Thank you
- Thread starter DavidWhite
- Start date
CMTowner
Line Up and Wait
How true. Thank you
+1 !
David- thanks for starting the thread.
David- thanks for starting the thread.
Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
We are chock-full of veterans tonight, of course (we gave the rooms away to any U.S. veteran or active duty military), and the cable TV on the island has gone down.
This has been the best possible thing that could have happened, as -- one by one -- our veteran guests have come to the lobby to borrow a DVD movie or two. (All of our rooms have DVD players, and we have over 200 aviation movies available for free checkout.)
While they are here, I have been able to chat with them about their service. We have every war represented tonight, from WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Gulf I and Gulf II, but (so far) the most fascinating guy has been an old WWII vet who reported to Hap Arnold.
He flew in B-17s (ball turret), B-24s (navigator/bombardier), and B-32s. I had never met anyone who flew in the Dominator -- a short-lived super-heavy bomber that was the size of a B-29. The war ended, and so did the Dominator, so few guys got to fly it, and no example of the aircraft survives.
When he and his crew picked up the plane, it was still designated the "X-32". That's how new it was! It was Hap Arnold's personal project, and only the best got to fly in it.
This gentleman (a guy with two doctorates, who is working on another one -- at age 87!) had lots of stories about the war. The first 18 days he was at gunnery school, the flags were at half-mast, due to daily casualties. (One in particular was a P-51 that crashed into a B-24 as they practiced gunnery, killing all aboard both planes.) Another was the time he tried to pull the B-17 up with his butt muscles, as he was in the ball turret when the pilot flew so low that they actually scraped the top of the mesquite trees. (He said the heat shrouds on his twin fifties were full of mesquite branches after they landed.
Fun times tonight at the inn!
This has been the best possible thing that could have happened, as -- one by one -- our veteran guests have come to the lobby to borrow a DVD movie or two. (All of our rooms have DVD players, and we have over 200 aviation movies available for free checkout.)
While they are here, I have been able to chat with them about their service. We have every war represented tonight, from WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Gulf I and Gulf II, but (so far) the most fascinating guy has been an old WWII vet who reported to Hap Arnold.
He flew in B-17s (ball turret), B-24s (navigator/bombardier), and B-32s. I had never met anyone who flew in the Dominator -- a short-lived super-heavy bomber that was the size of a B-29. The war ended, and so did the Dominator, so few guys got to fly it, and no example of the aircraft survives.
When he and his crew picked up the plane, it was still designated the "X-32". That's how new it was! It was Hap Arnold's personal project, and only the best got to fly in it.
This gentleman (a guy with two doctorates, who is working on another one -- at age 87!) had lots of stories about the war. The first 18 days he was at gunnery school, the flags were at half-mast, due to daily casualties. (One in particular was a P-51 that crashed into a B-24 as they practiced gunnery, killing all aboard both planes.) Another was the time he tried to pull the B-17 up with his butt muscles, as he was in the ball turret when the pilot flew so low that they actually scraped the top of the mesquite trees. (He said the heat shrouds on his twin fifties were full of mesquite branches after they landed.
Fun times tonight at the inn!
ajstoner21
Cleared for Takeoff
Thanks!
Keith Lane
Pattern Altitude
A really good story/photo essay on CNN.com
http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/?hpt=hp_c2
Take the time to read the story of how Tom Sanders came to do this project under "The Story" in the sidebar at the right. How few of us get the insight offered to this photographer, even fewer act on that insight, and fewer still do it so well.
I found in my pocket change today a quarter minted in 1943. I just sat there and thought of all going on in the world when that coin was new and shiny.
Thanks to all veterans, of wartime and peacetime.
Because of decisions made in the time of my youth, I cannot count myself among you and it is my loss.
http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/?hpt=hp_c2
Take the time to read the story of how Tom Sanders came to do this project under "The Story" in the sidebar at the right. How few of us get the insight offered to this photographer, even fewer act on that insight, and fewer still do it so well.
I found in my pocket change today a quarter minted in 1943. I just sat there and thought of all going on in the world when that coin was new and shiny.
Thanks to all veterans, of wartime and peacetime.
Because of decisions made in the time of my youth, I cannot count myself among you and it is my loss.
Thank YOU Jay!
I dunno where the new thanks the vet campaigns came from, but I'm all for it.
You guys go get some free meals today.
http://www.applebees.com/thankyoumovement
http://militarymoneymight.com/2010/11/start-early-2010-free-veterans-day-meals/
I dunno where the new thanks the vet campaigns came from, but I'm all for it.
You guys go get some free meals today.
http://www.applebees.com/thankyoumovement
http://militarymoneymight.com/2010/11/start-early-2010-free-veterans-day-meals/
Geico266
Touchdown! Greaser!
Last edited:
Juliett
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Pilawt
I posted this on the Purple Board last June. It seems appropriate to repeat it today.
Yesterday my wife and I flew the 172 to Fallbrook CA to visit my stepmother for a couple of days. Today she took us to lunch and introduced us to a friend and the friend's husband. To say the conversation was fascinating would be an understatement.
Turns out that the friend's husband, now 92 years of age but seemingly much younger, is truly one of "The Greatest Generation." In WW2 he flew TBF and TBM torpedo bombers, and in October 1943 was assigned to the escort carrier Liscome Bay, CVE-56. Barely a month later CVE-56 was torpedoed by a Japanese sub and sank, with the loss of two-thirds of her crew. This gentleman was able to dive off the exploding ship, and help two wounded shipmates stay afloat for some two hours before they were rescued. The following year he was reassigned to fighters, flying Hellcats and Corsairs from the Hornet until the end of the War. His eyes twinkled as he told me that in over a hundred carrier landings he never had a waveoff.
I'd never heard of Liscome Bay before, so I Googled it on my iPad there at the lunch table. Lo and behold I found a photo of a 1943 newspaper clipping of ten of the Liscome Bay survivors arriving in San Francisco, with our new friend being one of them.
It was quite an emotional, inspiring lunch.
Turns out that the friend's husband, now 92 years of age but seemingly much younger, is truly one of "The Greatest Generation." In WW2 he flew TBF and TBM torpedo bombers, and in October 1943 was assigned to the escort carrier Liscome Bay, CVE-56. Barely a month later CVE-56 was torpedoed by a Japanese sub and sank, with the loss of two-thirds of her crew. This gentleman was able to dive off the exploding ship, and help two wounded shipmates stay afloat for some two hours before they were rescued. The following year he was reassigned to fighters, flying Hellcats and Corsairs from the Hornet until the end of the War. His eyes twinkled as he told me that in over a hundred carrier landings he never had a waveoff.
I'd never heard of Liscome Bay before, so I Googled it on my iPad there at the lunch table. Lo and behold I found a photo of a 1943 newspaper clipping of ten of the Liscome Bay survivors arriving in San Francisco, with our new friend being one of them.
It was quite an emotional, inspiring lunch.
The press' legendary accuracy is consistent throughout time.