Mmm, olives...
Momo and Lili
Yes, we are THOSE people, middle-aged with a little dog.
Thanksgiving, Danny 'practices' carving. Next year, HIS house..
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving
Mmm, olives...Momo and LiliYes, we are THOSE people, middle-aged with a little dog.Thanksgiving, Danny 'practices' carving. Next year, HIS house..
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Hugh is KO'd in the first round
Sunday, November 20, 2011
magnificent trip!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
ahh paris
Two hour class on french wines (got pretty tipsy!).Sainte- Chapelle windows, Touring Paris in the backseat of a Citroen, driven by Gabriel, a University student, magnificient driver and narrator!Friday, November 18, 2011
Pooters
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Hawker's Memorial
This is the Times' write up of the memorial we attended...
The Red Baron’s toughest opponent is honoured at last
Standard bearers from the RAF and Richthofen squadron in Ligny-Thilloy
Times photographer, Richard Pohl
- 1 of 1Standard bearers from the RAF and Richthofen squadron in Ligny-Thilloy Times photographer, Richard Pohle
The last time pilots from 24 Squadron RAF came together with Manfred von Richthofen’s unit at Ligny-Thilloy it was a less convivial affair than the remembrance service yesterday near the village war memorial.
While the Armistice Day gathering concluded in the village hall with kir and caviar, the event being commemorated ended with a British aircraft buried nose-first in a French field, its Royal Flying Corps pilot dead before he hit the ground.
Airmen from Richthofen Fighter Wing 71, the successor to the Red Baron’s Jasta II, joined with their former adversaries in a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the unveiling of a monument to Major Lanoe Hawker, Britain’s first air ace and Richthofen’s greatest adversary.
Although Hawker, the first pilot to receive a Victoria Cross, was only Richthofen’s 11th victim out of a total of 80, the German recalled in his memoirs that he was the hardest to bring down. As a mark of respect, the German air force buried Hawker with full military honours where his body was pulled from his DH2 fighter, but the headstone was lost as the Western Front shifted back and forth over the site.
The new memorial is designed to be the grave that Hawker would have had if his body had been recovered.
His duel is renowned as one of the longest one-on-one dogfights of the First World War. Hawker corkscrewed around Richthofen for almost half an hour before concerns about fuel forced him to try to return back to the Allied side of the trenches.
The British pilot had taken off from Bertangles Aerodrome at 1pm on November 23, 1916, and had crossed no man’s land when he spotted a pair of German aircraft below. It is unlikely he had spotted another ten enemy planes nearby when he began his attack, although it is tempting to suggest that he might have dived anyway. His aggression in the air was summed up by a flight briefing he had honed down to two words: “Attack everything.”
Despite the help of the rest of his flight, Hawker eventually found himself alone with a tenacious opponent in an Albatross D. II, an aircraft that outperformed the DH2 in every important respect. The Albatross was faster and had a higher rate of climb. It also had twin belt-fed machineguns, so unlike Hawker, the Red Baron never had to steer his aircraft with one hand while replacing the drum of a Lewis gun with the other.
Hawker’s only advantage was a tighter turning circle. Nonetheless, he managed to keep Richthofen at bay, as the German recalled in a memoir that he wrote. “We circled around and around like madmen,” he wrote. “20 times to the left . . . 30 times to the right. Soon I discovered this was no beginner.”
He eventually “succeeded in getting above and behind my English waltzing partner” and at 3,000ft Hawker gave Richthofen a wave as if to say “Hello, how are you”, the Red Baron recalled. “My Englishman was a good sportsman, but by and by he began to discover [the gravity of the situation]. He tried to escape by flying a zig-zag course.” They were 50 yards from one another and skimming the treetops when Richthofen let off a final volley before his gun jammed. It was enough. One bullet went into the back of Hawker’s head, killing him instantly. His adversary saw the DH2’s nose hit the ground: “His machinegun rammed itself into the earth, and now it hangs over my door.”
Flight Lieutenant Phil Mobbs, a Qualified Flying Instructor for 24 Squadron who helped to raise £10,000 to build the memorial and arrange for a replica DH2 to fly to France for the ceremony, said the duel coincided with a turning point in the air war. “It very neatly marks the end of British superiority in the air until Bloody April, in 1917,” he said. “That was the low point, when the life expectancy of a pilot went from three weeks to 17½ hours.”
