RAF early colour footage from 1940

[Smithy]

I don't think this has been posted here. Some really wonderful colour footage (real, not colourised) from RAF Aldergrove. Enjoy...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-26818893

 

[Stearmen]

When you watch those films, you always wounder, how many of those men didn't survive the war?

 

[Tiki Tom]

Yes, I wondered that too. Great footage. What strikes me is how much they look like regular young men; innocent and callow. How the next 5 years will test them and mature them.

The article notes that:

"What I find particularly poignant looking at the personnel featured in the film is that, some of them at least, would not have survived the war, because of course 502, like a lot of Coastal Command squadrons suffered considerable casualties during the Battle of the Atlantic," he said. 502 Squadron members went on to destroy six U-boats and a number of enemy merchant vessels in several theatres of war by 1945.​

Those were certainly unique days that turned boys into men more quickly and with a greater vengeance than most generations experience.