Quite the experience. I'd very much like one day to get a run in one of those old warbirds, though I'm also very glad I'll never have to deal with doing it 'for real'. My primary school headmaster was an RAF navigator during the war and had terrible experiences of the RAF, of being sent out with only one engine working (and branded LMF for bringing the whole crew home safely with only one engine, rather than completing the run with that meaning certain death for them all), of being a PoW in a German camp, of being treated even worse by the Brits when he did what he felt was his duty and escaped back to England... THe worst of it for him, though, was the long term guilt: as the navigator, it was his job to operate the bomb doors, and he carried with him long after the war a sense of responsibility for the civilian lives he ended, especially the children. THat's why he got into teaching, to feel like he was in some way making up for it. I've long had serious issues with Arthur Harris and Churchill over some of what was done, but the embarassment and treatment of the poor buggers sent out on those bombing runs after the war was shameful.
It’s unfortunate that that was the experience for many. I read “The Forgotten Highlander” and it’s an astonishing tale of one soldier’s brushes with death and his fortitude as a POW when Singapore fell and coming back from the Far East, he’s treated like a VIP in the US, and later, nobody comes to meet them when he disembarks the ship in Scotland - no band, no people, no government. He just walked home. Suffice to say, he was bitter and I would be too given what he went through! It’s a remarkable book and one worth reading.
War is hell and it brings out the best in some and the worst in others.
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