A very special trip

[micharms]

Recently I got to spend almost 3 hours inside a restored Halifax bomber. This is the only fully restored Halifax in the world. There is another one in England but it has parts from Lancaster bombers. My father piloted one of these Halifaxes during the war. Along with me on the visit were my wife and the son of the tail gunner on the crew. What a moving experience it was to sit in a seat similar to the one in which my dad flew 40 missions. The overall average was 12 missions.

My wife had arranged for a reporter from the local newspaper to meet us at the RCAF Musuem in Trenton Ontario. Here is a link to the article. Vets I'm the tall good looking one on the right in the photo:biggrin:!

Michael

 

[thewishman]

That is a great story! You both must have had a great day. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Atherton Pens]

Too cool. It must have been an incredible experience!

 

[micharms]

Thanks Chris and Gary. It was an incredible day. The aircraft looked quite big from the outside and yet so small on the inside. It was a major chore to climb into the pilot's seat and I was wearing shorts and a golf shirt. I can't imagine trying to do it in one of the bulky flight suits they wore.

Michael

 

[micharms]

Here are a couple of the photos from the visit. The first shows me toward the rear inside and the second shows me sitting in the pilot's seat









Michael

 

[wee willie]

what a great story and the proud memories it must have brought

 

[PenPal]

Michael,

A mate of mine was a tail gunner in a Lancaster during WW2 on one trip coming back over Germany he had to ditch over enemy lines, find his own way back, not fun the plane recovered and the rest got home to England OK.

We have in our Australian War Memorial here a complete plane G for George fully restored in Canberra, quite a feature. As a yong fella during the War this plane was parked at the Airport for quite a while, remember souveneering some bits from it.

Enjoyed hearing of your experience.

Kind regards Peter.

 

[PenPal]

Just reread my note, reassured that my mate also made it back in the fulness of time.

He and I built our homes in the 1950,s in the same street and he married a friend of my sister and me.

Moving right along the rear gunner mate left this area and became a Woodworker in retirement and we met up again at a Working With Wood Show in Sydney some years ago.

Just a PS I suppose.

Kind regards Peter.

 

[Dalecamino]

Thanks for sharing this. That had to be quite an experience. They would have to drag me out of there.

 

[micharms]

Willie, Peter and Chuck thanks for your comments and sharing.

We had no idea that we would get as long as we did on the plane. I'm sure we could have spent hours more. Eric had driven 12 hours the day before and my wife and I got up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to Trenton to meet up with him. We were all pretty tired and we still had a 3 1/2 hour drive back to our place after the visit. We also hadn't eaten anything since early in the morning so were getting a bit hungry.

Michael