RAF Hendley Museum

One of the finest air museums in the world sits in a northern suburb of London and I had the privilege of visiting it in December 2002. It's toward the end of one of London's tube lines, and a short walk from the subway station. . .but well worth the time to go and see.

Two fiberglass replicas of Spitfires dive together in frozen suspended animation out in front of the museum.

The museum contains fighters and bombers up to and including the near present. At the time of my visit, the museum had a fine multi-media exhibit on the Battle of Britain. It also contains uniforms and other artifacts of war.

Next time I'm in the neighborhood, I want to visit the Imperial War Museum and there's another RAF museum elsewhere worth visiting. Would also want to visit the cliffs of Dover to get a sense of the English channel.

Churchill's Bunker

Another fine place to visit while in London are the bunker offices of Winston Churchill. Locating the entrance to this is similar to locating the entrance to a non-commercial cave (you have to use a map and you have to think logically where the entrance could be, based on the general description of the place--at least, I had to.....and eventually found the entrance to this underground place a bit by accident.).

The museum contains background material displays, a conference room where Churchill and others met, situation rooms, a phone room where Churchill made secret transatlantic phone calls to President Roosevelt (transmissions were routed through a center in the basement of a department store on Oxford Street--store is still there today, I forget the name).

Most remarkable about the situation room is that the objects seen in the room are as they were when the doors were closed on X date. Maps strewn on the table. There's a map of the Atlantic that has hundreds of holes punched in it from where shipping was tracked.

Favorite World War II Movies

Here's a list of some of my favorite war movies:

--The Enemy Below
--Where Eagles Dare
--The Magnificent Seven
--Stalag 17
--The Great Escape
--Run Silent, Run Deep
--Sink the Bismarck
--The Battle of Britain
--Saving Private Ryan
--The Eagle Has Landed
--Rambo (all three)
--and there are a host of others I haven't seen in awhile, as well as a bunch I haven't seen yet (but people have recommended them to to me).

Why watch a war movie? It reminds one of beating the odds, how tentative life is, how deep the frustrations run for those fighting the war, and how far reaching the effects are of killing people. From a guy standpoint, the sheer power of seeing weapons used is exhilarating--why else do little boys (well, I know of one in particular) go around making explosion noises and drawing pictures of planes, ships and other vehicles. Kinda complex isn't it (or simpler than I think)?

Omaha Beach Part 1

It was probably the first Saturday in September 2004 when Chris Carson, his dad "Pops" and yours truly began our day of adventure in France's Normandy region (we had trained from Paris the night before and stayed in the Best Western Hotel in Caen).

After doing breakfast at the McDonald's in Caen (walking distance from the hotel), we took a taxi to the train station to pick up a rental car. Caen is a mixture of new and old--it has a castle or fortress, it has spreading lawn (as I recall a running track on grass), and it has streets. . .which after renting a car, we found a bit confusing.

We rented a small sporty Mercedes SUV (it's really not an SUV, but the one they sell in the US looks similar to what we rented, only what we rented was like a small car) and with the aid of a map, drove to Bayeaux, probably an hour away.

The D-Day Museum in Bayeaux is probably the finest collection of Allied and German uniforms and weapons I've ever seen, including the tanks displayed in its front and side yards. It has a fine documentary on D-Day as well.

We then drove to the American Cemetery at Colles-sur-? One of the colleagues at work there in France had referred us to a certain person who works at the American Cemetery and we met him at the Visitor Center. He provided us with a packet of material as well as French and American hand flags on sticks. Turns out that Matt Damon (star of Saving Private Ryan) had visited the cemetery the day before--he had been nearby at a film festival.

Our cemetery contact brought out a radio-controlled device and had one of us (I think it was Chris, may have been his dad) remotely start a recording of taps that you could hear throughout the cemetery. All visible in the cemetery stopped as taps was played. It was a moving moment, and probably not a person present there didn't shed a tear (I did).

We went into the cemetery itself where there is a large portico area with beautiful flowers and trees framed by maps of the battlefield, and overlooking the cemetery itself. I would have liked to have visited some of the noteworthy graves that our contact had pointed out to us on the cemetery map, but we didn't have time. We walked out to the overlook where you have a nearly unobstructed view both left, right and straight ahead of the beach. We hiked the serpentine trail down to the beach through what is now heavy undergrowth and stood on the beach. I took pictures of Chris and his dad, and they took a picture or two of me.

I hiked back up the trail to the overlook and waited for them to come up. To be continued...

Fountain Rock Nature Center and WWII

I always find it interesting when a worldwide event (or even a national event) comes close to home. A couple of months ago (this crazy blog software, when you set things to draft, saves the date of the draft, not when you're actually finishing this and posting it--which today is July 16), we went to the Fountain Rock Nature Center near Walkersville, Maryland.

While the nature center, though small, is remarkable, I found the lime kilns on its property even more interesting. You can still see the quarry even though it is filled with water. You can still see the explosives house and other related buildings, several of the surviving kilns somewhat intact (not sure how many of them have been restored) visible from the ground level and from the top of the kiln. And the Walkersville Railroad goes by a scan 25 feet away as you stare at the kiln openings.

What I found most interesting was that WWII German prisoners-of-war were brought to the lime kilns for the purposes of doing hard labor. Heh...serves 'em right!!!

Hurtgen Forest Deja Vu

One of my favorite things to do is to buy and read books. I'm not sure which I like better. If the book is cheap and I really want it, I'll buy it.

Some years ago, I happened to see any old Safeway food store in Rockville with the sign "Close-out Bargain Book Sale" or something similar on the outside. So, I wandered in and started fingering my way through the books. I found this dark thick hardback book with dark-green nearly invisible lettering on it which said, "The Battle of Hurtgen Forest". I believe the book was only a dollar, so I bought it, took it home, and read it. Turns out it was a history of one of the U.S. Army's worst defeats, where it fought an uphill battle against an entrenched German army in the Hurtgen Forest.

Not too long after I finished reading the book, Cousin Roberta died. At her "wake" at her son's house, we were sitting around the table and in comes this guy dressed in black suit and suspenders,looking like something out of the 1930s. I soon learned this large man was cousin Cal.

I found out that Cal had actually been at Hurtgen Forest and had driven a jeep for one of the generals. I've been meaning to go back and read that book and to try to figure out which general it was that he drove for. . .or to contact his family and see if they kept a record.