I belong to a fan club of one of the greatest pilots of WWII. He is 96 years old and lives in Macon, GA. His first book, “God is my Co-Pilot” sold over 12 million copies and was made into a WWII movie in 1943.
This e-mail was sent by a Frenchman that was replying to the annoucement of the death of the Pilot of the Memphis Belle and of the D-Day reunion. This was the first B-17 that completed 25 bombing runs over Europe without full escorting fighters. The odds were that you would be dead or shot down before your 20th mission. The movie in the '90s while entertaing, does not accuratly depict what really occured.
Here is to our old Allies and once friends.
Here is his email,
> Hi my friend,
> faithful conductor of the famous fan club,
> your last message about Colonel Morgan
> arrived in confused time. I understand that old pilots
> prefer to go and fly elsewhere, in a clearer sky.
> This is why we should likely not be too sad
> when time has come.
> I know it’s easy too speak wisely hundreds miles away
> when we are not very close to people concerned.
> Yet I don’t forget some flew these hundred miles
> and others sailed them to land in the sand
> on a grey morning of Normandy.
> It is going to be the 60th Anniversary.
> It is entering the great book of History.
> Time has come for a restful fall for so many actors
> who gave their young spring of life for Freedom.
> It is a fact that part of the beneficiaries of their sacrifice
> have a short memory.
> Early after the war, there were political, ideological
> and other State reasons to forget “private Ryan”.
> Today the liberated country has changed
> and find new reasons to be not grateful.
> Melting-pot with far countries and cultures,
> lacks of teaching and school system
> and unfortunately the late events
> in the Middle East make that many people
> do not share anymore the same symbols
> than those my parents respected.
> This is to say that there are always grating voices.
> Please, don’t listen to them because few are sincere.
> Around the Anniversary (D)Day, let us think to people
> who acted, not to people who speak.
> It is not time to regret commemoration.
> I remember a French movie, a comedy you probably don’t know.
> It showed June, the 6th in a small village of Normandy
> during the Sixties and the Seventies. Year after year,
> there were less and less persons taking part
> to the ceremony in front of the monument of memory.
> I know that the director did not look for a comic effect.
> At that time, TV news even forgot sometimes to remember this Day.
> Believe me, it was a shame for people who were not involved
> in the business or political affairs and interests of these years of missing.
> My family lived near Paris at the end of the war.
> My mother and aunts told me stories about this period.
> Of course, June, the 6th bring a mountain of hope
> but bombs, starvation and fear of reprisal were still
> their way of life for about two months.
> And one day, a German army retreated under their windows.
> Doors have to be left opened and the parade of defeat
> long lasted. Ghosts of the wounded and lost soldiers
> filled the whole following night.
> In the silent morning, my aunt went out to have news
> when she heard again the sound of an engine.
> It came from the forest of Senart, the direction the Germans disappeared
> but this time she saw her first American motorcyclist.
> Patton was coming !
>
> Nobody knows the future.
> The fools and the brutes may wish to fire again the fuse.
> I even believe it could be possible that we should not be
> on the same side of the ligne of fire.
> I remember Gene Hackman in “A Bridge too far”. He played a Polish general
> of paratroopers. He and his men were launched at the forward position
> of the operation “Market Garden” to control the bridges on the river Rhin.
> At the end, he has to retreat because he reached “a bridge too far”.
> He is debriefing with other generals. They are looking to explain
> why Market Garden did not completely succeeded : wheather,
> intelligence, hierarchy and so on and he concludes in that spirit :
> “Gentlemen, all that began when two men standed in front of each other
> and decided to make war.”
> At the beginning, what trouble is worth the “Johnny got his guts”,
> the young soldier who gathers his belly in his hands ?
> Let us take care that the fools and the brutes will not be among us
> as they were among Germans and Japoneses.
> Part of us is fool and brute and tempted by chaos.
> It is useful to protect us from foreign threats
> but it is up to us to keep it under control.
> Not easy, French torture in Algeria
> would stop me to give lesson to anybody else
> if it was my purpose.
> I only try to live the better way with a few questions and
> less answers.
> Little boring fellow, don’t you think am I ?
>
> Believe me, I don’t regret the German army band
> trooping along the Champs-Elysées Avenue.
> It would never leave this place on its own.
> May be a Colonel Morgan and fellows helped so.
> Sure he will re-form his crew and go for a walk
> over France next sunday in a good checked Belle.
> Nobody to tell anymore : “You’re too old to fly,
> you’re too old to jump, you’re too old to… live.”
> Good Bye Colonel, Farewell
> and feel free to wander the shadow of your Flying Fortress
> where you want. You deserved it.
>
> Hello George and the Staff,
> Best memory to The General,
> You all are closer to us
> on this early June.
> Michel.