Uwe ... 1/72 ... Airfix
It will be 70 years, this June, since dad was flown out of Burma on a Sunderland ... presently preparing 230 Sqn's summer newsletter and an article about that ...
Paul ... perfect fins ... museum quality can be too clinical for my taste but I can't have anything less than awe at the quality of those ... I like to add all the relevant distressing that they would have ... I'm going to work on a specific Sunderland but am still researching the true colours, as there are no relevant records I can find for them ...
This is a still from some footage I have from the rescue op - the only images (about 2 seconds) that exist of the pair of them on the upper Brahmaputra - I can even tell you the time and date from the alighting of "Daisy" in the background - I have been posting them on WWII Talk with quasi-permission from the IWM to try and initiate recognition of those rescued - hopefully I'll complete this book this year ... 16 years of off-and-on research and still pawing through files ...
It was simply nuts flying these aircraft through mountain passes and into central Burma to Lake Indawgyi - up to their operational ceiling to clear the mountains at times and during the start of the monsoon season ... 13 successful flights and a reputed 577 injured and sick troops rescued ... dad was wounded 3 times in 18 days of battle - shot, grenade shrapnel, and a mortar strike on the last day as they were evacuating their position ... took him 4 days, crossing mountains, to get to the rescue location ... no food or ammo left ... of his platoon of 40 men, only six survived ... of the circa 3000 that went in with his brigade, less than a third survived ... God bless General Stilwell for pushing sick, tired, ill-equipped, jungle fighters into a suicide mission, far too close to the rear of the front-line, all for his vanity ...