RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

jarndice wrote:
If you have need of a place to start why not phone or visit your local British Legion,
But be careful you could be stuck there for hours getting your ear bent by some old soldier
Shaun.

...and then they'll likely bend a few elbows too! At this point, as heroic as it undoubtedly was being suspended from silk (weren't nylons too? ), or skimming in on fragile wing, I'd like to mention the bravery of our Reconnaisance/Scouting
units. They were often the first to find the enemy, and the first to encounter a stream of lead, or an 88mm shell . They were airborne too, ( 6th Airborne Armd. Recce-switched their wee Tetrarch tanks for Cromwells, eventually). I've been reading Richard Doherty's 'The British Reconnaissance Corps in WW2 (Pub: Osprey), and it points out the 43rd Recce (my late Father and Uncle's unit..) were the first British troops to reach the Seine (by hobnail boot, tyres, and tracks .. but not silk ), and along with
51st Recce (51st Highland Division) pretty much the first British troops to enter Germany, near the Reichswald (Goch).. They, and other Recce units, also took heavy losses racing to support the Yanks in the 'Bulge', and went to the rescue of the beleaguered Paras during 'Market Garden' (Arnhem),. That was 43rd Wessex, 15th scottish, and 52nd Lowland recce units. At other times, they took often heavy losses supporting trapped infantry units. Their 2-pounders, Brens, 3in mortars were no real match for 75mms and 88s; but they relied on speed and guts.
Maybe someday, they'll merit a movie..

I have nothing but the highest praise for anyone in a Recce unit, Primarily because a lot of my work involved just that,
I cannot talk about all the jobs we did but one of them was flying around the "Wall & Fence" surrounding Berlin in British Army Helicopters in the Daytime and United States Army Huey's in the night,
They were chock full of state of the art sensors as well as cameras and Binos.
The East German Army did not like us very much as we flew past their towers and they got really pi**ed off at night with us,
Shining there searchlights at us and as we passed they rotated the light to alert the next tower,
What they did not know was that while they were giving one of us grief we were being shadowed by another Helicopter filming the live firing ranges of the Soviet Armed Forces a couple of Ks away
Shaun.

A great subject for a film, I hope they do it justice.

In the meantime, I'm getting a bit excited about this one: http://www.dunkirkmovie.com/. The writer/director has some serious form as does the cast so it should be a cracker. I might even make a rare visit to a theater for it.

B_Man wrote:A great subject for a film, I hope they do it justice.

In the meantime, I'm getting a bit excited about this one: http://www.dunkirkmovie.com/. The writer/director has some serious form as does the cast so it should be a cracker. I might even make a rare visit to a theater for it.

It looks very promising, and Christopher Nolan has an impressive body of work behind him as a director. The was an excellent B & W film, as also called 'Dunkirk', made in 1958, and starring the ever watchable John Mills as Corporal 'Tubby' Binns, with Bernard Lee ("M" in early Bond flicks), and a nervy Richard Attenborough as 'little ships' owners. The scenes on the beach depicted there, were probably not surpassed in scale, authenticity, and detail until 'The Longest Day" came along, and then 'Private Ryan'. Even now, I find that old classic has something to offer. Unusually too (for that time), most of it was shot out of doors. Apparently, the bunker used by 'Vice Admiral Ramsay' was the actual one used during the evacuation.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051565/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt