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Post by PB on Nov 10, 2016 11:05:59 GMT
As has been done for the past few years, anyone wishing to join us will be welcome as we spend a few minutes to remember the aircrews of RAF Hartford Bridge who failed to return. The Airport has asked me to say a few words, how could I refuse?
Meeting in front of the Control Tower. 10.55.
PB
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Post by rj on Nov 10, 2016 11:53:42 GMT
I will try and make it, sometimes go to Odiham as they have a Chinook flypast down the high street.
Rob
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Post by PB on Nov 10, 2016 12:17:08 GMT
OK Rob, no fly-pasts, just my dulcet tones for a few minutes - and wreath laying for those no longer flying from Hartford Bridge..
P
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Post by exeglkflyer on Nov 11, 2016 9:34:35 GMT
Work precludes my attendance unfortunately, but will be attending a big annual event (at my former Military School) on Sunday.
Respect to you PB for doing this.
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Post by rj on Nov 13, 2016 11:17:30 GMT
Don't know what happened today? There were a couple of wreaths laid by the tower but 11am came a went or was this on Friday?  Rob |
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Post by PB on Nov 13, 2016 14:00:25 GMT
Eleventh day of the eleventh month at eleven o'clock... Friday.
Apologies if this was not made clear, but my note was placed on the morning of the 11th - I guess I should have made it more obvious it was for that morning, although "POTD" that morning confirmed the time, place and date.......... I think it was the third time the airport had asked me to cast a few words on 11/11. Beautiful day, and quite a few came to share the moment.
PB
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oap
Junior Member
Posts: 24 
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Post by oap on Nov 14, 2016 10:43:37 GMT
Confusion, I'm afraid.
Busy with other Remembrance Day activities on Sunday.
Mike
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Post by PB on Nov 14, 2016 23:22:16 GMT
It's quite daunting addressing a group of people in the open air and saying a few words I hoped would be appropriate.
For those who were not able to attend but interested to know what was said at our gathering...
" The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.... the passing years have given those words such sombre meaning. The years have sped by, but those of us lucky enough to have enjoyed them and peace, bought at such a price by so many, can at least give a few minutes of our hard earned freedom to remember. - and be thankful.
Being relatively young, I have never known conflict or war first hand, although it is so well documented, the stark horror and nerve chewing fear remains beyond imagination.
Looking around the airfield today little evidence of her military past can be seen, although her very birth was due to the needs of the last world war. 74 years ago, November 1942, next year we celebrate her 75th but not in November.
Look around - and imagine the scene if you will. Hangars no doubt full of the sounds of aircraft being worked on backed by cheery whistling of the guys doing the necessary work.
Nissen huts all over the place. On a cold November morning smoke gently rising from their chimney stacks, bicycles - the prime surface transport - everywhere.
The bomb dump over there, the massive fuel store over there where thousands of drums of aviation fuel awaited their call.. The air base village over there, self contained with shops, dance hall etc etc. RAF Hartford Bridge was a close and self contained community, a community very aware of loss when the dark days took their toll on home based aircrews. And they did. The likes of the Free French Lorraine Squadron who flew from here to regularly bomb their home land, or the Dutch Spitfires who took on Nazi flying bombs, Mosquitoes that photographed so much enemy territory prior to D Day, the smoke laying Bostons whose work was hard to miss on D Day.
The aircraft, Bostons, Mitchells, Mosquitoes, Spitfires, Mustangs plus the transport types, Stirlings and Dakotas, bringing home the injured. Imagine, it's not easy..
What those crews experienced is impossible for us to know, but we can try to imagine. My nearest to sharing their experiences has been flying in various WW2 bombers over the years..Flying from here in the nose turret of a B25 brought it home. OK, I was sat on a bar stool and had a broom handle gun for defence, but the noise and creaking perspex as the airspeed built was intense. The prospect of flak and enemy fighters waiting ahead must been daunting to the extreme. That perspex turret would have been a tempting target, it certainly gave me the utmost sympathy and admiration for those who did this in anger, regularly, or until they failed to return.
Our thanks and appreciation must remain strong and resolute - its the least we can do.. It is my hope that we will build a permanent memorial to the airfield's fallen of WW2, perhaps this time next year? But for now we can but remember, be grateful, and never forget what those young aircrew did - and the price they were willing to pay.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun AND in the morning
We WILL remember them. "
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