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Oh, I say...well done, old man!
In two weeks I’ll be watching Spitfires and Hurricanes playing over West Sussex. I will think about Wing Commander Freeborn....
Another hero gone...RIP
A salute to Wing Commander John Connell Freeborn.
A Spitfire performed at the Atlantic City Air Show on August 25.
The appearance was awesome.
I think you could read 50 books about the aircraft and the men who flew it, but your education can’t be complete until you soak in that sight and sound. I hope we never forget those men and those planes and what they did.
Thank you for this most-interesting post.
And thank you, John Connell Freeborn; may you rest in well-deserved peace.
Rest in Peace sir, rest in peace you have earned it.
Huh. Wing Commander Freeborn’s Wikipedia entry says his first post in the US was in Alabama. My dad was a flight instructor at Gunter AB near Montgomery in late ‘41 and early ‘42. Maybe they met, or worked together. Dad never said anything about seeing Betty Grable there, however (though he did see Ingrid Bergman at Orly Airport in Paris after VE day—I’m pretty sure no affair ensued).
Allen Appel paints Betty Grabel as a major slut in his Alex Balfour historical time travel novels. It seems to have been true. I never thought much of her legs either; too skinny.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Aug 20, 1940 Sir Winston Churchill
The week including the end of August and the beginning of September 1940 was perhaps the most crucial of the whole thing. Come and check it out if you haven't already.
The Spitfire is the most beautiful plane ever and that is saying something as just about all WWII era planes were great looking.
May he rest in peace.
RIP.
RIP Commander Freeborn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNB8VbFmlOY
I believe this clip was from the 1969 film “The Battle of Britain”.
Talley Ho Wing Commander John Connell Freeborn.