Merlin Engine

A few days ago, I mentioned Bud Wolfe, the U.S. pilot who crashed in Southern Ireland while flying for the RAF. Several pieces of Wolfe's Spitfire have been excavated from the peat bog in which has rested since 1941. The most impressive find so far has been the Merlin engine, which is damaged but largely intact. And no, it is too badly damaged to ever run again.

Unusual War Story

War stories can be strange. This one is about a World War II American POW named Bud Wolfe who was held in... Southern Ireland! At the time Southern Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland) was neutral and interned any German or Allied servicemen who accidentally landed within their borders. Read about Wolfe here. It is quite an unusual war story. The best part is that he escaped but his superiors sent him back!

And Then There Were None

The last known combat veteran of World War I has died. Claude Choules was 110. Watching this video interview with Choules, it looks like he was comfortable talking about his experiences, so we can hope his stories were handed down. He witnessed some momentous events of the Great War such as the surrender, and later scuttling, of the German fleet. He is also to last veteran to have served in both WWI amd WWII. A remarkable person from a remarkable generation.

Colourful Log Entries

With No. 19 Squadron routinely engaging German aircraft, I was surprised by how much detail was in the log entries. Here are two examples. I did not expect such colourful descriptions of the combat manoeuvres. This only makes sense if the reports are straight summaries of the debriefing sessions where the pilots might have recounted how they attacked the enemy an aircraft. I wonder if it was common practice to those details into the squadron logs. It certainly makes for much more dramatic reading.

Above Dunkirk

No 19 Squadron saw combat for the first while patrolling above the Dunkirk evacuation. The squadron log entry is very matter of fact but the squadron did quite well considering that they were heavily out numbered. However, under those conditions, casualties were almost assured and they lost two pilots in their first action, including the Squadron Leader. I wonder how much that weighed on the minds on the remaining pilots when they flew an undermanned second patrol later the same day. The following day they flew three patrols. That's already pushing the pilots quite hard and it was early days yet.

Long Memories

Since 1985 the Dutch have held a parade for the Canadian veterans who helped liberate the Netherlands 65 years ago. Unfortunately, this year's parade will be the last, as many of the veterans are no longer able to make the trip. But it does seems that the Dutch have long memories. More importantly, they are making sure the next generation understands what happened so long ago. I wonder why there are not similar efforts here in Canada?

VE-Day

May 8 is VE-Day and marks the end of the Second World War in Europe. The CBC reported on the remembrance ceremonies in Ottawa. The BBC also had good coverage of ceremonies in the UK, and reported that UK and other Western European soldiers, were joining the march in Red Square for the first time. The timed they are a-changing indeed! I'm glad to see this coverage, but of all the mainstream media that I follow, the CBC and BBC were the only ones to even mention VE-Day at all. How quickly we forget.

Douglas Bader

It seems I needed a refresher on Douglas Bader. He was in three different squadrons at Duxford. According to his Wikipedia page, No. 19 Squadron was his first posting after re-enlisting but two months later he was transfered to No. 222 Squadron, which later moved from Duxford to RAF Kirton. When Bader was promoted to Squadron Leader, he was given No. 242 Squadron, which was initially based at Coltishall but was moved to Duxford as part of 12 Group. All of this occurred in space of a few months from February to June 1940, an indication of how quickly things change in war.

I became curious after a tweet that Bader had been posted to No. 222. ^_^

Battle Of Britain On Twitter

The Imperial War Museum has started an interesting project in which they will post the 1940 Operation Record Books of RAF Duxford and No. 19 Squadron to Twitter. Yes, Twitter! The posts will be in real time (plus 70 years of course!) throughout the Battle of Britain period. I expect most of the posts will be quite dry (war being nine tenths boredom and one tenth terror) but I'm quite excited to have stumbled onto the project.

The Operation Record Books are not accessible to the general public so this is only way most of us are ever going to see their contents. One of No. 19 Squadron's pilots was the famous Douglas Bader and I'm curious about how often he is mentioned and the contexts, given his, er, colourful personality. No. 19 was definitely at the sharp end of the Battle of Britain so the project offers a unique insight into the period.

Spy Traing Camp

Until I saw this Toronto Star article recently, I was not aware that there was a World War II spy training camp in the area. It was called Camp X appropriately enough. Ian Fleming is supposed to have trained at Camp X but the Wikipedia article debunks the story. Apparently the camp was considered the best of its kind. Nothing remains of the original camp except a monument.

Veteran's Stories

There is new web site, The Memory Project, which will maintain an audio archive of Canadian WWII veterans' stories. This is important as that time fades further into history. I only wish this effort had started earlier so that it could have captured some the memories of the WWI veterans, who are now almost all gone.