Easy Company

Spring break really crept up on me, it starts officially this Friday at 1:00 p.m. GMT.  As a group, we’re taking the EuroStar to Belgium for the weekend to kick the whole thing off.

But before we get there, I’ve got to start with my trip to the Royal Airforce Museum this past Sunday.  Dennis and I took the tube to Colindale, an old “aerodrome” the RAF used during WWII to scramble fighters against Nazi bombers blitzing London.  So needless to say there’s a lot of history at this place.  It was huge, there were four gigantic hangers total, and we saw 3 of them - I remembered there was a 4^th after we got back on the tube back to Central London.  There was a Japanese plane, multiple German and British planes and several American planes.  I think the crown jewels of their collection were the 2 gigantic bombers they had.  There was a Consolidated B-24 Liberator (I’m not sure what the “consolidated” is for…), a B-17 Flying Fortress and an Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.  These planes were huge:

Lancaster

Liberator

bomb bay for Lancaster Bomber

nose of Lancaster (the lighting was poor)

I thought these were real people driving up to get into the Super Fortress, I almost started telling them they couldn't do that....

tail of the Super Fortress

Tail of the Lancaster, loaned to the British

Another giant plane they managed to tuck away in the corner was the Britsh Vulcan B-2 Heavy Stealth Bomber.  I mean, I don’t want to freak you guys out with the weird names of these planes, but I’m fascinated with military history, and the roll different branches of the military played in winning a war.   

We tried to get the whole plane in, but it just wasn't possible

with the flash

Dennis, and what the lady said was only the partial pay-load capacity of this bomber

this is only half of the bomb bay of the plane, they said they could drop special forces into the water from here or something, I don't know exactly

They were restoring a British Halifax Heavy Bomber.  It was first recovered from the Channel in 1973 after getting shot-down laying mines in German shipping lanes I believe.  The plane was laying out on the floor of the hanger, with a crew of people inside actively working on it.  They even managed to recover the engines and propellers, which were prominently displayed in front of the wreck.  It was amazing to see the restoration at work.  I mean, if you don’t understand our past, how can you expect to accomplish anything in the future?

Pilots cabin

no landing gear, so they put down sand..... a lot of sand

nose section, you can see the forward gun turret all the way in the front and in the upper left the pilots cabin

part of the wing....that fell off

Ye olde restorers

So my spring break trip will not only take me to Belgium, but also to Paris and Bayeux, France.  Paris is a natural selection, where we plan to visit the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, The Lourve and several other places.  I think it will be loads of fun (obviously I’ll take pictures, goes without saying I think at this point).  Our trip to Bayeux though seems a little more mysterious unless you know your geography well.  Bayeux is pretty darn close to the Normandy Invasion beaches.  3 ½ out of the 4 people in our group are really interested in seeing at least one of the Invasion beaches from Operation Overlord.  The only thing I wish we could have added was a trip to Carentan.  That’s where Easy Company, 506^th Parachute Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division went through while they were securing their objectives on and a little after D-Day.  Easy Company was profiled in this epic 10-part series on HBO called Band of Brothers.   

I firmly believe after seeing that and Saving Private Ryan that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks should be the only people allowed to make war movies (Clint Eastwood did a pretty good job with Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima).  Anyway, we schedules a tour of Omaha Beach and an American Cemetery and some other sites.  We have to make our way to the Port of Caen to get our ferry to Portsmouth, England.  That should be epic as well.  I’ve never taken a ferry ride like this before so I’m really excited.  When we get to Portsmouth there is a train from there into Zone 1 in London and we’ll transfer to the proper tube line from there and be back at Crawford House safe and sound.  I’m really excited about all this, I can’t wait to get going already.

I’ll keep you guys posted (when I say that, I mean after I get back) so keep a look out.

“Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away”

~Anonymous

I also saw this in a Church built in the Hackney Borough of London inside a chapel for its soldiers killed during WWI and WWII:

"They whose names are given 

on these panels were members 

of Saint John-at-Hackney and were 

numbered among those who at 

the call of King and Country

left all that was dear to them,

endured hardness, faced danger, 

and finally passed out of the 

sight of men by the path of 

duty and self-sacrifice, giving 

up their own lives so that others 

might live in Freedom."

SEE YE TO IT THAT THEY

SHALL NOT HAVE DIED

IN VAIN

There's so much history, and this is just one out of hundreds churches in London, established in 1797 complete with Westminster Abby-like tombs in the floor and behind the walls for those who wished to be buried there.  Like I've said before, I'm a sucker for history...



Stay tuned…