Guess what I bought today?!

Anything off topic you wish to go on this forum goes here.
User avatar
Son of a gun-ner
Lieutenant-Colonel
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun May 07, 2017 8:49 pm
Location: Surrey UK

Re: Guess what I bought today?!

Post by Son of a gun-ner »

WCP RC MODELS wrote:Totally wicked, they are proper cool
Thank you :thumbup:
Something I've always wanted to get.
But now that I'm much older, and finally in a position to purchase such items, I'm more than happy to get them for another younger family member to enjoy :thumbup:
Mick - The grit in the underpants of life!
And always happy to spare the bytes

TOTM needs YOU :thumbup: support YOUR TOTM competition, I'm doing my part, are YOU?
User avatar
EAO
Warrant Officer 2nd Class
Posts: 1162
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 5:29 pm
Location: Central Missouri, U.S. of A.

Re: Guess what I bought today?!

Post by EAO »

Mick,

I was going to respond back to you about your Uncle's story, but spaced it out until this morning.

Of my two Uncle's who were in WW2, one joined the U.S.A.A.C. right after the attack at Pearl. He was always obsessed with airplanes as a kid. He built many balsa wood, rubber band powered models as a youngster (my Father accidentally wrecked a few of them and heard about it until my Uncle's passing in 1998). He was a watch maker and repairer by trade as a young adult, the Air Corp wanted him as a bombardier because of this skill. He had never had an eye test in his life and thought he had 20/20 vision. He failed the eye exam several times!

He thus found himself in an aircraft maintenance role in the 8th Air Force. He was based in England and worked with B-24 Liberators. His job was to tow these planes backwards into their earthen revetments for protection from aerial attacks. Being that these planes were of a tricycle landing gear configuration, they had a small skid near the tail that could be lowered to protect the tail of the plane in case of dragging it upon landing. He would hook a sling around this skid and them slowly back the plane into it's parking spot using a small tractor tug before exiting back out under one of the wings. At one point the sling broke under the weight of the plane, and with the momentum and enormous weight of the bomber it rocked backwards and down, and the twin 50 caliber tail guns hit him in the small of the back and instantly paralyzed him from the waist down.

He spent about a year in one of the hospitals in the U.K. before being sent back to the States. He always spoke highly of the Doctor's and Nurse's over there, and said the care was the best he ever had. At any rate, he fell in love with his nurse and they were married and came back to the States to live out the rest of their lives together. She was quite a bit older than him and passed away in the mid 1980's. He lived until 1998, the entire time in his wheel chair.

After returning back home, he went back to his watch business which he did up until his passing. The only model he built after the war was a B-17 Flying Fortress with a 3 foot wingspan. It was perfectly done to scale and built out of wood, plastic, and metal. It had working landing gear, turrets, flaps, airlerons, hatches, swing down steps, navigation lights, bomb bay doors, and propellers. Everything had small electric motors to power them and a very thick "umbilical" cord that could be plugged in to provide power to the model. The "controller" was mounted on a podium and was about the size of the dash board on a 1970's compact car. After his death, it was donated to our hometown VFW hall as no one could in the family could decide who should get it :'( . It's been many years since I've last seen it, and it looked like it needed some TLC as it was definitely aging.

At any rate; what I was originally getting to before rambling off, was love in a time of war. During the biggest sh#t storm to hit this planet, some lucky one's could still find love. I've always found the dichotomy of these situations fascinating.

I guess at some point I should dig out some pictures of him and put them in the correct area : Ancestor's Forum!
Regards,
Eric.
Last edited by EAO on Sun Nov 08, 2020 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"You can always tell a German, you just can't tell him much." Anonymous.

German cars, German girls, German beer, German firearms, German Shepherds, German motorcycles... Not necessarily in that order though!

UP THE IRONS!
User avatar
Son of a gun-ner
Lieutenant-Colonel
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun May 07, 2017 8:49 pm
Location: Surrey UK

Re: Guess what I bought today?!

Post by Son of a gun-ner »

Interesting story Eric. Thank you for sharing :thumbup:
Mick - The grit in the underpants of life!
And always happy to spare the bytes

TOTM needs YOU :thumbup: support YOUR TOTM competition, I'm doing my part, are YOU?
Post Reply

Return to “Off topic”