Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster.
Three aircraft that are responsible for my very presence here today.
Without the brave men who flew those planes, planned the strategies and allowed my country to retain its national identity, I would not have been born because it is unlikely that my Jewish mother would have survived childhood. I and my children owe them (and the other servicemen who fought around the world) a huge debt which I remember every Remembrance Sunday.
But, on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, it is the airmen that I remember and their aircraft that I also honour.
Immediately after the programme celebrating their victory, was an episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, which helped Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe from Friends) to chart her family tree.
Lisa’s ancestors came from Russia and a huge swathe of her family were killed and burned by the Nazis in a Jewish village called Ilia. It was almost impossible to hear her read an eye witness account of what happened in those terrible times when a large number of people were pushed into a pit and incinerated, whilst others were lined up and shot in groups of three, their bodies allowed to fall into a trench. Barbarically allowed to witness the demise of their fellows prior to their own execution.
To understand the full horror of man’s inhumanity to man purely because of ethnicity or religion is beyond words.
It is such a great thing to honor them that way. They are all brave heroes who deserve our thanks.
I’ve just caught up with the Lisa Kudrow programme. A hard programme to watch but I do think they are so important. When the numbers killed in the holocaust are bandied about it’s easy to lose sight of the people those numbers represent. Programmes like this and thinks like, eg, Ann Frank’s diary, bring those people sharply into focus; they make us realise what a loss each of those lives was. Trying to multiply that by millions is almost beyond comprehension.
Shelagh recently posted..Songs of the Auvergne
Very nice and apt sentiments expressed, lovely friend. I appreciated it. A dear old friend, now gone, was a Lancaster pilot and it always astonished me how brave souls like my friend could have done what they did. So many of us now are so soft.
I wasn’t aware of Lisa Kudrow’s family story. It makes me admire her even more. As it was she was the element that made Friends worth watching.
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Love it…I find military aircraft the most amazing and awesome pieces of technology. It’s too bad that they have to be such forces of death and destruction sometimes.
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xl – Every time I see the BoB Memorial Flight, my eyes fill up. The perform regularly with fly pasts at a lot of seaside airshows over here.
Shelagh – As you say, the number of people slaughtered is beyond comprehension. It was lovely to see the scenes at the end of the programme where they caught up with some old relatives but my overriding memory is of Lisa Kudrow reading that eye witness account.
MrW – It’s worth catching on iplayer if you can get it over there. I don’t think any of us can truly appreciate the bravery involved in going up into the air in a tin can day after day to fight off the attackers.
Kenny, I know what you mean but they are just so beautiful and the thunder that reverberates around the chest as they fly by cannot adequately be described. However, I often wonder what it must feel like to hear that noise and know that it pressages death and destruction.