The Hamilton Firefly,and a story that blew my socks off

[GUY5Y]

Soon after visiting the Hamilton Airshow,my in laws came to see us.I had "checked him out" and found he had flown 147 combat missions.(Group Commander Hi Spector)He really does not want to talk of the past,but very occasionally does.As an example,I asked him "147 times over Germany"?. He said I thought it was 87.......but there again,I could be wrong,I stopped counting.I asked him,"why".His dead pan reply was "I read the odds,thought I should better stop while I`m still alive``To cut a long story short,he knows I `play with plastic``,and is not remotely interested in anything with wings on.However,with the women out of the room,I told him I had been to Hamilton,and seen the Mossie(he was a pathfinder leader flying Mossies at the end of the war).would you like to see the photos......sure he said.He duly looked at the pics,shrugged,said it looked familiar..Then the point of my story.``tell me `` he asked.``Is there a Firefly still there`.I said yes,and still flying.He commented that that was nice,and had heard it to be so.I asked him why he knew of it....over to him ``well in 1946,they didn`t know what to do with me,so they told me to go to Hamilton,and pick up a B25,then head up to the North for photo mapping.I parked the damn thing there.Guess no one ever went to get it back.`` And so with that,a photo of the aircraft,and the pilot 67 yrs later,with his great grand son on his lap

[benjaminsummerfield]

A lot of veterans become detached from their wartime mounts, I suppose it's a way of dealing with war.