November 2009 - Brussels Air Museum Foundation

SNIPPET: Another
connected W.A.A.F., Mick Manning’s mother, served in
the ‘Y’ Service
listening to German radio.
Mick and his wife are writing a companion book to ‘Tail
End
Charlie’ about her experiences.
It was good to seee so many signatures being written
into
copies of
‘Tail End Charlie’ at the re-union.
EDITOR’S NOTES
There is something special about the November newsletter; it is written immediately after the
Re-union. It is great to meet so many of you. However I must not ignore those of you who were
unable to
come; Russ will tell you about the
important things so I will comment personally
and
for some, you will have heard it before. Talking about ladies and the
Re-union, it was also good
to see the
lively little
white haired mine of information on Great Massingham and its Squadrons,
called Sister Laurie,
back with
us. She is the one who obtained and translated the diary story
of Yves Gueguen’s escape (below). To those of you who have ‘met’ The Gal From Kalamazoo
[A Mitchell whose ‘ diary’ I have written] Sister Laurie
has current
contacts with 342 Lorraine
Squadron
with whom The Gal finished her
flying ‘life’; ‘Harry’ Harrison was
who flew in her
was at the re-union. Another recent contact, Hein Koudjuis of the
Dutch airworthy Mitchell’s
crew sent me photo’s
of a genuine 320 Sqn. B.25 on static display; not always well cared for she
appears on the back page with a heartfelt wish. Many of the nose art pictures came from Stuart
Marshalll [Ret’d Airport Manager, Blackbushe], who has passed his research
archives to
Reg
Day’s Memorial Museum at the sister airfield at Dunsfold www.regdaysmemorialmuseum.co.uk
Those of
you at the re-union may
have had a glimpse of his history of Hartford Bridge in WW2.
As you can see, we have decided to revert to the home printed style for Dispersals [UK ‘A4’
version]. Pro printing proved to be a costly hassle.
Peter
A NIGHT VISITOR BY THE DOZEN
FROM
YVES GUEGUEN’S DIARY
Translated and sent to
us by Sister Laurence Mary
BIER FEST - GUEGUEN’S ESCAPE continued
From the
meeting place in Pau…
At the stated time, a lorry stopped in front of us, but it was full of
Germans. We weree stunned, frozen to the spot, when the driver, a
civilian, came up and
explained in bad French that as a Spanish refugee,
he was a member of the Network and drove the lorry which was
delivering supplies in
the Pyrenees. He was to drive to Orloron through
the tightly controlled
forbidden zone. A quick briefing was given to
the
Englishmen, who accepted all this withoutt any understanding. They
were presented to the NCO as co-drivers
for the owner, who had
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