Quote:
Originally Posted by ju55dk
John.
Yes we had acces to a greater number of ex-sevicemen of the Luftwaffe, and also we could get copies from WASt at 1-DM a piece. But it was much more difficult to start out from nothing or the books filled with errors, of wich some still lives on today! New York flight comes to mind.
I do feel lucky that I started at that time, having met many veterans, some of them even became close friends!!!!!
Junker
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Spot on again. One veteran drove for two hours or more one way from Munich to see me and my wife on holiday in Austria in the late '80s. Couldn't fault that. Another who lived in Berlin sent me a tiny piece of the wall just after it came down. He had invited me and my wife to stay with him and his wife at their place in Berlin. I wrote asking if he could get me a bigger piece of the wall for when we visited. So we are sitting in his front room after we arrived and he staggers in with this big lump of concrete with part of the wall's colourful drawing on it. Jeez, I had to stagger through Customs on the way home hoping I was not pulled and asked to explain my strange walk, lugging my suitcase. Wonderful times, with great people, and speaking to them, what struck you was the ordinaryness (sp) of them. Having come out the other end of that conflict, they had formed lifelong friendships with their Staffel comrades, but all did wonder what the point of it all was. And a lot asked the question: why was an Englishman of my generation interested in the German air force of their generation? Now that is a really tough one to try to answer adequately.
Artist,
"...I somtimes feel like there are some true ? historians that feel that they are the only ones that should be able to contact or talk to the Aces..." Ah yes, I have come across that also. No names, no pack drill, though...