I Met An Interesting Guy......

[H2RICK]

at a wedding I attended two weeks ago.
He's a Canadian who served in the only Royal Canadian Air Force Pathfinder squadron in RAF's Bomber Command during WWII......405 Squadron. He served as a navigator and flew 46 combat bombing missions over Germany before ending up as a POW.......6 missions on Halifaxes and 40 missions on Lancasters. His plane was shot down and he bailed out on his 46th mission on May 25, 1944.
He and one of his buddies in the crew hooked up and, with the help of the Resistance, moved across Holland, Belgium and part of France. Unfortunately, they were captured by the Germans about 8 or 9 days after D-Day and ended up in Luft Stalag III.This Stalag became famous for the mass escape attempted by some inmates and their story was immortalized in the movie "The Great Escape". The escape took place on the night of March 24-25, 1944. Contrary to what Hollywood showed in the movie, there were ONLY British and Commonwealth personnel involved in the escape.

This gentleman is a living, breathing piece of history and it was a genuine pleasure to spend a number of hours quizzing him about his experiences. He's been a part of an oral history project and is currently writing a book about his wartime experiences.

Recommended reading (besides Wikipedia):

Bomber by Len Deighton
The Wooden Wolf by John Kelly

Both books are fiction but Deighton's book gives you a very good insight into what it was like to actually be involved in a bombing mission over Germany......and the results of such a mission on the people on the ground. The Kelly book gives a good idea of the work done by the Pathfinders.
There are also non-fiction works by various Pathfinder personnel.

[johnakay]

back in the 70's I've worked with many w2 vets and the stories were completely different to what we see in the movies.
some also fought the japs in Burma.
also one chap was a prisoner in colditz but he wouldn't say much apart it was bloody awful and starving most of the time.

[titan performance]

Wow....I would be the same Rick, if I met that guy I could listen to his experiences forever, and the wedding would very much end up taking back stage.
Lucy and I went to a fayre last summer, and got talking to an elderly gent in RAF uniform on a stall set up like a WWII ops room. He was telling us about bombing missions etc, and we stood talking, or listening to him for a couple of hours......and that wasn't long enough to be honest....he was amazing, just like your guy, and he was so pleased that we were so interested in his stories......