft stops we go through the turn-round procedure. Cooler, Oxygen/Air bottle/Bog Trolleys, Ground Power Unit, Fuel Bowsers etc. are brought into position and the inspection starts and finishes as far as we are concerned, Radar excepted. Excuses are found to go onto the A/C to see how the Shift Boss is getting on with the Navigator. The “Rover” arrives - the driver has found Cliff. Mixing him and the Navigator is likely to be a problem. Cliff looks and smells like someone who hasn’t showered, eaten or slept for some time. The Nav. is immaculate; for someone who has just flown a leg from Changi, he is a walking miracle. SD hat TDC, creases only where required in trousers. No sweat streak down the middle of the shirt back above a ramrod spine, tie straight and mat black. Shoes with no marks to mar the high polish and not a pinpoint of a sweat on his brow. A regulation picture.
Cliff gets down to business; that is, he sits at the Nav’s station and closes his eyes. Electricians hover with AVO Meter and lamp and batteries at the ready. “Check Resistance between “D” and “F” on Number Three plug”, the check is made and the result passed back to Cliff. “Check between “A” and “K” on Number Two”. The assistants down in the “Forward Freight” carry out further instructions as requested, the shift boss anxiously consults his watch, the Nav. stands waiting (Why doesn’t he sit, go away, or at least, lean). Time passes, Cliff sweats even more, brow furrowed, heads peek out from the forward freight, everyone is at the ready, waiting for him to work his magic. Our meagre store of spare “Boxes” etc. for the CCWR system are gathered and we are ready to change, repair as far as we can or just thump the item that Cliff indicates is U/S, but he seems stuck. Everything is back to the way it was when we started. We are going round in circles. The A/C is cleared of equipment, except for Ground Power and the Cooler, ready to go when it’s fixed. We await Cliff...
“Run it” said Cliff. In no time I have three and four going in S’fine and the radar “ON”, we wait. Time seems to stand still, no one moves. The roar of the GPU intrudes above the engines and they are the only sounds in the world, apart from the thump, felt rather than heard, of the oscillating scanner. Suddenly, Cliff surges to the front of the cockpit, crying “Let me see that f*****g display”. He stares at the screen, turns to me and says “Stop it”. He stays there as the engines stop and the steps come in. We wait for Cliff to say something.
He turns and says “Who snagged this f*****g thing?”
“I did” states the Nav.
Cliff looks at him and, apparently, sees him for the first time. He puts his face close to the Nav’s, breathes out, and tries to focus. Everyone stays frozen in impossible positions, thinking he has finally cracked.
“You?”
Cliff hangs on his tie, flows round him and then pulls him, by the tie, to the top of the steps, we follow. He swings his spare arm in a gesture that covers the star-spangled firmament and declares.
“Can you see any f*****g clouds?”
Then, “How do you expect to get any f*****g returns?”
The Nav enters the cabin while Cliff stumbles down the steps and into the back of the Rover, shouting “Get me back to the 180”. It goes off. So do we, fast.
No one but the Shift boss and the Nav. is on the A/C. Everyone is back on the Flight veranda, gazing back at the Brit and wondering what will happen now. After a few minutes the shift boss comes in and calls “Ops”.
“The Brit is finished, F700 cleared, and it’s ready to go”.
I suppose we never will find out what happened after we left the A/C, or what was said - unless someone really knows.........?
Things could be perfect, or as perfect as they can get on Gan, but the situation has gone horribly “Pear-shaped”.
It’s like this; manpower on the Transit Aircraft Servicing Flight dictates a permanent three-shift system each twelve hours “On” and twenty-four “Off”. No weekends, no Bank Holidays, no leave, nothing but “Time Ex” to relieve the repetition. We have Two/Three Airframe trades, Two/Three Engine, two Electricians, two Instrument and one “Electronics” man, plus a Boss, on each shift. The usual total of thirteen is definitely unlucky for some.
At the moment we have a problem. Due to sickness and family difficulties back in the UK we are down to just one “Electronic” representative, Cliff, among the three shifts. He can’t work 24h/day, so he is not on any one shift, but available at any time. “Available” in Cliff’s language means that you have to search the right watering hole in order to catch him for work when he is required. We need him tonight because we received a “Tech Warning” from a Britannia coming in from Singapore, “No Returns on CCWR (Cloud Collision Warning Radar)”. This means the crew cannot use Radar to see tropical storms ahead. They won’t be happy with a “Turnaround” servicing and Take-off again. Gan has to increase its population from around three hundred to four hundred with all the feeding and shelter for crew and passengers this entails, until the aircraft is fit to fly once more. No-one is happy at the prospect. Cliff must be found!
