[recycled sixtie]

My father flew Lancasters in WW2 and did 2 tours. My father was not the talker here as my mother did the talking. My father was too modest. Apparently my father was never the same after WW2. I said to my mother why did he do 2 tours and she said if you survived the first one then you were expected to keep on going and do another.

He got the DFC for bringing back the Lanc in one piece after one engine was shot up. He was a heavy smoker and unfortunately passed in 1967 age 52 from cancer.

My father's mother had an atlas where the cities my father bombed were circled. I don't have that anymore. I have crawled up to the cockpit of a Lanc(I think it was in Vulcan Alberta). When you sit in the cockpit from the pilot's point of view and look back the wing is like a big barn door. To imagine piloting one of those aircraft when you were 21 is truly mind bogling. 45,000 aircrew casualties from several nations. And without the US the outcome might not have been the same.

Lest we forget.
Guy