A Picture

[floppybootstomp]

I was queuing up to pay me poll tax, oops, sorry, Council tax and looked at the magazines they had strewn about.

There was a copy of 'The Classic Motorcycle' from June 1996 and I thought I'd have a read.

I saw this picture inside and for me it just captured an era. So I nicked the magazine. Next time I'm there I will contribute a few myself to make up for my light-fingerdness

Ok, I know I wasn't alive when this picture was taken but out of the thousands of photographs I've seen from WW2 this one seemed, somehow, to capture the spirit.

The magazine concentrates on the motorcycle of course but the long caption lets the reader know this pic was taken in 1944 when the allied sweep through Normandy was on. The men in the picture are part of the crews of 16 Mitchell bombers whose job was to blast Panzer tanks and Nazi infantry ahead of the Allied push.

That could almost be my Dad amongst that lot, he was in the RAF during WW2 but ended up in India for the last three years of the war. He has photographs from that time similar to this, but just of individuals, not one taking in a whole group, some planes, a motorcycle and a car.

There's a whole bunch of faces there that I swear were fathers of all the fellas I went to school with, lol, and I notice some cigarette smoking going on.

If any of these fellas are alive today they will be in their mid-eighties.

I know it's a cliche but it was fellas like these that we owe our freedom to, we really do. And the Americans, the Canadians, the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Polish, the Sikhs, the Indians and a whole bunch more. The Allies.

It's a shame I couldn't have made the pic bigger but big pix really mess up forum viewer's perspective.

And this is actually 1000 pixels wide instead of the usual 800.

HMS Illustrious was moored near me a coupla weeks ago to celebrate 100 years of the RAF, this is my little contribution to the celebrations

 

[Ian]

Nice pic Flops - I wonder if anyone here has photos from their parents from the same time? It would be great to get a pic thread of something like that

 

[nivrip]

Yeah, that would make a good thread. My father was in the RAF in the War and although he didn't do any flying he still had an important job that most people don't even think about. He had to fix the electrics on the bombers that came back, often full of holes and with equipment out of action. Even in those days there were miles of wires in those planes and the electrics had to be fixed as fast as possible for the next raid.

He had no qualifications but was an absolute wizz at fixing any electrical problem in the years after the war.

I have some old pics but not sure where they are - I'll start searching.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Like you niv, my Dad was in the RAF and didn't really see any front line action apart from being in on the liberation of Allied prisoners from Japan and Burma at the end of the war.

My old man wouldn't know one end of a screwdriver from another so gawd knows where I get my skills from

He was, basically, a clerk, a supplies manager who used to sign out equipment to troops a couple of miles behind the front line. And he spent the first three years of the war in an office near Newcastle before taking the long boat ride through U-Boat inested waters to India.

Kinda cushty, really, which I'm glad about because it means he lived to create me

 

[captain zed]

My old man wouldn't know one end of a screwdriver from another so gawd knows where I get my skills from

What with printing your own money and pinching magazines mate i reckon you nicked them. and then you expect us to believe you were paying taxes.....

Zzzzz sorry in advance mate. Saturday night and i'm a tad giddy.

 

[Madxgraphics]

My grandad was in the army over here..I do recall seeing pictures of him in uniform when I was a kid. And I'm pretty sure I seen some last year when I was home..I shallask my mother dearest if I can have some to post on here.

And Niv, wether your dad flew or not or how miniscule his or anybody else's job was that served in the armed forces. They were allimportant and all heroes and should never be forgotten...

 

[captain zed]

On a seroius note folks....it was no time to be around. War is not nice.....ever. I dont think people had a choice either back then.
Zzzzz

 

[Abarbarian]

Take your camera and have a day out at Elvington airfield when they have a show day and you could almost be reliving that picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The casualties of World War II were suffered disproportionately by the various participants. This is especially true regarding civilian casualties. The following chart gives data on the casualties suffered by each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses. Military casualties include battle deaths (KIA) and personnel missing in action (MIA), as well as fatalities due to accidents, disease and deaths of prisoners of war in captivity. Civilian casualties include deaths caused by strategic bombing, Nazi persecution, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union, Allied war crimes and deaths due to war related famine and disease. Jewish losses in the Holocaust are listed separately for each nation, since they are known. Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed during World War II.[36] The distinction between military and civilian casualties caused directly by warfare and collateral damage is not always clear cut. For nations that suffered huge losses such as the U.S.S.R, China, Poland, Germany and Yugoslavia, our sources can give us only the total estimated population loss caused by the war and a rough estimate of the breakdown of deaths caused by military activity, crimes against humanity and war related famine. The footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources.

 

[floppybootstomp]

On a seroius note folks....it was no time to be around. War is not nice.....ever. I dont think people had a choice either back then.
Zzzzz

There aren't that many times throughout mankind's history when there hasn't been any war in whatever part of the globe you call home.

And rarely has the commoner had a choice in taking part in that war or not.

Of course you can just outright refuse to fight. In the First World War they would have shot or hanged you for that, in WW2 I think you'd just have to serve a prsion sentence but then probably be known locally as a coward.

In my opinion there are some things worth fighting for and some definitely not worth fighting for.

In WW2 our very freedom, democracy and way of life was under threat from a would-be dictator. That was definitely worth fighting for, no swastikas over Westminster.

Hitler was said to have been surprised at the UK's refusal to side with him, surprises me sometimes as well as Britain at the time seemed to sympathise more with the Nazi ideal than it was concerned with freedom and human rights.

Still, side with him we did not and on the whole achieved a lot of good at the cost of a lot of life.

I consider myself lucky to have been born in the year I was, no major war and raised to Rock and Roll and the so-called swinging sixties. Nice

If I had been alive during WW2 I would have fought, no question.

Had I been American at the time of the Vietnam War and I was called up I would have been a conscientous objector and would rather have languished in a prison cell than go and kill men I had no personal quarrel with.

Vitenam, in my mind, was one of the most shameful episodes in American history. All that blood for a small political gain, if you can call it a gain that is, more like paranoia fuelled by McCarthyism.

So, that's the difference between worth fighting for and not, as far as I'm concerned.

I also find it almost amusing that the BNP love to quote Churchill and the fighting spirit of WW2 as being very British things and putting themselves alongside Churchill as what they stand for.

Ironic, then, that the BNP policies are everything that we British opposed about the Nazis.

This may sound extreme but in my mind prejudice, victimisation, calls for repatriation are but one small step away from the horrors of the Holocaust.

Ok, off me soapbox, got that off me chest, lol

 

[captain zed]

There aren't that many times throughout mankind's history when there hasn't been any war in whatever part of the globe you call home.

Hi Flops,

I think war will inevitably be mankinds downfall someday...and then we'll start all over again and f**k it up again and so on....and i do believe its only a small percentage that will screw it for everyone. This is the so called 21st century and i reckon the biggy is coming. In my mind it will either be a war or a virus that does us, way before global warming or we run out of energy.
I was going to go on about iraq and the likes alongside the koreans who are very secretive about what they are up to but i wont its too late and i have to work later today. Somebody else can carry on where i left off.
Zzzzz

 

[floppybootstomp]

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah mankind will just go on and on and on the way he always has done - primitive.

The way we've been programmed - just one step above some animal species or other, possibly chimpanzees cos they're quite violent creatures - means we will never embrace common sense.

Nope, observe typical male picking a fight Saturday night and typical female bitching and spreading gossip, thus encouraging stupid male fisticuffs and that's the way it's always been.

The day we learn to act with our brain/better emotions rather than our testosterone and inbuilt programmed animal tendencies will be a good day.

The only advantage we have over basic animal instincts is the power to reason.

Not strong enough, imo

 

[captain zed]

We shall have to wait and see man....we are getting faster and smarter all the time...just like windows LOL....my firewall just blocked an attack from the PCR server again....any ideas anyone??
Zzzzz