Stewart Smith, who flies the replica DH2, was grounded yesterday by low cloud, but he intends to re-enact Hawker’s route today. It will be the first time the throaty growl of a DH2 engine will have been heard over the Western Front since 1918.
The inscription on the memorial notes that Hawker died at the age of 25. It ends with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, and say to all the world, this was a man.”
While the Armistice Day gathering concluded in the village hall with kir and caviar, the event being commemorated ended with a British aircraft buried nose-first in a French field, its Royal Flying Corps pilot dead before he hit the ground.
Airmen from Richthofen Fighter Wing 71, the successor to the Red Baron’s Jasta II, joined with their former adversaries in a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the unveiling of a monument to Major Lanoe Hawker, Britain’s first air ace and Richthofen’s greatest adversary.
Although Hawker, the first pilot to receive a Victoria Cross, was only Richthofen’s 11th victim out of a total of 80, the German recalled in his memoirs that he was the hardest to bring down. As a mark of respect, the German air force buried Hawker with full military honours where his body was pulled from his DH2 fighter, but the headstone was lost as the Western Front shifted back and forth over the site.
The new memorial is designed to be the grave that Hawker would have had if his body had been recovered.
His duel is renowned as one of the longest one-on-one dogfights of the First World War. Hawker corkscrewed around Richthofen for almost half an hour before concerns about fuel forced him to try to return back to the Allied side of the trenches.
The British pilot had taken off from Bertangles Aerodrome at 1pm on November 23, 1916, and had crossed no man’s land when he spotted a pair of German aircraft below. It is unlikely he had spotted another ten enemy planes nearby when he began his attack, although it is tempting to suggest that he might have dived anyway. His aggression in the air was summed up by a flight briefing he had honed down to two words: “Attack everything.”
Despite the help of the rest of his flight, Hawker eventually found himself alone with a tenacious opponent in an Albatross D. II, an aircraft that outperformed the DH2 in every important respect. The Albatross was faster and had a higher rate of climb. It also had twin belt-fed machineguns, so unlike Hawker, the Red Baron never had to steer his aircraft with one hand while replacing the drum of a Lewis gun with the other.
Hawker’s only advantage was a tighter turning circle. Nonetheless, he managed to keep Richthofen at bay, as the German recalled in a memoir that he wrote. “We circled around and around like madmen,” he wrote. “20 times to the left . . . 30 times to the right. Soon I discovered this was no beginner.”
He eventually “succeeded in getting above and behind my English waltzing partner” and at 3,000ft Hawker gave Richthofen a wave as if to say “Hello, how are you”, the Red Baron recalled. “My Englishman was a good sportsman, but by and by he began to discover [the gravity of the situation]. He tried to escape by flying a zig-zag course.” They were 50 yards from one another and skimming the treetops when Richthofen let off a final volley before his gun jammed. It was enough. One bullet went into the back of Hawker’s head, killing him instantly. His adversary saw the DH2’s nose hit the ground: “His machinegun rammed itself into the earth, and now it hangs over my door.”
Flight Lieutenant Phil Mobbs, a Qualified Flying Instructor for 24 Squadron who helped to raise £10,000 to build the memorial and arrange for a replica DH2 to fly to France for the ceremony, said the duel coincided with a turning point in the air war. “It very neatly marks the end of British superiority in the air until Bloody April, in 1917,” he said. “That was the low point, when the life expectancy of a pilot went from three weeks to 17½ hours.”
Stewart Smith, who flies the replica DH2, was grounded yesterday by low cloud, but he intends to re-enact Hawker’s route today. It will be the first time the throaty growl of a DH2 engine will have been heard over the Western Front since 1918.
The inscription on the memorial notes that Hawker died at the age of 25. It ends with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, and say to all the world, this was a man.”
Friday, November 11, 2011
Remembrance Day
Ceremony today in village of Ligny-Thilloy, France. The British air force dedicated a memorial to their first flying ace, Major Lanoe Hawker, shot down by von Richthofen. The village hosted British, French and German pilots at the service,it was quite moving to witness them all standing together. It has been an amazing trip so far. Tomorrow Paris!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
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