Everything that can be done is done and we are ready for the arrival. As the aircraft stops we go through the turn-round procedure. Cooler, Oxygen/Air bottle/Bog Trolleys, Ground Power Unit, Fuel Bowsers etc. are brought into position and the inspection starts and finishes as far as we are concerned, Radar excepted. Excuses are found to go onto the A/C to see how the Shift Boss is getting on with the Navigator. The “Rover” arrives - the driver has found Cliff. Mixing him and the Navigator is likely to be a problem. Cliff looks and smells like someone who hasn’t showered, eaten or slept for some time. The Nav. is immaculate; for someone who has just flown a leg from Changi, he is a walking miracle. SD hat TDC, creases only where required in trousers. No sweat streak down the middle of the shirt back above a ramrod spine, tie straight and mat black. Shoes with no marks to mar the high polish and not a pinpoint of a sweat on his brow. A regulation picture.
Cliff gets down to business; that is, he sits at the Nav’s station and closes his eyes. Electricians hover with AVO Meter and lamp and batteries at the ready. “Check Resistance between “D” and “F” on Number Three plug”, the check is made and the result passed back to Cliff. “Check between “A” and “K” on Number Two”. The assistants down in the “Forward Freight” carry out further instructions as requested, the shift boss anxiously consults his watch, the Nav. stands waiting (Why doesn’t he sit, go away, or at least, lean). Time passes, Cliff sweats even more, brow furrowed, heads peek out from the forward freight, everyone is at the ready, waiting for him to work his magic. Our meagre store of spare “Boxes” etc. for the CCWR system are gathered and we are ready to change, repair as far as we can or just thump the item that Cliff indicates is U/S, but he seems stuck. Everything is back to the way it was when we started. We are going round in circles. The A/C is cleared of equipment, except for Ground Power and the Cooler, ready to go when it’s fixed. We await Cliff...
“Run it” said Cliff. In no time I have three and four going in S’fine and the radar “ON”, we wait. Time seems to stand still, no one moves. The roar of the GPU intrudes above the engines and they are the only sounds in the world, apart from the thump, felt rather than heard, of the oscillating scanner. Suddenly, Cliff surges to the front of the cockpit, crying “Let me see that f*****g display”. He stares at the screen, turns to me and says “Stop it”. He stays there as the engines stop and the steps come in. We wait for Cliff to say something.
He turns and says “Who snagged this f*****g thing?”
“I did” states the Nav.
Cliff looks at him and, apparently, sees him for the first time. He puts his face close to the Nav’s, breathes out, and tries to focus. Everyone stays frozen in impossible positions, thinking he has finally cracked.
“You?”
Cliff hangs on his tie, flows round him and then pulls him, by the tie, to the top of the steps, we follow. He swings his spare arm in a gesture that covers the star-spangled firmament and declares.
“Can you see any f*****g clouds?”
Then, “How do you expect to get any f*****g returns?”
The Nav enters the cabin while Cliff stumbles down the steps and into the back of the Rover, shouting “Get me back to the 180”. It goes off. So do we, fast.
No one but the Shift boss and the Nav. is on the A/C. Everyone is back on the Flight veranda, gazing back at the Brit and wondering what will happen now. After a few minutes the shift boss comes in and calls “Ops”.
“The Brit is finished, F700 cleared, and it’s ready to go”.
I suppose we never will find out what happened after we left the A/C, or what was said - unless someone really knows.........?
As related to me by someone who was on 99 Sqn at the same time as me.
WT
Hand Salute to that wonderful Fellow....his generation were some very remarkable folks!
I would have to hold off my coming Hip Replacement Surgery until after the event as it would be not be fully healed in time.....it takes a while for the wrought iron to rust into place.
Having it done once is fine....well sort of....but having to have it redone is a whole different kettle of fish.
The Surgeon made that point quite clear to me prior to the first one....someone tipped him that I was very hard headed and his display of X-Rays of other disasters incurred by other Patients did get my full and undivided attention.
I would have to hold off my coming Hip Replacement Surgery until after the event as it would be not be fully healed in time.....it takes a while for the wrought iron to rust into place.
Having it done once is fine....well sort of....but having to have it redone is a whole different kettle of fish.
The Surgeon made that point quite clear to me prior to the first one....someone tipped him that I was very hard headed and his display of X-Rays of other disasters incurred by other Patients did get my full and undivided attention.
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Ah, White Tea, I was quite instrumental in setting up the equipment clearances for that job. With the help of VX 275 who provided the old wartime technical manual from his personal archive. If I remember we could not find any in life PX4s and had to acquire new static lines.
I hope it goes well with no injuries.
I did one of my water jump courses with a guy who had done it for real. Had a great chat with him on an evening walk by the river at Letchlade.
My Father in Law parachuted into Arnhem. I would like to go sometime.
I hope it goes well with no injuries.
I did one of my water jump courses with a guy who had done it for real. Had a great chat with him on an evening walk by the river at Letchlade.
My Father in Law parachuted into Arnhem. I would like to go sometime.