previous post next post  

This one's for you, Wendell

By The Armorer on March 5, 2004 | | Comments (3)
eagle.jpg
My dad flew Hurricanes with No. 71 Eagle Squadron. Originally his was the only Hurricane with the Disney designed boxing gloved eagle although some other pilots were photographed with it. In the early 90’s there was a private group in England restoring an Eagle Squadron Hurricane and in going through some of my dad’s papers there was correspondence from them on getting the colors right. He didn’t have any confirmed kills, but thought he had gotten even for being shot down once. Evidently the only way to get out of a Hurricane is to roll it over on its back, he couldn't do it so he had to crash land it. I’ve got a picture of him holding a big piece of the fabric with the roundel on it that he saved from the crash. He also survived a mid-air in Arizona that killed the other pilot. He died in 1994 and I wanted to say a good word about him. I miss him.
eagle2.jpg

Share This Article:

Categories:

3 Comments

By Wendell on March 6, 2004 7:25 AM
Thank you, John. That was very gracious.
 
By Wendell on March 6, 2004 8:35 AM
John, I’d like to share a story that I think you would appreciate. Before the squadron was operational they trained in the relative safety of Scotland. One day the entire squadron was out on deflection gunnery training. One of the guys was racking it around to bear on the target when a 109 cut him off to the inside, shot hell out of the target sleeve, and then ran back across the Channel. Dad said at their level of training he could have shot down the whole squadron if he wanted.
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 6, 2004 9:27 AM
That Messerschmitt pilot got a lot of free drinks from that little display of chutzpah!
 
© 2008 John Donovan
All rights reserved.